The famous Battle of Győr ended in a defeat, but it wasn’t as shameful as one might think. 14 June marks the anniversary of the Battle of Győr in 1809, the only battle fought on Hungarian soil in the Napoleonic Wars (if the preceding and subsequent battles in the surrounding area are included).
Viceroy Prince Eugène de Beauharnais had 18,877 French & 9,195 Italian infantry; 10,229 French & Italian cavalry & 30 French & 12 Italian guns; totaling 27,972 infantry, 10,229 cavalry & 42 guns. He defeated Cavalry General Archduke Johann von Österreich’s Imperial Austrian Army force of 15,802 regular, 8,473 Hungarian Insurrection & 5,471 Landwehr infantry; 2,226 regular & 7,608 HI cavalry; totaling 24,275 infantry & 9,834 cavalry & 30 guns.
The Imperial Austrian Army was famously a multinational organization. Only a small percentage were ethnic Germans. At Raab, Johann’s regulars comprised 9 Hungarian, 6 Croatian, 5 Styrian (Austrian/Hungarian) & 1 Austrian infantry battalions & 4 combined Grenadier battalions (2 Austrian, 1 Hungarian, 1 mixed-nationality). They comprised 10 Hungarian, 8 Transylvanian (Hungarian/Vlach), 6 Austrian, 1 Bohemian (Czech/German), 1 Moravian (Czech/German) & 1 Polish cavalry squadrons. His Landwehr comprised 13 Austrian, 3 Karinthian (Slovene), 2 Styrian & 1 other battalions.
But let us dive into the details:
On 10 April 1809, Napoleon’s armies were tied up in Spain, and the Austrian Empire declared war on the French monarch. Archduke Charles launched an attack on the main battlefield in the Danube Valley, but events soon turned unfavourable for the Monarchy. In the Italian tributary theatre, Archduke John of Austria also went on the offensive with the Army of Inner Austria, but after initial successes, he retreated to the Piave line on news of the main army’s failure.
By this time, John’s primary task was to cover the left flank of the retreating main force. On 13 May, Napoleon marched into Vienna. John then split his forces and tried to push into the Vienna area, but the French blocked the road to the north. He had no choice but to march to Hungary and from there join the Imperial army massed on the left bank of the Danube.
On 23 April, the noble uprising was called to arms by the Palatine József. He designated Győr as the country-wide assembly point for the insurgent cavalry regiments and infantry battalions in the initial stages of organisation. Napoleon suffered heavy losses with his defeat at Aspern on 21-22 May, but the Emperor immediately began preparations for another crossing of the Danube. On 4 June, he ordered Viceroy Eugene to follow the retreating Archduke John to Hungary and prevent him from joining the Imperial army. On 7 June, Archduke John set out from Körmend with his army of 19,000 men to march through Pápa towards Győr. John had to cross the Danube at Komárom or Pozsony to join Charles.
Viceroy Eugene began his advance as soon as Archduke John left Körmend. The decisive French advance meant that the line of the Rába and its crossings fell into the hands of the enemy. The retreat of John would probably have been impossible had not the noble insurgents of Palatine József fought a fierce rearguard action with the French cavalry along the Marcal River. On 12 June, John’s rearguard fought street battles with the French advance guard in the town of Pápa, but eventually managed to break away from the enemy.
According to the war plan of the Imperial General Council, they wanted to engage the French before Győr. The Austro-Hungarian army, which had formed up south of the city, behind the Pándzsa stream, consisted of the regular troops of John and the forces of the noble insurrection which had arrived at the assembly point of Győr by the time of the battle, and numbered 32 000 men (8 000 of them cavalry) and 32 guns.
The left wing of the battle order was formed by the Hungarian noble insurgent cavalry under the command of Lieutenant General Mecséry, reinforced by two regular Hussar regiments. The left flank was supported by the Pándzsa stream on the front and by a deep gorge, the Viczay ravine, on the flank. The equipment and training of the insurgents were poor, so the command made a serious mistake in placing these troops on the front line. The Imperial centre, under the direct command of Archduke John, was made up of regular Austrian Landwehr and, in the second stage, Hungarian noble insurgent infantry.
The position of the right wing, consisting of regular cavalry and insurgents, led by Lieutenant-General Frimont, was so isolated that it could hardly intervene in the battle. In contrast to the wings, the Imperial centre was quite strong, with the village of Szabadhegy, the granary at Kismegyer, and the church hill, the dominant high point of the battlefield, providing good strongpoints.
The French Army of Italy marched against the Imperial positions on the night of 13-14 June. It deployed two full Franco-Italian corps under the protection of its light cavalry opposite the centre. On the right flank of the Army of Italy was the cavalry of Eugene under the command of General Montbrun. The viceroy was thus able to bring some 42,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and about 100 guns to the battle.
With the initiative in the hands of the French due to the balance of power, an offensive plan of action was devised after the early morning council of war, with the left flank troops simply holding off the weak Austrian right flank, the infantry in the centre attempting to break through the Austrian positions head-on, while on the right flank Montbrun would at the same time embrace the Imperial left flank and attempt to cut it off from the road to Komárom.
At noon on 14 June, the French first tried to penetrate between the centre and the Imperial left wing with a cavalry charge, and then at around 1 p.m., the French centre also launched an attack. The Imperial front line was already shaken by this attack, but the second line of the Imperial centre finally repulsed the attackers as far as the line of the Pándzsa stream.
The Franco-Italian troops, however, managed to hold the stream crossings. At a quarter to four in the afternoon, they renewed the attack and captured the village of Szabadhegy, but after a deadly battle, two regiments of Imperial infantry, supplemented by two Hungarian infantry regiments, drove the Franco-Italian troops out of the village, which retreated to the stream line.
