Ferdinand I of Austria
Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Hungary and Croatia, and King of Lombardy-Venetia
1793 CE to 1875 CE
Ferdinand I (19 April 1793 – 29 June 1875) is Emperor of Austria, President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary and Bohemia (as Ferdinand V), as well as associated dominions from the death of his father, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, until his abdication after the Revolutions of 1848.
He marries Maria Anna of Savoy, the sixth child of Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia.
They hadve no issue.
Ferdinand is incapable of ruling his empire because of his mental deficiency, so his father, before he dies, drafts a will promulgating that he consult Archduke Louis on every aspect of internal policy, and urges him to be influenced by Prince Metternich, Austria's foreign minister.
He abdicates on December 2, 1848.
He is succeeded by his nephew, Francis Joseph.
Following his abdication, he lives in Hradčany Palace, Prague, until his death in 1875.
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The Great Crossroads
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Bavaria sides secretly with Napoleon, and the Austrians, seventy-two thousand strong under Mack, prematurely invade while the Russians are still marching through Poland.
The Austrians expect the main battles of the war to take place in northern Italy, not Germany, and intend only to protect the Alps from French forces.
A popular but apocryphal legend has it that the Austrians used the Gregorian calendar, the Russians were still using the Julian calendar.
This meant that their dates did not correspond, and the Austrians were brought into conflict with the French before the Russians could come into line.
This simple but implausible explanation for the Russian army being far behind the Austrian is dismissed by scholar Frederick Kagan as "a bizarre myth". (Kagan, Frederick W. (2006). The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.)
In reality, the Austrians had expected that northern Italy, rather than Germany, would be the site of major battles.
On September 8, the army of Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Mack and Feldmarschall-Leutnant Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este crosses the Inn River and invades the Electorate of Bavaria.
Mack plans to establish eighty-eight battalions and one hundred and forty-eight squadrons on the Lech River near Augsburg by the end of October.
Though called upon to join Austria against France, Elector Maximilian IV Joseph of Bavaria instead withdraws his army north to the Main River in accordance with his secret alliance with France.
He decides to concentrate his army farther west on the Iller River so he can counterattack any French invasion coming through the Black Forest.
As part of his new strategy, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Franjo Jelačić (also Franz Jellacic) is ordered to move from Feldmarschall-Leutnant Archduke John's Army of the Tyrol to Lake Constance.
Mack expects to have fifty thousand to fifty-five thousand troops in position near Ulm by the end of September.
Jellačić will hold the left flank with eleven thousand soldiers while Feldmarschall-Leutnant Michael von Kienmayer twelve thousand-man corps watches the Bavarians from Ingolstadt.
However, the change of plans throws the Austrian army's supply system into disarray.
The nominal army commander, Archduke Ferdinand, and Mack's chief of staff General-Major Anton Mayer von Heldensfeld, had both insisted that the army halt at the Lech as originally planned.
By the end of September, relations between Mack and Ferdinand had become so poor that all communication between the two was done in writing.
Ferdinand and Mayer had appealed to Emperor Francis II.
The emperor had sought the advice of Feldmarschall Archduke Charles, who commands the Army of Italy, and had been warned that Mack is making a strategic blunder.
Even so, the emperor had backed Mack to the hilt and relieved Mayer of his post.
Mack's army begins to assemble on the Iller.
On 24 and 25 September, Napoleon had launched the Grande Armée across the Rhine River to open the Ulm Campaign.
While Marshal Joachim Murat's Cavalry Corps and Marshal Jean Lannes's V Corps advances directly east toward Ulm, the bulk of Napoleon's army passes to the north of the Austrian army.
Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's I Corps, General of Division Auguste Marmont's II Corps, Marshal Louis Davout's III Corps, Marshal Nicolas Soult's IV Corps, and Marshal Ney's VI Corps had wheeled east, then southeast, then south.
On October 5, Kienmayer had reported that the French were in Ansbach, to the north of the Danube.
Two days later, the French cross the Danube on a broad front, moving south.
At this time Mack's army is divided into four corps.
Jellačić has fifteen thousand troops in 16 infantry battalions, six Jäger companies, and six cavalry squadrons to the south of Ulm.
Feldmarschall-Leutnant Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg, commands twenty-eight battalions and thirty squadrons at Ulm.
Feldmarschall-Leutnant Franz von Werneck has thirty battalions and twenty-four squadrons near Günzburg.
Kienmayer's command near Ingolstadt consists of nineteen battalions and thirty-four squadrons.
They had marched south on August 27 and by September 24 were ready to cross the Rhine from Mannheim to Strasbourg.
After crossing the Rhine, the greater part of the French army makes a gigantic right wheel so that its corps will reach the Danube simultaneously, facing south.
Mack learns on October 7 that Napoleon planns to cross the Danube and march around his right flank so as to cut him off from the Russians who were marching via Vienna.
He accordingly changes front, placing his left at Ulm and his right at Rain, but the French go on and crossed the Danube at Neuburg, ...
Unable to stop the French avalanche, Michael von Kienmayer's Austrian corps abandons its positions along the river and flees to Munich.
Mack has decided, unwisely, to defend Ulm, instead of trying to escape the approaching French army.
Mack reacts by sending Feldmarschall-Leutnant Franz Xavier Auffenberg with only six thousand men to stop the French.
Near the Bavarian town of Wertingen, forty kilometers (twenty-five miles) northwest of Augsburg, on October 8 the 1st Regiment of dragoons, part of Murat's Reserve Cavalry Corps, and grenadiers of Lannes' V Corps surprise an Austrian force half its size.
The Austrians are arrayed in a line and unable to form their defensive squares quickly enough to protect themselves from the four thousand dragoons and eight thousand grenadiers.
Murat and Lannes crush the hapless Auffenberg at the Battle of Wertingen, inflicting losses of four hundred killed and wounded on the Austrians and capturing twenty-nine hundred soldiers and six cannons.
The French 59th Regiment of the Line storms a bridge over the Danube and, humiliatingly, chases two large Austrian columns toward Ulm.
The Austrians suffer two thousand casualties while the French lose seven hundred soldiers.
The emperor sends Soult west to Memmingen, south of Ulm.
Murat, Lannes, Ney, Marmont, and the Imperial Guard move directly west toward Ulm.
At this time, Ney's corps is still on the north bank.
At Haslach, Johann von Klenau arranges his twenty-five thousand infantry and cavalry in a prime defensive position.
On October 11, when Murat orders Ney to bring his corps to the south bank, Ney furiously protests but is overruled.
In consequence, Mack and Prince Schwarzenberg with twenty-five thousand troops fall upon the overly confident General of Division Pierre Dupont de l'Étangs solitary division in the Battle of Haslach-Jungingen.
Dupont's five thousand three hundred and fifty infantry, supported by General of Division Jacques Louis François Delaistre de Tilly's twenty-one hundred and sixty-nine cavalry, fight the Austrians to a standstill.
Dupont's force is mauled, losing twenty-four hundred casualties, plus eleven guns and two eagles captured.
Austrian losses number forty-one hundred killed, wounded, and captured.
However, Mack has been wounded in the fight and, with his force, "tamely returned to Ulm that night."