Battle of Wagram
Napoleon beat the Austrians at Wagram in July 1809 in the largest battle Europe had yet seen and did not destroy them. The campaign had begun badly. Austria had rearmed after 1805, invaded Bavaria in April, and in May Napoleon crossed the Danube at Aspern-Essling with the river rising behind him, was cut off when the bridges broke, and was defeated for the first time in his career with some 20,000 casualties and Marshal Lannes killed. He spent six weeks on the island of Lobau preparing properly. The second crossing on the night of 4 July put some 150,000 men and 550 guns over on prefabricated bridges in a thunderstorm, at a point the Austrians had not fortified. The battle on 5 and 6 July involved about 300,000 men in total. The Austrian line held through the first day, counterattacked successfully on the second morning, and was broken in the afternoon by a massed battery of over a hundred guns firing at close range and by Macdonald's column of some 8,000 men advancing in a hollow square that lost most of its strength doing it. Archduke Charles withdrew in good order, which is the point about Wagram — it was a victory of attrition rather than of manoeuvre, with about 40,000 casualties on each side. Austria made peace at Schönbrunn and Napoleon married the emperor's daughter the following year. The battles after 1809 all look like this one. The war also produced the first serious German national resistance to French rule, in the Tyrol under Andreas Hofer and in a Prussian officer's unauthorised raid. Both failed, and both were remembered in 1813.
- Year: 1809 CE
- Category: Military