Meanwhile, a battalion of the Styrian Landwehr (People’s Army) and the Austrian infantry defending the Kismegyer Mansion tied down a full French brigade, but the defenders gradually retreated to the central building of the manor, the huge, thick-walled granary. The defenders of the granary did not surrender until six in the evening.
The Austrian centre was broken by 4.30 p.m., at the cost of huge losses, by a concentrated attack. The Imperial troops were slowly running out of ammunition, and the order of some Landwehr units had been broken up. The Franco-Italian troops also captured the village of Szabadhegy and the church hill. Archduke John ordered a retreat at a quarter to five. Viceroy Eugene reported that in the centre, where the battle was at its fiercest, positions changed hands seven times.
Meanwhile, on the French right flank, a French cavalry brigade tied up the Imperials from the front, and two divisions bypassed the left flank. A French cavalry battery opened fire from the front on the noble insurgent units, whose order was soon broken. Mecséry eventually sent part of the insurgents to attack the enemy battery, but sensing the movement of the French cavalry masses encircling the enemy, he set the entire left flank in motion.
The insurgents were to turn in a closed formation and then cross in orderly fashion through a shallow but wide ravine, the Viczay Ravine. The untrained noble insurgents (and their rearguards) were incapable of these intricate manoeuvres, and soon a huge chaos ensued in the ravine, which only the regular Nádor Hussar regiment could cross, but it was quickly crushed by Montbrun’s units.
Most of the noble insurgents began a panic flight along the Komárom road, with some units running as far as Buda. By 4 p.m., the Imperial left wing had ceased to exist, but the French light cavalry could not exploit the success. Instead, the French cavalry was busy pursuing the noble insurgents. Contrary to Archduke John’s later assertion, the battle was therefore not decided by the flight of the noble insurgents on the left wing, but primarily by the collapse of the centre.
In addition, part of the insurgent units were able to regroup thanks to their officers, thus helping to cover the movements of the defeated army. The retreating Imperial infantry, supported by Hussars and noble insurgent units, successfully repulsed the pursuing cavalry. By nightfall, the bulk of the Imperial army arrived in the village of Ács, and the next day at the Komárom military camp.
The noble insurgents did well for their potential, as the opposing French saw and acknowledged – but not our command, who took the opportunity to pass their mistakes on to the Hungarian troops. In the days after the battle, there were still many rearguard actions, some units took adventurous routes to break through enemy lines and reach safety, and Győr did not fall immediately, but after ten days of siege, only surrendering when the high command made it clear that they would not be able to send help.
Both sides suffered significant losses in the battle of Győr. The Imperial-Royal and noble insurgent troops lost around 6,000 dead, wounded, and prisoners. No accurate account of the losses of the Franco-Italian army has been made. Estimates put the number at between 2,000 and 3,000. On 24 June, after a short siege, the castle of Győr was forced to surrender, yielding 50 officers & 1,735 men captive.
Eugène lost 3 generals, 218 officers & 3,800 men dead/wounded. Johann’s regulars & Landwehr lost 16 officers, 732 men & 255 horses dead; 67 officers, 1,691 men & 135 horses wounded; 24 officers, 2,384 men & 167 horses captive; 7 officers, 1,315 men & 14 horses missing; 2 guns & 2 flags. Johann blamed everything on the Insurrection. He claimed they lost 4,100 men, 80% of whom deserted. Actual Insurrection losses were under 1,000. The few deserters were soon rounded up.
On 6-7 July 1809, the decisive battle of Wagram took place, which ended in a French victory. On 31 August, Emperor Napoleon visited Győr for one day to inspect the town and its garrison. On 14 October, the Peace of Schönbrunn was finally signed.
Jókai Mór, the greatest Hungarian author of the 19th century, put it this way: “But the Viennese politicians were great in preventing the creation of this insurgent army by all sorts of tricks.” Or, about the peace after the Battle of Wagram: “Austrian politicians extended their hand to the enemy rather than to the Hungarian.”
Was Jokai right? On the facts, absolutely. The high command made every possible mistake in the organisation and management of the uprising, and then, without hesitation, pinned every mistake made and not made on the Hungarian noble insurgents. We no longer have to agree with him on the conclusion: no matter how bravely the insurrection had stood its ground, it was unlikely that it could have corrected the mistakes made up to the battle and turned the campaign around.
Whereas in the eyes of Jókai the noble insurrection shows the self-defensive power of a morally justifiable society capable of development – which finally continued in the reform era -, the “mainstream” view, still prevailing today, sees it as the last, but hopeless, phenomenon of a world that is not only technically but also morally obsolete.
Was the 1809 insurrection a failure? Militarily, we have to say no. In the Battle of Győr, they achieved the expected military result, halting the French advance at the cost of defeat; the course of the war was decided not here, but at the Battle of Wagram, fought by the regular armies. And the undoubted failures were due not so much to the ineptitude of the insurgent army as to the fact that it did not receive the support it expected from the central, supposedly organised and regular state apparatus and army, but rather to a series of flawed decisions and instructions.
There are, of course, arguments against Jókai’s view on purely technical issues: by the 19th century, the popular insurgency had indeed become hopelessly outdated, and the resulting problems (lack of training, indiscipline, loss of time, etc.) were not only a matter of the military’s own making, but also of the military’s resources. The same could be said of the revolutionary troops of 1848, which also needed a year to transform themselves from mistake after mistake into a successful regular army.
Sources: HM Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum and Garrett Anderson and Dr. Fehér Bence, Magyarságkutató Intézet (Hungarian Research Institute)