War of the Fifth Coalition and Marie Louise

War of the Fifth Coalition and Marie Louise

Main article: War of the Fifth Coalition

Napoleon at the Battle of Wagram, painted by Horace Vernet.

After four years on the sidelines, Austria sought another war with France to avenge its recent defeats. Austria could not count on Russian support because the latter was at war with Britain,Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire in 1809. Frederick William of Prussia initially promised to help the Austrians, but reneged before conflict began. A report from the Austrian finance minister suggested that the treasury would run out of money by the middle of 1809 if the large army that the Austrians had formed since the Third Coalition remained mobilized. AlthoughArchduke Charles warned that the Austrians were not ready for another showdown with Napoleon, a stance that landed him in the so-called "peace party," he did not want to see the army demobilized either. On 8 February 1809, the advocates for war finally succeeded when the Imperial Government secretly decided on another confrontation against the French.

In the early morning of 10 April, leading elements of the Austrian army crossed the Inn River and invaded Bavaria. The early Austrian attack surprised the French; Napoleon himself was still in Paris when he heard about the invasion. He arrived at Donauwörth on the 17th to find the Grande Armée in a dangerous position, with its two wings separated by 75 miles (121 km) and joined together by a thin cordon of Bavarian troops. Charles pressed the left wing of the French army and hurled his men towards the III Corps of Marshal Davout. In response, Napoleon came up with a plan to cut off the Austrians in the celebrated Landshut Maneuver.He realigned the axis of his army and marched his soldiers towards the town of Eckmühl. The French scored a convincing win in the resulting Battle of Eckmühl, forcing Charles to withdraw his forces over the Danube and intoBohemia. On 13 May, Vienna fell for the second time in four years, although the war continued since most of the Austrian army had survived the initial engagements in Southern Germany.

By 17 May, the main Austrian army under Charles had arrived on the Marchfeld. Charles kept the bulk of his troops several miles away from the river bank in hopes of concentrating them at the point where Napoleon decided to cross. On 21 May, the French made their first major effort to cross the Danube, precipitating the Battle of Aspern-Essling. The Austrians enjoyed a comfortable numerical superiority over the French throughout the battle; on the first day, Charles disposed of 110,000 soldiers against only 31,000 commanded by Napoleon. By the second day, reinforcements had boosted French numbers up to 70,000.The battle was characterized by a vicious back-and-forth struggle for the two villages of Aspern and Essling, the focal points of the French bridgehead. By the end of the fighting, the French had lost Aspern but still controlled Essling. A sustained Austrian artillery bombardment eventually convinced Napoleon to withdraw his forces back onto Lobau Island. Both sides inflicted about 23,000 casualties on each other. It was the first defeat Napoleon suffered in a major set-piece battle, and it caused excitement throughout many parts of Europe because it proved that he could be beaten on the battlefield.^[133]

After the setback at Aspern-Essling, Napoleon took more than six weeks in planning and preparing for contingencies before he made another attempt at crossing the Danube.From 30 June to the early days of July, the French recrossed the Danube in strength, with more than 180,000 troops marching across the Marchfeld towards the Austrians.Charles received the French with 150,000 of his own men.In the ensuing Battle of Wagram, which also lasted two days, Napoleon commanded his forces in what was the largest battle of his career up until then. Neither side made much progress on 5 July, but the 6th produced a definitive outcome. Both sides launched major assaults on their flanks. Austrian attacks against the French left wing looked dangerous initially, but they were all beaten back. Meanwhile, a steady French attack against the Austrian left wing eventually compromised the entire position for Charles. Napoleon finished off the battle with a concentrated central thrust that punctured a hole in the Austrian army and forced Charles to retreat. Austrian losses were very heavy, reaching well over 40,000 casualties. The French were too exhausted to pursue the Austrians immediately, but Napoleon eventually caught up with Charles atZnaim and the latter signed an armisticeon 12 July.

First French Empire at its greatest extent in 1811

  French Empire

  French satellite states

  Allied states

In the Kingdom of Holland, the British launched the Walcheren Campaign to open up a second front in the war and to relieve the pressure on the Austrians. The British army only landed atWalcheren on 30 July, by which point the Austrians had already been defeated. The Walcheren Campaign was characterized by little fighting but heavy casualties thanks to the popularly dubbed "Walcheren Fever." Over 4,000 British troops were lost in a bungled campaign, and the rest withdrew in December 1809.The main strategic result from the campaign became the delayed political settlement between the French and the Austrians. Emperor Francis wanted to wait and see how the British performed in their theater before entering into negotiations with Napoleon. Once it became apparent that the British were going nowhere, the Austrians agreed to peace talks.

The resulting Treaty of Schönbrunn in October 1809 was the harshest that France had imposed on Austria in recent memory. Metternich and Archduke Charles had the preservation of the Habsburg Empire as their fundamental goal, and to this end they succeeded by making Napoleon seek more modest goals in return for promises of friendship between the two powers. Nevertheless, while most of the hereditary lands remained a part of the Habsburg realm, France receivedCarinthia, Carniola, and the Adriaticports, while Galicia was given to thePoles and the Salzburg area of the Tyrolwent to the Bavarians. Austria lost over three million subjects, about one-fifth of her total population, as a result of these territorial changes.Although fighting in Iberia continued, the War of the Fifth Coalition would be the last major conflict on the European continent for the next three years.

Napoleon turned his focus to domestic affairs after the war. Empress Joséphine had still not given birth to a child from Napoleon, who became worried about the future of his empire following his death. Desperate for a legitimate heir, Napoleon divorced Joséphine in January 1810 and started looking for a new wife. Hoping to cement the recent alliance with Austria through a family connection, Napoleon married the Archduchess Marie Louise, who was 18 years old at the time. On 20 March 1811, Marie Louise gave birth to a baby boy, whom Napoleon made heir apparent and bestowed the title of King of Rome. His son never actually ruled the empire, but historians still refer to him as Napoleon II.Culled from www.wikipedia.org