austrian losses during napoleonic wars

[nokhor]

the more i read about the french revolutionary and napoleonic wars, the more and more impressed i get with austria. they were basically the punching bags for the french armies. they were beaten over and over again, they lost huge chunks of territory, they were whipped in coalition after coalition, yet they kept coming back for more. they were defeated in battles at jemappes, wattignies, geisberg, touroing, montenotte, dego, lodi, lonato, castiglione, caliano, bassano, arcola, rivoli, dottingen, montebello, mantua, marengo, stockach, moskirch, ulm, hochstadt, hohenlinden, ulm, austerlitz, abensberg, landshut, eckmuhl, wagram and dresden. the underlined battles are the major battles that they lost 10,000+ troops in. i'm not even including the other battles that they won in, which also cost them tens of thousands of casualties.

by comparison, the minor defeat of the prussians at valmy caused them to abandon the first coalition, and the twin major defeats of the prussians at jena and auerstadt almost eradicated the prussian state. i am kinda surprised that with the complex power structure within the austrian state, and the ethnic tensions within it, that they were so stable that they could lose thier capital on multiple occasions and lose all these battle and yet not only remain stable, but be able to join the next anti-french coalition.

[SwordsMaster]

You are right. But the same can be said of most of the major participants. Russia, and France itself lost ridiculous amounts of men, and were able to continue the campaigns.

The losses must be considered in the scope of the general population able to bear arms.

Prussia, with a smaller population would feel the losses stronger than Russia or France who have a much larger population.

[The Wizard]

Yes, but neither Prussia nor Russia were Bonaparte's enemies for as long, or his foes as constantly, as the Habsburgs. I'm not counting the British since they didn't face France's full power as directly as the Austrians (or the Prussians or the Russians) did. I'd say that despite its occasional victories (Archduke Charles was the first to defeat Bonaparte in a direct confrontation), and despite its central role in the attempt to dismantle the French Revolution's legacy, it was Austria that was dealt a mortal blow, and it was Austria that never really recovered.

[Hound of Ulster]

The Austrians were the main whipping boys for Napoleon and the Marshals, but they kept coming back for more.

[Papewaio]

What were the %?

[Kraxis]

Without a doubt Astria suffered the highest losses of all. And that alone show how strong France really was. Not only beating one foe to a pulp, but several. By the amount of states that were time and against ranged against France, and the general conduct of battles at the time (quite bloody for both winner and loser), one would generally say that France should have been the 'winner' in the lossrace (but overall the alliances should top her). That was not the case.

And Ga'on is right, this was likely the reason for Austria's weakness for the next century. Her manpower was ripped out, her economy was in shambles and she was indebted beyond compare, and unlike the Soviet Union after WWII (quite similar situation) she didn't get a lot of satelitestates to drain resources from. Thus she had to depend on her own resources, and that takes time. She was just recovering when she suffered the Hungarian revolution, and then the liver-shot by Prussia in the Austro-Prussian war. Her weakened state was being kept up due to several incidents, over and over. Until she got involved in something too big for her resources. And then she just caved in.

Like the Ottoman Empire she died a long and very painful death.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Without a doubt Astria suffered the highest losses of all. And that alone show how strong France really was. Not only beating one foe to a pulp, but several. By the amount of states that were time and against ranged against France, and the general conduct of battles at the time (quite bloody for both winner and loser), one would generally say that France should have been the 'winner' in the lossrace (but overall the alliances should top her). That was not the case.

Wiki says France won the lossrace:

Napoleonic Wars casualties
The Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) direct and indirect casualties breakdown as follows:

NOTE: Deaths listed include being killed in action and/or of other causes such as dying of disease, wounds, starvation, exposure, drowning, friendly fire, atrocities etc.


France and allies
400,000 killed in action
600,000 died of other causes
~1,000,000 TOTAL French and Allies (much from German states) dead and/or missing

Countries against the French Empire
400,000 TOTAL Russian dead and/or missing
400,000 TOTAL Prussian dead and/or missing
~200,000 TOTAL Austrian dead and/or missing
~300,000 TOTAL Spanish dead and/or missing
200,000 TOTAL British dead and/or missing

Total Napoleonic Wars dead and missing
~2,500,000 military personnel in Europe
~1,000,000 civilians were killed in Europe & in rebellious French overseas colonies
Source of the figures

These numbers are subject to considerable variation. Erik Durschmied, in his book The Hinge Factor, gives a figure of 1.4 million French military deaths of all causes. Adam Zamoyski estimates that around 400,000 Russian soldiers died in the 1812 campaign alone; this figure is backed up by other sources. Civilian casualties in the 1812 campaign were probably comparable. Alan Schom estimates some 3 million military deaths in the wars and this figure, once again, is supported elsewhere. Common estimates of more than 500,000 French dead in Russia in 1812 and 250,000-300,000 French dead in Iberia between 1808 and 1814 give a total of at least 750,000, and to this must be added hundreds of thousands of more French dead in other campaigns - probably around 150,000 to 200,000 French dead in the German campaign of 1813, for example. Thus it is fair to say that the estimates above are highly conservative.

