5 July 1809, evening
The evening attacks
At 6 pm Napoleon orders an attack on the Austrian centre behind the Russbach, to break the line before Archduke John can arrive. After a bombardment from 7 pm, Oudinot sends part of his corps over the stream against Baumersdorf, held by Hardegg’s brigade of Hohenzollern’s II Corps. The 10th Light and the 57th Line climb the slope beside the burning village, but break when Hohenzollern leads 500 horsemen of the Vincent chevau-légers against them.
Further west Jacques MacDonald leads the divisions of Pierre Dupas and Jean Maximilien Lamarque up the plateau at Deutsch-Wagram, hidden by the smoke. Part of Bellegarde’s I Corps gives way, but in the smoke French troops fire on their Saxon allies, and a counterattack led by Charles, who is lightly wounded, drives the attackers back over the Russbach. At about 9 pm Bernadotte’s Saxons enter Deutsch-Wagram from the west, fire on each other in the smoke and break.
Davout attacks Markgrafneusiedl from 9 pm, Friant and Morand crossing the stream on the east and Gudin and Puthod advancing through Grosshofen, and calls the attack off at 10 pm. The fighting dies down towards 11 pm. Charles orders an attack along the whole line for 4 am, to envelop both ends of the shorter French line.
Napoleon’s bivouac on the battlefield of Wagram in the night of 5 to 6 July 1809, painting by Adolphe Roehn, 1810Wikimedia Commons, Adolphe Roehn, Public domain (Napoleon bivouac Wagram.jpg)
Sources
- Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Emperor’s Last Victory: Napoleon and the Battle of Wagram (2004).
- John H. Gill, 1809: Thunder on the Danube, volume III: Wagram and Znaim (2010).
- Ian Castle, Aspern and Wagram 1809 (1990).
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