Page "Battle of Wagram" Paragraph 54

Archduke Charles did not seriously consider the possibility that the French could cross elsewhere than north of Lobau island until late on 4 July.

When he finally accounted for this scenario, Charles remained faithful to his earlier plan not to move his forces towards the river.

Instead, he planned to allow the enemy to move into the Marchfeld, leaving there only the Advance Guard and VI Korps, with orders to delay their deployment, cause disorder and casualties, while gradually moving back.

Meanwhile, he was planning to maintain his main body on the naturally strong position on the Wagram plateau, with the rest of his forces further west on the Bisamberg heights, the two positions that Wimpffen and Grünne had favoured all along.

Should the French have attempted to attack the forces on the Wagram plateau, the forces present there were expected to resist long enough to allow Charles to fall on the enemy's flank with the forces placed the Bisamberg heights.

Conversely, should the enemy have attacked the forces on the Bisamberg heights, the main force on the Wagram plateau would have attacked the enemy's flank.

The plan was good enough, but had two major flaws.

Firstly, it failed to account for the slowness of the Austrian staff work, which impaired coordination between these forces.

Secondly, it left the Advance Guard and VI with an ambiguous objective: if Charles wanted protracted resistance, then these forces were too weak to accomplish such a task ; however, if the objective was only brief resistance, then they were too numerous and thus needlessly exposed.