11. Seizing the Tabor Bridge
A wily Austrian sergeant suspected a ruse and lit the fuse to the explosives set in place to blow up the Tabor Bridge. A quick-thinking and quick-acting Marshall Lannes extinguished it, berated the sergeant for trying to destroy public property, then sat on a cannon as he smoked a pipe. When Count Auesberg arrived, he bought the Marshalls’ story. When the suspicious sergeant protested, Murat berated Auesberg for his soldiers’ indiscipline and allowed an underling to mouth off and jeopardize the armistice.
Auesberg was browbeaten into arresting the sergeant, then turned control of the bridge over to the French. They used it to cross the Danube. Less than a month later, they crushed the combined Austro-Russian armies at Austerlitz, the masterpiece battle of Napoleon’s career. As to the hapless Count Auesberg, a court-martial convicted him of negligence, stripped him of his rank and honors, and ordered him shot. Luckily for him, the death sentence was stayed, and he was pardoned in 1812.
