AN UNSUCCESSFUL GENERAL.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 293, 12 December 1907, Page 6

AN UNSUCCESSFUL GENERAL.

(Broad Arrow)

In the long drama of military history there have been heroes and villains, great generals and ames damnees, to win at least our respect, but one or two unfortunates have never received more than the reward of a clown—to be soundly buffetted before a delighted audience —in return for a life spent in honourable service. The contempt of civil critics, and even: of soldiers, especially when the latter have not faced the responsibilities or command, is meted out lavishly enough to any alleged incompetent, but no one with the possible exception of Benedek, has received more plentiful and less discriminating criticism than Mack, whom men remember, not from his earlier record, but as the man who surrendered at Ulm. The opinions of Napoleon and our own Nelson are considered conclusive evidence as to the incapacity of the unfortunate Austrian general, no one stooping' to reflect that Napoleon hated Mack because he had wronged him, and that Nelson invariably misunderstood a soldier. "I hate a tool is a good motto, but it often means that we are calling a man a fool because we hate him, while for Nelson a sic"c en regie, or, indeed, any formal and methodical kind of war on land, was a veiled wonder which lie never felt called upon to unveil. That a real tragedy underlies the career of a clown we, too, do not.stop to consider, being consumed with mirth at the blows of the ringmaster s born plain Karl Mack, and the Pan of a minor official of a minor State, was born on August *'sth, l<o*, at Nenslingen, in Francoma. He had an uncle who was a squadron commander in the Austrian service, and at the age of eighteen he left Bavaria and joined his uncles regi-j ment as a trooper. He had seven veers' service in the ranks before he was promoted to a commission, but once this was achieved his abilities rapidly brought him to notice. Asa subaltern he served on the staft 01 Count Kinsky, and on that ot the Commander-in-Chief, the veteran Field-Marshal Lacy, in the war of the Bavarian succession. In 1/83 he was promoted captain and placed at Army Headquarters. There, at the age ot thirty-two, with nothing save merit to help him on in the most aristocratic service in the world, he became one ot the most valuable of Lacy s assistants, and one of the most devoted of his admirers. It may be remarked that a general such as Lacy, who had stood up to Frederick the Great with success, was uardly likely to choose him to help him in his great work of reforming the" Austrian Army, assist; ants of obv'-uis incapacity. In 1/bo Mack was ev.robleU under the title 01 Mack yon .Ldherich (Leiborich being his uncle's ii'-.g), and in the same T\^v he marur.l. In the Turkish war Ifack was ag;:'n employed on the Headquarter Staff in the field, under his-old chiefs, Kinsky and Lacy, and under tho famous Field-Marshal Loudon, who was the most formidable opponent Frederick the Great was ever called upon to meet. Loudon and his staff officer promptly quarrelled, and Mack had to retire lor a while, not, however, before he had so far distinguished himself in battle as to be made major and personal aide-de-camp to the Emperor. He was too useful a man to be retired at the age of thirty-six, and in 1790 he was again with Loudon at the front. He was now a colonel and a member of the Order of Maria Theresa. But in these campaigns he received an injury to his head, which, in conjunction with his incessant self-imposed study of his profession, permanently impaired his powers. Herein lies his tragedy. Never after this accident did he feel himself really fit for work, and it would have been well for his reputation had others thought so too. But he could not be soared. He was made Chief of Staff, to Prince Coburg, the commander of the Austrians in the Netherlands in 1793, and the Prince, in offering him his post, would take no refusal. .In spite of everything, Mack enhanced his reputation in the war against the armies of the French Revolution—in fact, he alone amongst the superior leaders seems to have really grasped the strange now problem set before the old-fashioned Generals. The Archduke Charles who won his first laurels in the action of March Ist, 1703, wrote to the Emperor: —"Colonel Mack is above all the person we have to thank for all these successes," and the great victory of Neenvidon gave the young Archduke another excellent reason for recommending the Protestant and bourgeois soldier to the notice of his •Sovereign. Scon afterwards came the negotiations with Dumouriezand the latter's flight into the Austrian lines —in this and in all other events oi: this eventful spring, Mack was the soul of the allied army. Yet for long tho Emperor would not make him a general officer, a neglect which is supposed, to be due to obscure court and political intrigues between Lacy and the Minister Tim gut. He was.wounded at Farmars, and during his convalescence it was found that the army at any rate desired his presence and control. So, at least, in February, 1794, the Emperor, at the personal request of old Lacy, made Mack a majorgeneral. But he had overtaxed his remaining powers, and for all his exertions and elaborate plans, in the spring campaign of 1794 he found himself a fallen god, on whom the responsibility of failure was placed. "Three years later ho was promoted lieutenant-field marshal.

