Armies on the Danube - 1809

Armies of the Danube 1809 is a history and organizational guide to on of the most bitterly contested and evenly matched campaigns of the Napoleonic era. In 1809, for the fifth time since the advent of the French Revolution, Austria declared yet another war on France. Determined to defeat the “corrupting forces of revolution an anarchy whom by their very existence, threaten our way of life,” Emperor Francis II of Austria sent into the field a new army with humiliating , disastrous defeats of the Ulm-Austerlitz campaigns of 1805, Archduke Charles of Austria reorganized and retrained the country’s armed forces in preparation for the inevitable renewed struggle against France. In 1809 his time came. With far-flung Napoleonic armies across Europe and Iberia, the Habsburgs mobilized and struck. Advantages of preparation and surprise yielded some initial successes but soon the Austro-Hungarian forces were driven back deep into their country by an adversary who was no ordinary general.