The Thunder of Wagram: August Schultz and the Napoleonic School Charts of 1910

There is a particular kind of historical image that belongs to the classroom rather than the museum: the school chart. Large, clear, designed to be read from the back of a room, printed in vivid colours that would hold the attention of children who might otherwise be looking out of the window — the school chart was one of the great pedagogical inventions of the nineteenth century, and it reached its fullest development in the educational publishing traditions of northern Europe. In Denmark, in the early years of the twentieth century, the educator and illustrator August Schultz produced a series of such charts under the title Verdenshistoriske Billedark — World History Picture Sheets — that brought the great events of world history into the classrooms of Scandinavian schools with a visual clarity and historical accuracy that made them essential teaching tools for a generation. Among the subjects he chose to document was the Battle of Wagram — fought on 5–6 July 1809 on the plains north of Vienna, the largest battle of Napoleon’s career to that point, and his last great decisive victory. The chart that Schultz produced to document that battle — showing the French soldiers of the Grande Armée in their distinctive uniforms, their formations, their weapons, and their commander — is one of the finest works of military educational illustration ever produced, and it is the image that appears on the cover of this journal.

The Battle of Wagram was, in many ways, the culmination of the Napoleonic system of warfare. It was the battle in which Napoleon’s mastery of combined arms — the coordination of infantry, cavalry, and artillery into a single tactical instrument — reached its fullest expression. It was the battle in which he deployed the largest concentration of artillery in any engagement to that date: a massed battery of more than a hundred guns, directed by his chief of artillery General Lauriston, that broke the Austrian centre and decided the outcome of the two-day struggle. And it was the battle that ended the War of the Fifth Coalition, forcing Austria to sign the Treaty of Schönbrunn — the most punishing peace imposed on the Habsburg Empire in the Napoleonic era — and leaving Napoleon at the height of his power, master of continental Europe from the Atlantic to the borders of Russia.

The Road to Wagram: The War of the Fifth Coalition

The War of the Fifth Coalition — the conflict that culminated at Wagram — had begun in April 1809, when Austria, encouraged by Napoleon’s difficulties in Spain and the apparent weakness of his position, launched a surprise invasion of Bavaria. The Austrian commander, Archduke Charles — the most capable Austrian general of the Napoleonic era, and one of the few commanders who had defeated Napoleon in the field, at Aspern-Essling in May 1809 — led an army of 300,000 men across the Inn river and into the French-allied German states. Napoleon, who had been in Spain managing the Peninsular War, rushed back to Germany and within five days had reversed the Austrian advance in a series of engagements known as the Regensburg campaign, driving the Austrians back towards Vienna.

The fall of Vienna in May 1809 did not end the war. Archduke Charles withdrew his army north of the Danube and prepared to defend the river crossings. Napoleon’s first attempt to cross the Danube at Aspern-Essling on 21–22 May 1809 ended in his first significant defeat — the Austrians destroyed the French pontoon bridge, cutting off the advance guard under Marshal Lannes, who was mortally wounded in the fighting. It was a shock to the Napoleonic system, and it gave Austria hope that the war could still be won. But Napoleon spent the following six weeks preparing a crossing in overwhelming force, and on the night of 4–5 July 1809 he threw his entire army across the Danube at the island of Lobau, bringing 154,000 men and 584 guns onto the north bank in a single night.

The Battle: Two Days on the Plains of the Danube

The Battle of Wagram was fought over two days on the flat, open plains of the Marchfeld — the agricultural lowlands north of Vienna, bounded by the Danube to the south and the village of Wagram to the north. It was terrain ideally suited to the Napoleonic system of warfare: open ground that allowed the free movement of cavalry, long fields of fire for artillery, and clear lines of sight that made the coordination of combined arms possible.

On the first day, 5 July, Napoleon attacked immediately after crossing the Danube, hoping to catch the Austrians before they could concentrate. The attack failed: Archduke Charles had positioned his army well, and the French assaults on the Austrian centre and right were repulsed with heavy losses. The most dramatic episode of the first day was the night attack by the Saxon corps under General Bernadotte on the village of Aderklaa — an attack that initially succeeded but was then driven back by an Austrian counterattack, leaving the French centre dangerously exposed as darkness fell.

The second day, 6 July, was Napoleon’s masterpiece. Recognising that the Austrian left was the weakest point of the line, he ordered Marshal Davout — the most reliable of his marshals — to attack it with the right wing of the French army, while the centre held and the left pinned the Austrian right. As Davout’s attack began to roll up the Austrian left, Napoleon ordered the assembly of the great battery — more than a hundred guns concentrated on a front of less than a kilometre — that would break the Austrian centre. The battery opened fire at midday, and within an hour had created the gap through which Marshal Macdonald led his corps in the decisive attack that broke the Austrian line. By evening, Archduke Charles had ordered a retreat, and the Battle of Wagram was over.

