13. Putting Too Much Faith in Gentlemanly Niceties
In 1805, Napoleon had been camped out with his Grand Armee across the English Channel from Britain, waiting for an opportunity to invade, when he got word that the Russians and Austrians had declared war on him. So he shelved his plans to invade Britain, struck camp, and conducted quick march south that ended with the capture of an Austrian army in the Ulm Campaign. The Austrians’ Russian allies retreated to the north bank of the Danube, and hoped for breathing space to regroup by putting that river between them and the pursuing French. To that end, all bridges spanning the Danube were either blown up or prepared with explosives to detonate at a word of command to prevent their capture by the French.
In the meantime, peace negotiations were underway as the French neared the Austrian capital of Vienna, on the Danube. So as not to cast a pall over the negotiations, and because it might prove unnecessary should the negotiators succeed, Austrian authorities refrained from blowing up Vienna’s bridges. Instead, they rigged them up for detonation, in case the French attempted to seize them. One such was the Tabor Bridge, entrusted to Count Auesberg. As things turned out, the Austrians would have serious cause to rue the day when they decided against simply blowing up the bridge and getting it over with. They would have even greater cause to rue their choice of commander to guard that bridge. In turn, that commander would have greater cause to rue his mistaken reliance on the conventions of gentlemanly honor and niceties when dealing with an enemy.