Born in the Württemberg royal residence on 13 October 1748,[1] Werneck entered the service of Habsburg Austria in 1764 as an Oberleutnant in the Weid-Runkel Infantry Regiment Nr.

On 9 October after the siege was successfully concluded, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor appointed him General-major.

[2] After the outbreak of the War of the First Coalition, Werneck led a contingent of grenadiers with distinction at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November 1792.

In this stage of the fighting, Werneck commanded the Reserve at Grevenmacher which included single battalions of the Matheson Infantry Regiment Nr.

[5] Werneck was present at Aldenhoven on 1 March 1793[2] where Henri Christian Michel de Stengel's column was defeated by two Austrian cavalry regiments.

When Charles took troops to join Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour, Werneck was left in command of the independent Army of the Lower Rhine beginning in September.

[2] On 18 April, Lazare Hoche and 38,000 French troops from the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse caught Werneck's 21,000 Austrians by surprise in the Battle of Neuwied.

[9] On 17 April, when Jean Etienne Championnet's division threatened Werneck's right wing, the Austrian general weakened his left under Pál Kray in order to bolster his right.

When the divisions of Paul Grenier and François Joseph Lefebvre began crossing the Rhine at 3:00 AM, Werneck hurriedly ordered Kray's troops back to defend his left.

Lefebvre defeated the Austrian left flank, while Grenier broke through Kray's line of redoubts at Heddersdorf after repeated assaults.

The army's brigades and divisions were only semi-permanent units, and corps-sized formations were organized on an ad hoc basis.

After Emperor Francis I of Austria upheld Mack and sacked Mayer, the Austrian army began concentrating on the Iller.

The flanks were held by Franz Jellacic's 11,000 troops near Lake Constance and Michael von Kienmayer's 12,000 men at Ingolstadt on the Danube.

[13] Crossing the river to the east of the Austrians, the French I, II, III, IV, and VI Corps got between Ulm and Vienna.

[17] Michel Ney's VI Corps smashed Riesch on 14 October in the Battle of Elchingen and forced the survivors to retreat to Ulm.