Charles Louis of Austria

Archduke of Austria, Duke of Teschen

Born on September 5, 1771, in Florence , Tuscany, Charles Louis was the son of the future Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1747-1792) and his wife Mary-Louise of Bourbon, infanta of Spain; he was three years younger than his elder brother Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire, who reigned under this name over the Holy Roman Empire, then over Austria under Francis I.

He grew up in the Tuscan capital, not coming to Vienna until 1790, when his father succeeded Joseph II to the imperial throne.

Charles was adopted and raised in Vienna and Brussels by his aunt Marie Christine of Austria and her husband Albert de Saxe-Teschen, governors of the Netherlands, as the couple had no children of their own. Despite his health problems (he was epileptic), he received a solid education, particularly in the military, from the future field marshal Heinrich Johann de Bellegarde.

He began his military career during the wars of the French Revolution, leading the vanguard of the Austrian army under Prince Frédéric Josias of Saxe-Cobourg-Saalfeld, fighting at Jemmapes, then Aldenhoven and Neerwinden.

In 1793, his elder brother, who the previous year had become Emperor Franz II, appointed him Grand Cross of Maria Theresa and Governor of the Netherlands. In 1794, he commanded an army corps at Landrecies and Fleurus.

Appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Germany, during the 1796 campaign he displayed the great qualities that placed him at the forefront of the strategists of the time, winning the battles of Wetzlar, Amberg and Wurzbourg, pushing Jean-Victor Marie Moreau and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan back across the Rhine, and capturing Kehl and Huningue.

These feats, achieved by a young general of twenty-five, earned him an appointment as Generalissimo of the Austrian armies on his return to Vienna.

He then met his most formidable adversary, General Napoleon Bonaparte, two years his senior, who was marching on Vienna on the strength of his victories in Italy. Charles put up strong resistance to him on March 16, 1797, on the banks of the Tagliamento river , then had to give in to Andre Massena a few days later at the Col de Larvis, and retreated in good order. Napoleon Bonaparte offered him peace in a famous letter that testifies to his admiration for his adversary. The Leoben armistice, followed by the Campo-Formio peace treaty, put a temporary end to hostilities.

Archduke Charles was appointed governor of Bohemia, a region in which he had a vested interest, having inherited the Upper Silesian duchy of Teschen from his uncle Albert.

During the campaign of 1798 - 1799, while Napoleon Bonaparte was making his mark in Egypt, Charles defeated Jean-Baptiste Jourdan at Osterach and Stokach in Swabia, then confronted André Masséna in Switzerland, winning the Battle of Heingheim on November 22, 1798, before defeating the future Duke of Rivoli at the First Battle of Zurich. He continued into Germany, taking Mannheim and again pushing the French back across the Rhine.

On March 17, 1800, disgusted at seeing his military plans constantly thwarted by the Aulic Council, and at his disagreement with the policies pursued in Vienna, he resigned and withdrew to his government in Bohemia.

French victories and the threat of General Moreau, who was only thirty leagues from Vienna, soon had him recalled to command a disorganized Austrian army. But the defeat at Hohenlinden, where his brother Archduke John was nominal commander of the army, forced him to sign the Steyr armistice on December 25, 1800, followed by the Lunéville peace treaty.

In 1801, his brother Francis II appointed him president of the War Council, which Charles reorganized with the aim of modernizing the Austrian army; in 1802, in particular, he replaced life-long military service with conscription.

When hostilities resumed in 1805, he was entrusted with command of the Venetian army; he fought a three-day battle with Masséna at Caldiero, where he deployed all the resources of his talent but failed to avoid defeat. But events turned Germany into the main theater of operations, and after the surrender of Ulm, he withdrew to Hungary, unable to help the main army.

After the Peace of Presburg, he was appointed head of the Academic Council of War and Generalissimo of the Armies, enabling him to pursue far-reaching reforms: development of the infantry to make the army more mobile, abolition of corporal punishment, creation of reserve regiments and a territorial army - the Landwehr -, military schools, a repository of archives, a military journal...

Charles enthusiastically embarked on the war in 1809, even though the modernization efforts had yet to bear fruit.

After some victorious battles, he suffered setbacks at Abensberg, Landshut and Eckmühl (or Eggmühl), near Regensburg. After the evacuation of Vienna, it was the terrible battle of Aspern-Essling on May 21 and 22, 1809, where Charles showed admirable courage and brilliant tactical sense, inflicting a semi-defeat on Napoleon I, forcing him, after two days of fighting and at the cost of very heavy losses, to retreat ingloriously to the island of Lobau.

However, Napoleon exacted his revenge on July 5-6, 1809, on the Wagram plateau, a few kilometers further north. Charles was in favor of continuing the war in Hungary, but Klemens Wenzel von Metternich convinced Emperor Franz to sign the Peace of Schönbrunn, the prelude to an alliance with Napoleon. Charles, disavowed, renounced all his military offices. Wagram was to be his last battle.

On April 2 of the following year, he led his young niece, Archduchess Marie-Louise, chosen by Napoleon as his wife to found his dynasty, to the altar. The same respect led him, after the fall of the Eagle, to act as guide and protector to his son, now Duke of Reichstadt.

In 1815, Charles married Princess Henriette de Nassau-Weilburg, who bore him seven children, including four sons who took up arms. Living on his land, he devoted himself mainly to writing: not only memoirs of his exploits, but also a number of high-caliber military works.

Charles, who had faced Napoleon more than any other commander and was considered one of the most famous military figures of his time, died peacefully in Vienna on April 30, 1847, at the respectable age of seventy-six. He is buried in tomb 122 in Vienna's imperial crypt .

An equestrian statue of Archduke Charles has honored his memory since 1860 on Vienna's Heldenplatz.