11 October 1805
Haslach-Jungingen
On 11 October Murat, who commands the corps of Ney and Lannes before Ulm, orders Ney to bring his corps over to the south bank of the Danube. Ney protests and is overruled. Only Pierre Dupont’s division, 4,000 to 6,000 men with some cavalry, stays on the north bank near Albeck. That day Mack and Schwarzenberg march out of Ulm along the north bank with about 25,000 men.
General Pierre Dupont de l’Étang, engraving by ForestierWikimedia Commons, Forestier, Public domain (General Pierre Dupont de l'Étang.jpg)
Dupont judges that a retreat would bring on a pursuit and attacks instead. His 32nd Line runs into four Austrian regiments between Haslach and Ulm, and the 9th Light holds the church of Jungingen against repeated attacks while woods to the north keep the Austrian cavalry off his flank. Mack takes the division for the advance guard of a larger force and does not commit his reserves.
At nightfall Dupont withdraws to Albeck with his prisoners. He loses about 1,500 men and 11 guns, the Austrians 1,100 killed or wounded and 4,000 captured, by other accounts 6,000. Mack, lightly wounded, returns to Ulm, and the road along the north bank stays open for a few more days.
Sources
- Robert Goetz, 1805: Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Destruction of the Third Coalition (2005).
- Frederick W. Kagan, The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801–1805 (2006).
- Digby Smith, The Napoleonic Wars Data Book (1998).
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