The armies of the early 19th
century had infantry, cavalry and cannon, like their Napoleonic predecessors.
But some had another arm entirely, rockets. And few had more than the
Austrians.
The British were the first of the
Napoleonic powers to really incorporate rockets into their forces, following their
experiences in India. It took a little tinkering, but by the time of the siege
of Copenhagen over 300 rockets were ready to fire into the city, setting about
2/3 of the city alight. This obviously made a huge impression on the Danes, who
started their own rocket research, but also on the Austrians.
By the next year, the Austrian army
had rockets, of a sort, but apparently they were not very good, and the army
commander, Archduke Charles, suggested that they ask their allies, the British
for help. The British though were reluctant to give up the secrets of their new
wonder-weapon, and in fact the Austrians went to the Danes, sending an
engineer, Vincenz Augustin, with an offer of political support at the upcoming
Congress of Vienna in return for technical help. How much this helped Denmark
is debateable as they lost formerly Swedish Pomerania to Prussia at the
conference, but the Austrians had enough to set up a rocket factory at the
Austrian army arsenal in Wiener Neustadt, and within 2 months they had assembled
2,400 rockets, and even set up a special Corps with dark green uniforms. The
Corps was sufficiently advanced to serve in the Hundred Days campaign, present
at the siege of the fortress city of Hunigue, though not actually used.
Vincenz Augustin (in 1850)
Augustin seems to have been quite a
strong character, and his rocket corps expanded after the war, with improved
designs. Signal rockets developed could be seen over 40 leagues away, and by
November 1820 there were two artillery batteries, one of heavy “12 pdr” rockets
and one of “light” 2 inch types. Each battery had 6 firing frames, and an
additional 6 in reserve. At this time the corps was based at “Raketendorf”, 6
miles from Vienna.
Despite being desperately inaccurate
compared to cannons, rockets did have some advantages. For one thing they were
cheaper, a contemporary comparison was 8 guilders per shot from a 12pdr
howitzer vs 4 guilders per shot from an equivalent rocket. They were also much
lighter, an important consideration given the roads of the time, and packed
quite a powerful punch, and when the target was large, such as during a siege,
they could be very effective as shown by the siege of Copenhagen above. Last,
but not least, they looked awfully impressive, and against poorly trained
troops they could be much more frightening than their actual battlefield effect
would suggest.
On active service 1820-1829
The rocket corps had their first taste
of active service in 1821, when they formed part of the Austrian army which
marched the length of Italy at the request of the Neapolitan king Ferdinand to
“restore order”. Apparently the rocket troops were still not completely trained
and had to practice on the journey down. The batteries played major roles in
the battles of Androdocco and Aquilo, and the storming of the monastery of
Monte Casino, but were too late for the decisive battle at Rieti. A report in
the Monthly Magazine of June 1826 suggests the effect was mainly psychological,
causing the rebels to run away, but it also stresses the importance the
Austrians gave to their rockets, and the care they took that the designs were
kept secret, and how the public were kept away from the factories and stores at
Raketendorf. In the years after the Neapolitan expedition the corps was
expanded to 4 batteries, 2 light and 2 heavy, each of 12 launchers.
It was not just the army who were
interested in rockets, the Austrian navy were too. Historically the Austrians
hadn’t bothered much with a navy, but that changed after they inherited the
Venetian navy after the Congress of Vienna. A separate depot for rockets was
established in Venice and almost all the vessels in the, admittedly not large,
fleet were equipped with rockets. According to the Monthly Magazine, the
rockets could be attached to pre-existing cannon, but again the details were
kept quite secret.
Increased maritime trade bought the
Austrian Empire into conflict with the almost continuous piracy and slave
raiding from the Muslim North African States. Almost all the European States,
and even the USA, were forced into retaliatory attacks on the Barbary Coast
during the early years of the 19th Century, and Austria’s turn came
in 1829. An Austrian vessel was seized by Moroccan pirates/privateers and
vessels were dispatched to bombard Moroccan towns on the Atlantic coast and mount
an attack on Larache on the Moroccan Atlantic coast, burning several Moroccan
ships. Rockets were apparently useful for this kind of bombardment warfare.
The Guerrierea at Sidon (centre)
A similar expedition took place in 1840, but this time in conjunction with the Royal Navy, in support of the Ottoman Empire against a breakaway Egypt. A British squadron with the Austrian 48 gun frigate Guerrierea bombarded Sidon and Beirut and then attacked the city of Acre. A small Austrian/ British/ Ottoman landing party, under the command of the Austrian Archduke Friedrich, landed and took the Egyptian citadel. During this campaign, an Austrian rocket troop had been landed to support 3 battalions of Turks and a battalion of Royal Marines attacking Egyptian forces outside Sidon.
So far rockets had proved useful, but
the major test of the rocket corps, and the whole Austrian army, was to come in
1848 ......
Further reading
Mario Christian Ortner. Die
Entwicklung moderner Kriegsraketen im19. Jahrhundert. (In German). http://www.bundesheer.at/pdf_pool/publikationen/20100609_et_raketen_weltraum_ethik_ortner1.pdf
Progress on the continental production
of Congreve Rockets. The Monthly Magazine. Apr 1826. Google Books.
The war in Syria. Commodore Sir Charles
Napier, K.C.B. 1842. Project Gutenburg.
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