been a close-run thing and, had Archduke John appeared at the moment
the Emperor committed his last reserves, a signal defeat would have
followed. As it was, a greatly improved Austrian army had fought a
below-par French army almost to a standstill, to the point where
Napoleon lacked cavalry for pursuit operations. The Grande Armee had
fired 7 I ,ooo rounds in a m urderous, bludgeoning battle that seemed to
usher in a new era of slaughterous warfare and anticipated the blood
letting of the American Civil War. French casualties were 32,ooo,
Austrian 35,ooo; Napoleon, following his usual practice, toured the
battlefield to inspect the piles of dead and wounded.
After further skirmishing at Zynam on Io-I I July, the Austrians
suddenly threw in the towel and asked for an armistice, which was
arranged on the I2th; Francis I at first refused to honour it but
reluctantly ratified it on J7 July. A dispute between Francis I and
Archduke Charles led the latter to resign and retire into private life. A
tense three months of negotiations and bargaining ensued, with the
likelihood of renewed hostilities ever-present. There were two main
reasons for this: one was Napoleon's demand for the abdication of Francis
I; the other was that Austria stalled, hoping that the military intervention
of the British could save them from harsh peace terms.
The British had made some attempt to assist their ally. When Austria
invaded Bavaria in April, Britain sent a subsidy of £25o,ooo and a fu rther
£337, 000 a little later; by the time of Wagram, subsidies to Austria
amounted to £I,I8s,ooo, even as London also committed substantial
sums to the struggle in Spain. In April Admiral Gambier led a Royal
Navy attack on the French Rochefort squadron. His deputy, Admiral
Thomas Cochrane used fireships to burn three French ships of the line,
made three more unfit for service and destroyed two fr igates. The rest of
the French squadron lay aground, waiting to be finished off, but Gambier
refused to take his battleships into the roads, to the fury of Cochrane and
other observers, including Captain Frederick Marryat. As Napoleon
justly remarked: 'If Cochrane had been supported, he would have taken
every one of our ships.'
But the great British enterprise of I 809 was an attack on Walcheren
Island on 30 July, supposedly the opening of a second fr ont to aid
Austria. But in attacking Walcheren in the Scheidt the British were
primarily consulting their own interests and pursuing their old obsession
about Belgium: thoughts of the possible benefit to Austria came a long
way down the list. The operation was feasible only because Napoleon had
sent most of his troops eastwards, so that it was a case of Austria helping
England, not vice versa. In any event, the landing on Walcheren quickly
marcin
(Marcin)
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