The Austrian Pyrrhus. The campaign of the Austrian auxiliary corps of 1812 in letters by the commander-in-chief Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg to his wife
Abstract
In the kontext of the Napoleonic Wars, it is the 1812 campaign against Russia which has attracted the attention of both laypersoms and expert. From a Czech perspective, it is often forgotten that Austrian troops were also involved in this campaign and their comrades went into battle under the banner of "the Corsican pirate" with a sense of distate, even disgust.
But iron discipline and soldier's pride pushed them onwards. Nonetheless their behavior met with a wave a criticism, both at the time and subsequently from historians.
There is still an ongoing debate as to whether, from the Austrian side, it was essentially a so-called "phony war" or a do-or-die struggle with no hope of success. Military historians have analysed objektive, logical facts, theoretically recontroversy.
This contrbution approaches the question from a somewhat different angle, namely though the prism of personal correspondence written by commander-in-chief Karl of Schwarzenberg to his wife Marie Anna. These intimite letters reveal the innermost motivation of the commander-in-chief, whose desicisons and negotiations formed the overall character of the participation of Austrian forces in this momentous campaign.