Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Suffering, Reconciliation and Values in the Seventeenth Century
- Part II The State, Soldiers and Civilians
- Part III Who is a Civilian? Who is a Soldier?
- Part IV Contradictions of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- 13 The Limits of Conflict in Napoleonic Europe – And Their Transgression
- 14 Plunder on the Peninsula: British Soldiers and Local Civilians during the Peninsular War, 1808–1813
- 15 Invasion and Occupation: Civilian–Military Relations in Central Europe during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- 16 Imprisoned Reading: French Prisoners of War at the Selkirk Subscription Library, 1811–1814
- Bibliography
- Index
15 - Invasion and Occupation: Civilian–Military Relations in Central Europe during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
from Part IV - Contradictions of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Suffering, Reconciliation and Values in the Seventeenth Century
- Part II The State, Soldiers and Civilians
- Part III Who is a Civilian? Who is a Soldier?
- Part IV Contradictions of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- 13 The Limits of Conflict in Napoleonic Europe – And Their Transgression
- 14 Plunder on the Peninsula: British Soldiers and Local Civilians during the Peninsular War, 1808–1813
- 15 Invasion and Occupation: Civilian–Military Relations in Central Europe during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- 16 Imprisoned Reading: French Prisoners of War at the Selkirk Subscription Library, 1811–1814
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In May 1809 French forces swept into Kahlenberg, an Austrian village that lies between Vienna and the town of Klosterneuburg. The arrival of the French and the subsequent chaotic events in the village were chronicled by the local priest, Blakora. Even before their arrival, grim rumours of the violence and ill-treatment that the villagers could expect at French hands had reached the unfortunate community as those in the path of the army fled, ‘some into the woods, some onto the Kahlenberg [mountain]’. The first French soldiers appeared in Kahlenberg on the afternoon of 11 May and their actions appeared to confirm the worst stories of French excesses. Blakora wrote:
They went from one house to another, ripped open all the chests and cupboards and took everything out […] Scarcely had they made off with their booty, when others as barbaric as the first came, disturbed everything again and took away what they found. In the rectory all the doors, which were locked and all the windows smashed in, the furniture partially destroyed and what was useful and transportable stolen. Even the church was not spared. They demanded I give them the church plate.
Unwilling to wait for him to open the door, Blakora claims that the marauders beat it down and divested him of all his clothes before stripping the church of all its fabrics, including the altar cloths.
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- Civilians and War in Europe 1618–1815 , pp. 225 - 240Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2012
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