Battle of Hohenlinden

“ For a time the advanced squadrons were in great danger. But they charged boldly, and a disjointed cavalry battle began, during which (Ziethen’s hussars having discovered a ford) the rest of the left-wing cavalry was able to cross. At last 25 intact squadrons under Lieut.-General von Nassau charged and drove the Austrians in disorder towards Hohenfriedberg. This action was the more creditable to the victors in that 45 squadrons in 3 separate fractions defeated a mass of 60 squadrons that stood already deployed to meet them. ”

“ The Germans in 1870 so far acted up to the principle that Prince Hohenlohe, when asked, at the beginning 695 of the battle of Sedan, for a couple of guns, was able to reply, “You shall have ninety” (see, for details of the march of the Guard artillery, his Letters on Artillery, 6th letter) . The German regulations for field service say, very plainly, “the horses have not done their work until they have got the guns into action, even at the cost of utter exhaustion.” ”

“ Working all night, the French sappers made a road up which guns could be hauled by hand, and on the morning of the 14th the corps of Lannes, Augereau, and the Guard were safely drawn up on the plateau of the Landgrafenberg, while Ney and Soult continued the line to the north. A heavy mist overhung the field of battle, and Hohenlohe was confident that he was only opposed by the fifth corps, and his surprise was immense when the fog lifted and he found himself confronted by the French army. ”

“ Even before he has heard the news of Moreau's great victory of Hohenlinden, he equates the military strength of France with that of the rest of Europe: nay, he claims without a shadow of doubt the mastery of the world: he will wage, if necessary, a double war, against England for a colonial empire, and against Europe for domination in Holland and the Rhineland. ”

“ While the echoes of the trumpet yet fill the people's ears, And Hogni casts by the war-horn, and his Dwarf-wrought sword uprears, All those doors aforesaid open, and in pour the streams of steel, The best of the Eastland champions, the bold men of Atli's weal: They raise no cry of battle nor cast forth threat of woe, And their helmed and hidden faces from each other none may know: Then a light in the hall ariseth, and the fire of battle runs All adown the front of the Niblungs in the face of the mighty ones ”

“ Augereau was sent with 20,000 men to the assistance of Moreau, who was ordered, in spite of the severity of the winter, to continue his advance; and the Archduke John was appointed to succeed his brother, and ordered to take the offensive. The crowning event of this winter campaign was the great victory of Hohenlinden, which was won by Moreau on the 3d of December 1800. The Austrians lost the whole of their baggage and artillery and 12,000 prisoners. ”

“ Jean, repulse him. He renews the attack "with redoubled fury," and a gallant resistance is made, but he forces a way into the outer enclosure of the chateau that crowns the hill. British howitzers are at once discharged upon the French and compel them to retreat. New assaults are then made. Overwhelming numbers seem to bear down upon the Allies. The stronghold is more than once nearly lost, but it is defended with "prodigies of valor" and firmly held to the last. Had Hougoumont been taken, the result of the battle "would probably have been very different." ”

“ It was in vain that Hohenlohe's choice squadrons flung themselves on the serried masses in front: the artillery and musketry fire disordered them, while French dragoons were ready to profit by their confusion. The village was lost, then retaken by a rally of the Prussians, then lost again when Ney was reinforced; and when the full vigour of the French attack was developed by the advance of Soult and Augereau on either wing, Napoleon launched his reserves, his Guard, and Murat's squadrons on the disordered lines. The impact was irresistible, and Hohenlohe's force was swept away. ”

“ On every extended battle line incidents will occur affording opportunities for picturesque writing, but in the attack and defence of an open position in the days of pre-trench war, excepting always the noise of bursting shells, the hum of bullets and the absence of umpires, the whole affair is a passable imitation of a field-day in peace time.
Our position at Hyon, important because it dominated the line of retreat, was weakly held. We had practically no supports. The German superiority at that part of the line was probably about three to one in guns, and five or more to one in men. ”

“ Belgium, however, did offer resistance. It was, of course, broken, but it gave the French time to strengthen their northern frontier. The German advance was stopped in the Battle of the Marne, and thus the military prospects of victory were annihilated, as the political had already been. The continuation of the war against the superior force that henceforth grew from day to day could but result in Germany's bleeding to death, as William had already foreseen on July 31st, 1914, two days before he declared war on Russia. ”

“ On the 3rd of June, watched by the invisible patrols, the Austrians and Saxons emerged from the hills at Hohenfriedberg with bands playing and colours flying. Their advanced guard of infantry and cavalry spread out into the plain, making for a line of hills spreading north-west from Striegau, where the army was to encamp. ”

“ It was this war, likewise, which gave the Hohenzollerns their first great battle-triumph, in the defeat of the Swedes, allies of the French, at Fehrbellin. For Frederick William, the Great Elector, had joined the Emperor Leopold and the King of Spain in another league with Holland to resist the aggressions of France; while Sweden now took sides with Louis. England was soon withdrawn from the contest, by the determined action of Parliament, which forced its king to make peace. Otherwise the war became general in western Europe and was frightful in the death and misery it cost. ”

“ Nothing, in war or in peace, is so trying to the nerves as passively to await deadly peril, making no effort to avert it. And never probably in war was greater strain of this nature put upon troops than fell on Alten's and Picton's divisions at Waterloo. The guards and Hanoverians who held Hougomont had more prolonged and exciting conflict; the heavy cavalry did magnificent service: to Maitland's brigade, and still more to the 52nd, belongs the conspicuous glory of having given the last crushing blow. ”

“ Count Hohenlo was entrusted, early in January, with this important enterprise. He accordingly collected a force of four thousand infantry, together with two hundred mounted lancers; having previously reconnoitered the ground. ”