fie had, shortly before this, been offeree^ but had declined, the command of the Portuguese Army. In 1798, however, at the urgent personal request of the Empress, he accepted the command of the army of Naples. Considering the condition of that army, only failure was to be expected. With the miserable troops he commanded, Mack could make no head against the veteran French troops he liad to encounter, and presently, being in absolute peril of his life from his own disorderly soldiery, he escaped to the French lines. jLiere he was given a. safe conduct to Austria, biu this was at once revoked by Napoleon, and the general was conveyed to Paris as a prisoner of war (1799). Having been treated thus, he did not think it necessary to inform the French authorities of his intention of escaping —hence he was roundly accused of breaking his parole—and did so in disguise. Mack was not, however, re-employed until 1804.

The war party in Austria was gathering force in that year, and needed two tilings for its purpose, army reform and a leader of reputation, to set up against the influence of the Archduke Charles, their great opponent. In an unfortunate moment Mack fell hi with their views. He was made Chief of Staff (Quarter-master-General) of the Army for the purpose of preparing it for a war with JTrance. This was in April, 1595. •

He was sanguine of placing the Imperial Army on a war footing rapidly, and instituted at once many farreaching reforms which only needed I time to bring them to fruition. The system of command was altered (prematurely as it turned out) so as to give corps and division leaders some measure of responsible independence, but his most important reform was the abandonment of the obsolete magazine and convoy system of supnly. The army was henceforth to live by requisitions in accordance with the practice of the French revolutionary armies, which Mack had studied as closely as any living man. It was' thus that, whether ready or unready in other respects, the Austrians, when they took the field, managed. to *&eve with a rapidity which quite nonplussed ("lieir opponents. In the field Mack himself was Quartern asterG°>Kerni to the titular Commanaer-m-Chief, the nineteen-year-old Archduke Ferdinair! He was responsibly to the Emperor, yc-i exorcised ::o real comm-and-in-chief, his orders being openly flouted by the subordinate generals, who, besides being unequal to their own responsibilities, looked upon Mack as a parvenu, and at every turn sought to prejudice' the Archduke against his adviser. Under these circumstances, the result was a foregone conclusion. Mack achieved his first task, the conquest of Bavaria, • brilliantly and at a cost of time and men which had been far" exceeded by Khevenhuller and Traun, two of Austria's greatest generals, in the celebrated campaign of 1743. Then cam« a lamentable series of misunderstandings, and the swoop of Napoleon, a mighty genius, and' the absolute and irresponsible leader of 200,000 men, upon 80,000 Austrians, led by a general whose orders were treated with contempt. It does not require an elaborate theory of war to account for the wift and irremediable catastrophe of Ulm—the odds were themselves sufficient.

From February, 1806, to June, 1807, a court-martial tried the unfortunate- General, and in the end he was deprived of his rank, his regiment and the Order of Maria Theresa, and given two years' fortress arrest. Released in 1808, he was reinstated when the griefs of 1805 were forgotten in the victories of 1814 and 1815. At the request of Prince Sohwarzenberg, Mack was brought back into the army as Lieutenant Field-Marshal, and his Maria Therest Order was restored. Ho died in ' IS2B at St. Polten.