The Grande Armée at Wagram: Uniforms, Formations, and the Art of Napoleonic War

The French soldiers that August Schultz documented in his 1910 chart were, by 1809, the most experienced and battle-hardened army in Europe. The Grande Armée that fought at Wagram was not the magnificent instrument of 1805 — many of the veterans of Austerlitz and Jena had been lost in Spain or on the Danube — but it retained the tactical flexibility, the esprit de corps, and the confidence in its commander that made it the most formidable fighting force of the age.

The infantry — the backbone of the Napoleonic army — wore the distinctive blue coat and white breeches of the French line, topped by the shako that had replaced the earlier bicorne as the standard headgear of the Napoleonic foot soldier. The elite grenadiers were distinguished by their tall bearskin caps; the light infantry by their shorter jackets and more agile tactics. The cavalry — hussars in their braided dolmans, cuirassiers in their steel breastplates, dragoons in their green coats — provided the shock and pursuit capability that turned a tactical victory into a strategic one. And the artillery — the arm that Napoleon himself had served in as a young officer, and that he understood better than any commander of his age — was the decisive weapon at Wagram, as it had been at Austerlitz and would be again at Waterloo.

August Schultz and the Verdenshistoriske Billedark

The Verdenshistoriske Billedark — World History Picture Sheets — were part of a broader tradition of educational wall charts that had developed in northern Europe over the course of the nineteenth century. The tradition had its roots in the educational reforms of the early nineteenth century — in the pedagogical theories of Pestalozzi and Froebel, who had argued that children learned more effectively through visual images than through text alone — and it had been sustained, through the second half of the century, by the development of chromolithographic printing techniques that made it possible to produce large, vivid, detailed images at a cost that schools could afford.

August Schultz brought to this tradition a combination of historical scholarship and visual clarity that made his charts among the finest of their kind. His documentation of the Battle of Wagram — showing the French soldiers in their correct uniforms, with their correct weapons and equipment, in the formations that they actually used in battle — reflected a commitment to historical accuracy that distinguished the best educational illustration of the period from the merely decorative. The charts were designed to teach, and they taught through images that were at once visually compelling and historically precise: images that a child could read from the back of a classroom and that a military historian could examine without finding fault.

A Journal for Those Captivated by the Napoleonic Era

Our Wagram Journal carries Schultz’s 1910 educational chart across its full wraparound cover — the French soldiers of the Grande Armée, the formations and uniforms of Napoleonic warfare, the battle that ended the War of the Fifth Coalition and left Napoleon master of Europe, documented with the historical precision and visual clarity of the finest Danish educational illustration. It is a journal for those who find in the Napoleonic era not merely military history but a drama of ambition, genius, and the limits of human power — a drama that Schultz captured, in 1910, with the clarity of a great teacher.

Inside, 150 perforated lined pages await your military history notes, campaign research, wargaming records, or whatever form your engagement with the Napoleonic era takes. The casewrap sewn binding opens completely flat. The matte laminated cover preserves every detail of Schultz’s chart in a finish that rewards close examination.

On 6 July 1809, Napoleon’s great battery opened fire on the Austrian centre at Wagram, and the fate of the War of the Fifth Coalition was decided in an hour. In 1910, August Schultz gave that moment — and the soldiers who fought it — the vivid educational portrait they deserved. Perhaps the pages inside will help you record the battles — large and small — of your own.

References & Further Reading

• Chandler, David G. The Campaigns of Napoleon. Macmillan, 1966. [The standard English-language reference for Napoleonic military history, with detailed coverage of Wagram and the War of the Fifth Coalition.]
• Epstein, Robert M. Napoleon’s Last Victory and the Emergence of Modern War. University Press of Kansas, 1994. [A detailed study of the Wagram campaign and its significance in the development of modern warfare.]
• Gill, John H. 1809: Thunder on the Danube — Napoleon’s Defeat of the Habsburgs. 3 vols. Frontline Books, 2008–2010. [The most comprehensive modern account of the 1809 campaign, from the Austrian invasion of Bavaria to the Treaty of Schönbrunn.]
• Haythornthwaite, Philip J. The Napoleonic Source Book. Arms and Armour Press, 1990. [A comprehensive reference for Napoleonic uniforms, organisation, and tactics, covering the French Grande Armée at Wagram.]
• Petre, F. Loraine. Napoleon and the Archduke Charles. John Lane, 1909. [The classic English-language account of the 1809 campaign, published the year of the centenary of Wagram.]
• Rothenberg, Gunther E. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon. Indiana University Press, 1978. [On the tactical and operational system of Napoleonic warfare, including the role of combined arms and massed artillery.]
• Uffindell, Andrew. Napoleon’s Immortals: The Imperial Guard and Its Battles, 1804–1815. Spellmount, 2007. [On the elite formations of the Grande Armée, including those that fought at Wagram.]