“ In front of the last troop under La Corde marched the commander of the artillery, with two demi-cannon and two field-pieces, followed by the ammunition and, baggage trains. Hohenlo arrived just as the march was beginning, to whom the stadholder, notwithstanding their frequent differences, communicated his plans, and entrusted the general command of the cavalry. That force met the expedition at Osterhout, a league's distance from Gertruydenberg, and consisted of the best mounted companies, English and Dutch, from the garrisons of Breda, Bergen, Nymegen, and the Zutphen districts. ”

“ The strategy that moves in elevated spheres is in danger of being lost in the clouds. It becomes ridiculous as soon as it ceases to conform to actual working tactics. In his classical work on the decisive battle of August 18, 1870, Captain Fritz Hoenig has reached a sound conclusion. After his biting criticism of the many gross errors of Steinmetz and Zastrow, after his description of the triple panic of the German troops opposite the French left in the valley and the ravine of the Mance, he ends by a reflection which serves as a striking ending to the book. ”

“ With the Hohenzollerns it is mere nonsense to dream of any enduring peace, but whether we are making a lasting and friendly peace with Germany or merely a sort of truce of military operations that will be no truce in the economic war against Hohenzollern resources, the same essential idea will, I think, guide all the peace-desiring Powers. They will try to draw the boundaries as near as they can to those of the natural map of mankind. ”

“ He was a nephew of the Prince Hohenlohe noticed above, who commanded the Prussians at Jena. Educated with great rigour, owing to the impoverishment of the family estates during the Napoleonic wars, he was sent into the Prussian army, and commissioned to the artillery at the least expensive arm of the service. He joined the Prussian Guard artillery in 1845, and it was soon discovered that he had unusual aptitudes as an artillery officer. For a time his brother officers resented the presence of a prince, until it was found that he made no attempt to use his social position to secure advancement. ”

“ During the time the French occupied the wood, the Duke, after explaining the danger attending the howitzers’ range, as, from the proximity of the hostile forces, friends might be [49] destroyed as well as foes, ordered Bull’s howitzer battery to throw shells into it. A shower of shells was soon sent flying into the wood, which forced Jérôme’s light troops and their supports to retire. Up to this time, except a little skirmishing, the battle was confined to Hougoumont. The roar of artillery was increasing. At this period a body of the enemy’s cavalry approached our left at a good pace ”

“ Then a fierce volley rang out, and havoc lighted on the horsemen. Horses and steel-clad riders went down pell mell, and, in the confusion, the survivors turned and fled before the coming steel. Many, whose horses were shot beneath them, attempted to cope with the Scots, but all their valour was as nothing before the bayonets of the Gordons.
At another stage of the battle, when the Duke of Brunswick's hussars were in flight before the red (Polish) lancers and French light infantry, Wellington, involved in the charge, and carried away in their mad career, was in great danger ”

“ To underline the isolation of the American force, a detachment of enemy infantry started an assault; this promptly was blasted by slugs pouring from the multiple .50-caliber machine guns carried by a half-track section of the 486th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. Hogan had accompanied his radio report of the German surrender demand with a request for "maximum support." CCR was having its hands more than full in its own backyard on the 23d, and the Germans obviously could not be left to one side while a relief party went to aid Hogan. ”

“ It was first in the army of the Hohenzollerns that the idea penetrated into the minds of both officers and soldiers, that a man owed his life to his father-land. In no part of Germany have brave soldiers been wanting to die for their banner; but the merit of the Hohenzollerns, the rough, reckless leaders of a wild army, was, that while they themselves lived, worked and did good and evil for their State, with unbounded devotion, they also knew how to give to their army, besides respect for their flag, a patriotic feeling of duty. ”

“ Hougoumont is no less a scene of slaughter; there, every effort is made to obtain possession and to break in upon our right wing. Sometimes in the heat of a charge they rush past its bounds, but meet with wounds or death as they fly back; for it is only when the enemy occasionally pursues his apparently victorious course beyond his lines and past our guns that he gets a view of our columns or lines of infantry, which immediately take [Pg 304] advantage of his disordered front, and drive him back, with immense loss, beyond our guns and down the descent ”

“ The peace which followed Hohenlinden gave Napoleon a chance to train an army as he wished, and the Austerlitz campaign found him at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men, half of them veterans, all of them of very considerable length of service, who were to a man inspired with the utmost enthusiasm for him and for the Empire. ”

“ Early in the war Austria sent to the front a battery of 80-centimeter howitzers, and from the famous Krupp gun works there were 21 and 28-centimeter howitzers. Later came the 42-centimeter guns, which are classed as automobile field artillery. These are the weapons which leveled the forts at Liege and were used to bombard Fort Maubeuge.
The immense howitzers, with their caterpillar wheels, are taken apart and transported to the scene of action in sections, or units. An automobile tractor carries the artillery crew and tools and furnishes the motive power. ”

“ There were plenty miles away in the rear, retained by Sir John French because along the extended line of attack from Ypres to Lens it was not known where they would most be needed; and even when the need was clear, interrupted telephones and defective staff-work caused confusion and delay. Eventually the 11th Corps fresh from England and to fighting was marched eight miles and put into the battle line without sufficient food or water. Gradually our troops were pushed back from Hill 70, across the Lens-La Basse road, and out of the Hohenzollern redoubt. ”

“ One finds oneself under the fire of twelve-inch howitzers from the other side of mountains 10,000 feet high, and it is no extraordinary experience to find Italian (p. 239) heavy howitzers sheltering behind precipices rising sheer up several thousand feet, and fighting with Austrian guns ten miles distant, and beyond one, if not two, high ranges of hills. One imagines that the Austrians must have many twelve-inch howitzers to spare, for there are, to give an example, a couple near Mauthen, beyond the crest of the Carnic Alps, and other heavy artillery in the same district hidden in caverns. ”