Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe by Ian Castle Page A

Montgelas, supported him. However, the elector was married to another of the ubiquitous, vehemently anti-French daughters of the margrave of Baden. She demanded that her husband side with Austria. Maximilian, under mounting pressure from both sides, swayed one way and then another before finally agreeing to sign secretly with France. When Schwarzenberg arrived at the Bavarian court he found a very powerful ally in Caroline, the elector’s wife. Together they began to work on her husband and gradually swung him back towards Austria.
    But public opinion turned against Austria as her army advanced to the Inn and began to cross into Bavaria without awaiting the elector’s approval. Austrian plans to break up the Bavarian army, allocating one regiment to serve with each Austrian division, caused widespread anger amongst the army officers too. With this groundswell of opinion, Maximilian finally decided to side with France. On the night of 8–9 September he and his court left Munich for Regensburg, from whence they travelled on to the city of Würzburg, which they reached on 12 September. So as not to alert the Austrians, orders for the mobilisation of the army were not issued until 7 September. Initially the army formed in two groups with orders to avoid contact with the Austrians, one centred between Munich and Regensburg, the other on Ulm. Schwarzenberg discovered the deception on the morning of 9 September and immediately left Munich to find Mack and acquaint him with these unexpected developments.
    The leading Austrian units crossed the Inn river into Bavaria on 8 September in two columns: this first wave comprised thirty battalions of infantry and thirty-one squadrons of cavalry. One column passed the river at Schärding, marching westwards to the Isar river at Landshut. The hope that this column would intercept any Bavarian units in the area was not realised: most of those assembling between Munich and Regensberg withdrew northwards across the Danube. The second column crossed further south, at Braunau, heading for Parsdorf on the outskirts of Munich, some 70 miles away. Both columns were scheduled to reach their destinations by 13 September, but in fact the first units of the second column were at Munich two days ahead of schedule and entered the city on 12 September. The rest of the army followed according to a strict timetable drawn up by Mack until the whole army formed on the Lech river. At the same time FML Jellai, operating in the Tirol but now released from Archduke John’s army to join Archduke Ferdinand, established his main body near Feldkirch on the Rhine, above Lake Constance, and sent an advance guard beyond the northern shores of the lake.
    When the news of Mack’s rapid march into Bavaria reached Archduke Charles he was incensed, forcing him to express his dissatisfaction to the kaiser and pointing out that Mack was exceeding his authority. It was an unusual situation. The army operating in Bavaria, authorised to play a holding role while the army in Italy launched its offensive, was already marching on Munich. More surprisingly, Charles and Ferdinand – the men allocated to command these two armies – were both still in Vienna. Mack’s precipitate actions did nothing to improve Charles’s pessimistic views of his strategy, and fearing disaster in Bavaria, he began to entertain doubts as to the wisdom of launching his own attack in Italy. Undeterred, Mack pushed on towards the Lech, which he began to cross on 15 September.
    Here for the first time he became aware of the movements of the left wing of the French army from Hanover and the general advance on the Rhine. Napoleon had taken every possible precaution to prevent word of the march ofthe French army from reaching the Austrians. He managed to obscure his movements for twenty days. Napoleon remained at Boulogne until 3 September, aware that his presence attracted attention. However, a financial crisis in Paris imposed a delay in his progress to