Civilian deaths are impossible to accurately estimate. Whilst military deaths are invariably put at between 2.5 million and 3.5 million, civilian death tolls vary from 750,000 to 3 million. Thus estimates of total dead, both military and civilian, can reasonably range from 3,250,000 to 6,500,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars_casualties

If wiki is correct, then Austria suffered less than 1/5 the casualties Boney suffered, despite the fact that Austria lost almost all of the wars. If wiki is correct, then it also means the coalitions in total suffered only 1.5 times the casualties France suffered - despite the fact that Boney had the pretty big advantage of being able to take them on one or two at the time during the early years of the period.

In short - yes France was strong, but Imperialism doesn't pay off when the opponents know how divide et impera works, and don't fall for such a simple trick, so Imperial France, like other attempts at forming empires by Imperialistic expansionism, ended up with the Imperialistic country suffering more than any other country.

[Incongruous]

Let's put some perspective on battles such as Marengo first though, hardly a massive battle and not a major defeat.
As with quite a few of the Mad Enperor's victories it was close run thing won through the brilliance of his generals.

[nokhor]

What were the %?

which percentages? percentages of losses of austria per battle? total percentages of losses of the period or something different?

[Hound of Ulster]

Those losses may seem like a lot, but when put into the perspective of the sheer length of the wars of the Revolution and Napoleon, they are actually quite small. Literally there were soldiers who died at Waterloo who were born after even the battle of Valmy and had no memory of anything before the Glorious First of June, that's how long Napoleon's wars lasted.

It didn't help the Austrians that most of thier generals sucked.

[Papewaio]

which percentages? percentages of losses of austria per battle? total percentages of losses of the period or something different?

% of losses compared with population.

[Oleander Ardens]

Why do people always assume that Austria was always walk in the park for Napoleon?

During the Italian campaign? Yes no doubt, the Austrian army was badly led and not up to date. But when looking that year after year the Austrians got stronger and in almost all battles from 1809 onwards the casualties are evenly matched, even if Austria mostly lost. Let us not forget that they had two excellent generals, Schwarzenberg and Prince Charles - the latter was the first one to defeat Napoleon in a fair field battle.

The French paid a heavier and heavier price for defeating Austria over and over again. No other power expect Russia can claim to have the same share in defeating Napoleon.

Cheers
OA

[AntiochusIII]

The French paid a heavier and heavier price for defeating Austria over and over again. No other power expect Russia can claim to have the same share in defeating Napoleon.

France conversely can claim to have defeated Austria a lot in its time too.

Comes with territory, I guess. You fight a lot, and you'll have your share of victories, of defeats, of glories earned, of honor lost, and of course a lot of dead bodies.

Curious that the puny Hohenzollerns would in the end win out and a united Germany turn out to be at least as strong as them both...

Something we can all agree on, though, is that Austria really was dealt a harsh and crippling blow with them as involved in the Napoleonic Wars as they were.

[Kraxis]

Heh... oops... Forgot about that little debacle called the invasion of Russia.

However I think that the total losses for Austria are far too low. As the article says 'conservative'.
Napoleon alone (meaning his rather small army) inflicted terrible losses on Austria during the invasion of France in 1814. He ambushed column after column, and won something like 13 battles in a devastatingly short time. Basically he ran out of personal strength... And those small battles clearly show that Napoleon is not hyped up, however he did decline with power, as many people do, as he sent his generals out to do most of the stuff. But when he did the job himself, he was back at his impressive self again.

But aside from those stunnign victories in 1814, the French battles from 1813 and onwards were generally with higher losses, even the dual victories in 1813. Basically the infantry was poor quality and he had no cavalry to close the bag on his enemies.

[Papewaio]

Basically the infantry was poor quality and he had no cavalry to close the bag on his enemies.

Slighty OT for the topic but OT for the site... It is a lesson that I have learnt in TW, to whenever possible have the fastest unit that you can have on the field used to mop up retreating units... back in STW that was sometimes feasible with Ashi or Monks if no cav were available... its also probably why Generals get so many kills compared with the rest.