France - The History Files

Austria in Revolt and Aftermath I

***Generalissimus, Erzherzog Karl von Habsburg at Aspern-Essling***

Heavily defeated in 1805 and subjected to a diet of constant humiliation thereafter, Austria had until 1808 maintained a low profile. Under the leadership of the Archduke Charles, the army was strengthened through military reforms, but Charles himself believed that Vienna should cut its losses in Germany and Italy, abandon all notion of fighting Napoleon, and seek compensation in the Balkans. As for Emperor Francis – since 6 August 1806 Francis I of Austria rather than Francis II of the now defunct Holy Roman Empire – he remained as cautious as ever, all the more so as Russia now appeared as a potential enemy. For a time, a consensus even emerged that Austria should seek an alliance with Napoleon. But it soon became clear that the emperor was simply not interested in such a deal.

***The Garde Impériale at Aspern-Essling***

The Austrian collapse was not quite the end of the story, even if what remained made depressing reading for Napoleon’s opponents. By the time of the battle of Wagram, Sweden was effectively out of the war: following a series of reverses, on 13 March Gustav IV had been overthrown by an aristocratic faction sickened by what they saw as the king’s mismanagement of the war effort and determined to put an end to enlightened absolutism and restore Sweden’s traditional alliance with France. As for the British, 1809 was marked by an episode that was virtually epic in its futility. Driven not so much by a desire to aid Austria as one to strike a further blow against French naval power and undo the damage to its prestige incurred by what appeared to have been its failure in Spain, the Portland administration decided to land a large army at the mouth of the Scheldt and seize Antwerp.

The last resistance of the Bersaglieri at Villa Spada
(engraving by Carlo Werner) — **The last resistance of the Bersaglieri at Villa Spada**
**(engraving by Carlo Werner)**

Pius IX became Pope in 1846. He began his reign by an attempt to introduce reforms into his government, and took measures to establish a system of popular representation. The overthrow of Louis Philippe, in France, in 1848, excited the hopes of the revolutionary party throughout Italy, and the pope hesitated to grant the full measure of popular privileges demanded by his subjects. The character of Pius IX has been variously estimated. It passed through more than one phase; and, while retaining certain leading qualities throughout, it was wanting in consistency. The abrupt change in his policy after 1848 gave the impression that Pius IX was a Liberal before, and a reactionary after, that date. It may be doubted whether he was ever by conviction either the one or the other. He had the obstinacy of a weak man. A man of sentiment rather than of fact, he moved in a world of signs and wonders: his credulity was abnormal, and his piety, sincere as it was, stood in no relation to the mind or facts of his time. He magnified his office; and, regarding opposition to his will as the unpardonable.

**French soldiers in the German village of Lauterbach during the Saar offensive.**

Ineffectual French offensive at the beginning of World War II. On 19 May 1939, French and Polish military officials agreed that their armies would attack Germany if Germany moved against either state. Supreme commander of French land forces General Maurice Gamelin pledged that he would invade Germany with the majority of his troops no more than 15 days after mobilization began. Britain and France also promised that in the event of a German attack, they would move against Germany immediately from the air.

By 21 May the spearhead of the German military offensive in north-western France had reached the English Channel near to the port of Abbéville, closing an armoured noose around the men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) who found themselves trapped in a narrow salient between the French port of Boulogne and Ostende on the Belgian coast with no prospect of escape except by sea. Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the hard-bitten flag officer on the Dover station, was handed the Herculean task of organising this evacuation by the Admiralty and a more inspired choice could hardly have been made. His inspirational performance in this role was matched by the heroism of those who took orders from him over the course of the next fortnight as an armada of boats ranging from the large to the ridiculously small was assembled and conveyed across the Channel to pick up the survivors of the Wehrmacht’s attack on the West.

**A portrait of King Henry V by an unknown artist.**

The chivalry of the Black Prince was not for King Henry. That night his high-ranking prisoners had to wait on him at table. The troops took another hopeful look at the French casualties still lying all over the field; anyone who was rich and could walk was rounded up, but the poor and the badly wounded had their throats slit. Next day, laden with plunder from the corpses, the English recommenced their march to Calais, dragging 1,500 prisoners along with them. The rain began again. Wetter and hungrier than ever, the little army reached Calais on 29 October. Here, although the King was fêted rapturously, his men were hardly treated as conquering heroes. Some were even refused entry, while the Calais people charged them such exorbitant prices for food and drink that they were soon cheated out of their loot and rich captives. (Henry kept the great prisoners for himself—he wanted every penny of their ransoms.)

By the evening of 20 May, Guderian’s panzer spearheads had reached Abbeville at the mouth of the Somme, and at this point their line was as thinned out as it ever would be. The Germans were vulnerable to a determined counterattack, but the only one that threatened the speeding panzers was by British tanks at Arras on 21 May. The Allies inflicted a stinging reverse on the SS Totenkopf division, but they quickly found themselves blocked by Rommel’s panzers. After a brisk battle, the British were driven back to their original positions and threatened with encirclement.

***Philip the Good as Champion of Ladies.***

Horrified by the English advance, Duke John of Burgundy tried to negotiate with the Armagnacs who had the Dauphin under their thumb. Although the Burgundians had captured Paris in 1418 after an uprising in which their supporters had killed thousands of Armagnacs, a preliminary meeting at Corbeille in the summer of 1419 between Duke John and the Dauphin and his Armagnac advisers seemed to establish a measure of agreement.

Shortly after first light on 15 September 1916, a new chapter in warfare opened when the tanks went into action. Of 150 Mark I tanks, only 59 were in France when Haig made the decision to employ them, and of these only 49 actually reached the front. Plagued by mechanical problems abetted by nervous crewmen, only 35 tanks reached the line of departure; 31 crossed the German trenches, and only nine surmounted all problems and pushed on ahead of the infantry.

**Allied entry into Paris 1814, Painting by Aleksey Danilovich Kivshenko.**

For the emperor, however, cheer was still to be found in the continued devotion shown by some soldiers. In Paris, one last parade saw Napoleon entrust Marie-Louise and the King of Rome to the garrison prior to his departure for the front: ‘The enthusiasm generated by the emperor when he took the young king in his arms . . . can never be forgotten by its witnesses. Frenetic and prolonged cries of “Vive l’empereur!” moved from the Hall of Marshals to the national guard assembled in the Carrousel . . . These demonstrations of so true a love for his son moved the emperor: he kissed the young prince with a warmth that escaped none in the audience.’ Instead of listening to the calls for peace with which he was bombarded, Napoleon therefore chose to fight on in the hope of improving his bargaining position, striking hard and fast at a succession of allied commanders as they invaded eastern France.

Austria in Revolt and Aftermath I

Austria in Revolt and Aftermath II

Assault on Rome, June 30 1849

French offensive at the beginning of World War II

Dynamo

After Agincourt I

Counterattack at Arras 1940

After Agincourt II

FRENCH EMPLOYMENT OF TANKS ON THE BATTLEFIELD

1814 Napoleon’s First End Part II