Camps, Quarters, and Casual PlacesForbes, Archibald
History
Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Forbes, Archibald
Military camps; Military history, Modern
co-operation and meantime covering the valley of the Danube. Napoleon
crossed the Rhine on the 26th of September. Just as in 1870 the Germans
on the plain of Mars-la-Tour thrust themselves between Bazaine and the
rest of France, so Napoleon turned Mack and from Aalen to the Tyrol
stood between him and Austria. Mack capitulated Ulm and his army on the
19th of October and Napoleon was in Vienna on the 13th of November.
Although he possessed the Austrian capital, he was not, however, master
of the Austrian empire. The latter result did not fall to him until the
2nd of December, when under "the sun of Austerlitz" he with 73,000 men
defeated the Austro-Russian army 85,000 strong, inflicting on it a loss
of 30,000 men at the cost of 12,000 of his own soldiers _hors de
combat_. It took the Germans in 1870 a month and a half to get from the
frontier to _outside_ Paris; just in the same time, although certainly
not with so severe fighting by the way but nearly twice as long a
march, Napoleon moved from the Rhine to _inside_ Vienna. From the
active commencement to the cessation of hostilities the Franco-German
war lasted six and a half months; reckoning from the crossing of the
Rhine to the evening of Austerlitz Napoleon subjugated Austria in two
and a quarter months. Perhaps, however, his campaign of 1809 against
Austria furnishes a more exact parallel with the campaign of the
Germans in 1870-71. He assumed command on the 17th of April, having
hurried from Spain. He defeated the Austrians five times in as many
days, at Thann, Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmuhl, and Ratisbon; and he was
in Vienna on the 13th of May. Balked at Aspern and Essling, he gained
his point at Wagram on the 5th of July, and hostilities ceased with the
armistice of Znaim on the 11th after having lasted for a period short
of three months by a week.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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