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

the front. While in the capital he received his first report from Murat. Despatched from Bavaria on 10 September and received three days later, the report told that the Austrians had entered Bavaria and gave estimates of the strength of Austrian troops at Wels, Braunau and north of Lake Constance. It also told that the Russian army had crossed the border into Galicia.
    Back on the Lech, Mack hustled his men over the river as fast as possible. Then, leaving orders for them to cover the 50 miles to the Iller river with all haste, he rode on ahead to study the state of its defences. The river flowed north, descending from the mountains of Tirol to Ulm where it joined the Danube and created a natural defensive line facing the exits from the Black Forest, the traditional invasion route between the Danube valley and France. However, Mayer, chief of staff to the still absent army commander, began to feel uneasy. He knew Ferdinand favoured holding a position on the Lech but, despite his strongly-voiced protests, Mack pressed on, reaching the Iller on 15 September where he began to lay out fieldworks to defend the river between Memmingen and Ulm. It took two days to get the whole force over the Lech, but Mack did not sit idly waiting for their arrival. He sent an advance guard, commanded by FML Klenau, beyond the Iller – the leading squadrons and jäger advancing to the far western end of Lake Constance – while he busied himself with a tour of inspection. He went as far as Lindau, at the eastern end of the lake.
    The hurried advance from the Inn to the Iller brought about a rapid deterioration in the condition of the Austrian army. While the first units were arriving, exhausted and hungry, others had still not crossed the Inn into Bavaria. The army was widely dispersed over some 150 miles between the two rivers. The rushed assembling of the army meant that not all had full equipment, while most battalions were short of their full allocation of muskets. Further, the additional requirement for it to forage for many of its own supplies on the march, as required by Mack’s recent changes, did little to encourage a spirit of optimism amongst the men. Straggling increased and numbers of men and horses died from exposure to the bad weather. What the army needed now was a period of rest and reorganisation on the Iller, but it was not to be.
    On 19 September Archduke Ferdinand finally arrived in Bavaria to assume command of the army. The following day Archduke Charles arrived in Italy. Ferdinand immediately called a halt to the advance and ordered the advance guard back behind the Iller. He also recalled Mack to headquarters. Mack was having none of this, and wrote directly to the kaiser, who was now also in Bavaria. In his letter Mack sought imperial sanction for his moves. He described how:
‘All except perhaps 10,000 to 12,000 men who remain to guard the coasts and southern frontier of France are moving on the Rhine, and soon two great French Armies will cross that river; one probably between Hüningen and Strasbourg, the other between Mannheim and Mainz: the former against your Majesty’s army on the Iller, the later by Würzburg against the Russians coming from Bohemia.’ 3
    Francis confirmed his approval of Mack’s distribution, as he had already granted Mack authority to overrule Ferdinand. But a meeting was arranged for 22 September in Landsberg on the Lech river, about 35 miles to the west of Munich, to enable the three men to get together and discuss matters in greater detail.
    While the Austrian army trudged wearily towards the Iller, the Bavarian army assembling on Ulm under Generalleutnant Wrede was still occupying that city. With the Austrians approaching, Wrede finally marched out northwards towards Würzburg on the afternoon of 18 September. The next day the first Austrian quartermaster arrived in the city to procure supplies for the army, followed by the first units on 20 September. The tireless Mack also entered Ulm