Simon Scarrow - Fire and Sword

Then he sensed the ground rumbling beneath his mount, and turning his head he saw Bessières and the first of the Imperial Guard cavalry squadrons, with a battery of horse guns, gallop over the crest of the Heights and make for the right flank of Vandamme’s remaining line. Bessières came charging towards Napoleon and slewed his horse to a halt.

‘Sire? Your orders?’

Napoleon thrust his arm out towards the Russian column. ‘Charge them immediately. They must be broken at any cost. Any cost. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘Then go!’

Bessières saluted, and spurred his horse forward, pounding along behind the rear of Vandamme’s division as he re-joined his men. Riding to the front of the cavalry column, whose mounts breathed through flared nostrils and stamped and pawed the frozen ground, Bessières stood in his stirrups and raised his sword towards the heavens. He paused a moment and then swept the point down until it aimed directly at the Russian Guard. A bugle call shrilled out, and the squadrons rippled forward in a trot, hooves rumbling over the hard ground. The distance to the enemy was short and the slope lent the cavalry extra momentum as the pace increased into a gallop, and then, fifty yards from the Russians, they charged. Drawn swords glittered above the flickering horsehair crests on their gleaming helmets and then, as Napoleon and the men of Vandamme’s division watched in breathless awe, Bessières’s cavalry plunged into the dense mass of the first battalion of Russian infantry. Swords plunged down, flickered up, spattering gleaming crimson droplets, and the air was filled with the cries of men, the sharp whinnies of wounded horses and the crackle of musket and pistol fire.

Behind the first battalion men were hurriedly forming into two squares as the Russian cavalry formed line to counter-charge. As the helpless men of the first battalion scattered and ran for their lives, Bessières and his horsemen broke through the rush of fugitives and bore down on the nearest square. Meanwhile, the horse guns jingled across the slope in front of Vandamme’s men and began to deploy, their teams loading them with case shot and waiting for a clear target.The Russian infantry, closed up, presented a dense front of gleaming bayonets and no amount of urging could persuade any of the French mounts to throw themselves into the enemy square.Volleys flashed out from each side, unseating the passing cavalry and bringing down several horses, who pitched forward and rolled as their iron-shod hooves lashed out. Bessières quickly realised that his men were being cut down uselessly as they surged about the squares, and ordered the recall. Strident notes carried above the noise and the French cavalry drew off, trotting back up the slope to form on their standards.

There was a brief lull as the last of Bessières’s men hurried clear of the enemy squares, and the French gunners and the Russians stared at each other over ground strewn with dead and wounded men and horses.Then the captain in charge of the battery bellowed the order to fire and the six guns bucked in recoil as they spat lethal cones of lead balls into the closely packed enemy.The case shot ripped bloody holes through the Russian lines, which were quickly filled as the sergeants dressed their ranks. But no men, no matter how brave, could withstand such carnage for long and after several rounds from each of the guns, when hundreds of Russians lay heaped about the squares, those left began to waver, instinctively backing away from the French. This time there was nothing that the officers could do to rally their men and the formations broke as the Russians fled down the slope, straight towards their own cavalry.

As soon as he saw his chance to catch the enemy cavalry in disorder, Bessières ordered his men to charge again. They pounded down the slope once more, narrowly avoiding the last blast of case shot sent after the Russians. Then they were in among the tide of running infantrymen, hacking wildly as they ran the broken enemy down. Ahead, the Russian cavalry was in disarray as their routing comrades forced their way through the horse lines, thrusting bayonets or musket butts at any horseflesh that threatened to bar their escape from the French cavalry. Then Bessières and his men thundered in amongst them, shattering any last vestige of order in the ranks of the Russian cavalry.The impetus of the charge and the chaos caused by the fleeing infantry was more than the Russian horsemen could bear, and quickly they turned their mounts and fled down the slope, riding down their own comrades as they raced for safety.

Napoleon regarded the scene with grim satisfaction. His forces controlled the Heights and the enemy centre had disintegrated. The battle was as good as won. Only the scale of his victory was yet to be determined. He turned to Vandamme.

‘Your men have fought well, General, but there is one last effort I must ask of you.’

‘Yes, sire?’

Napoleon gestured to the southern edge of the Heights, where Davout and the French right were still engaged in a desperately uneven fight against the Austrians. ‘Wheel your division and advance on the enemy flank. If you are in time, then the trap will be closed, and the most glorious victory is ours for the taking.’

Vandamme smiled. ‘Yes, sire. It will be done.’

Napoleon nodded and turned away, galloping back up towards the crest of the Heights. As he reached it and reined in, he saw Bernadotte’s corps advancing to cover the French centre. Beyond them came the men of the Imperial Guard, streaming south across the Heights to close round the Austrians before they became aware of the danger now that their allies had been cut off from them. Soult’s other divisions followed Vandamme south at a quick step, driven on by their officers. Napoleon rode ahead to the southern edge of the Pratzen Heights and gazed down on the densely packed formations of the Austrian army as they waited their turn to be launched against the right flank of the Grand Army.The survivors of Legrand’s division and Davout’s corps were not content with holding back the Austrians, but had already driven them back across the Goldbach and were attempting to retake the villages of Zokolnitz and Tellnitz in the face of withering fire from the massed batteries of the enemy.

As soon as Soult’s corps reached the edge of the Heights they deployed and began to advance on the Austrians as the first gun teams to unlimber poured fire down on to the enemy formations below. It was hard to miss their targets and soon the French batteries were sweeping away files of Austrian soldiers and smashing the guns that were hurriedly brought to bear on Soult’s forces. The French infantry descended from the Heights, driving the enemy back before them at bayonet point. As the first Austrian battalions reeled back from the attack on their flank, they broke and poured away from the French, who were taking no prisoners.The fugitives ran straight into other units that were still holding their ground, and as the fear leaped from man to man like a contagion the Austrian army crumbled, battalion after battalion, and fled away from the French forces closing round them. There was only one line of escape, across the frozen lakes and marshes to the south, and soon the landscape seethed with men and horses desperately seeking a path over the ice.

Marshal Soult came riding up to Napoleon with a gleeful expression on his face as he pointed out the spectacle.

‘We have beaten them, sire! You have won a famous victory.’

‘Not quite yet,’ Napoleon replied in a grim tone, his eyes on the fleeing army. ‘We must make their defeat more crushing still, if we are to convince them to come to terms and end the war.’ He was silent for a moment before he turned to Soult. ‘Order your guns to open fire on those men.’