World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

Generally slow in his operations, the Archduke Charles was too far from the capital to assist it. The place had made no preparations for defence, but the population was animated by great patriotic zeal, and the sight of the French troops before the gates at once caused a rising. The new town, which was open and without ramparts, was quickly in our power. Preparations were made to defend the walls of the old town, behind which the Archduke Maximilian was entrenched, with from 15,000 to 18,000 regular troops.

Napoleon took up his abode at Schönbrunn, in the palace abandoned by the Emperor Francis; and after appointing as governor of Vienna, General Andréossy, recently his ambassador in Austria, waited calmly for the result of the bombardment. The archduke had imprudently exposed the town to an irresistible attack: on the morning of the 12th May he left Vienna with the greater part of his troops, leaving to General O'Reilly the sad duty of concluding the capitulation. The French took possession of the place on the 13th. The population were still excited when Napoleon issued a proclamation denouncing the princes of the house of Lorraine for having deserted, "not as soldiers of honor yielding to the circumstances and reverses of war, but as perjurers pursued by their remorse. On running away from Vienna their farewells to its inhabitants were fire and bloodshed; like Medea, they have cut the throats of their children with their own hands. Soldiers! the people of Vienna, to use the expression of the deputation from its faubourgs, are forsaken, abandoned, and widowed; they will be the object of your regards. I take the good citizens under my special protection. As to turbulent and bad men, I shall make examples of them in the ends of justice. Soldiers! Let us treat kindly the poor peasants, and this good population who have so many claims upon our esteem. Let us not be made haughty by our success; but let us see in it a proof of that divine justice which punishes the ungrateful and the perjured."

That boundless vanity which always pervaded Napoleon's soul, in spite of his protestations of thankfulness towards divine justice, did not prevent him from clearly seeing beforehand the difficulties which surrounded him, and the obstacles still to be overcome, even after reaching Vienna, and gaining the victory in every battle. Success had again attended on all his combinations, and the extreme extension of his forces. Prince Eugène after recovering the advantage over Archduke John, was now coming nearer the emperor as he pursued the enemy. Marshal Lefebvre at the head of the Bavarians and French divisions, had commenced offensive operations against General Chasteler and Jellachich, come to the assistance of Tyrol, and after beating their forces and those of the mountaineers combined at Worgel, on the 13th May, advanced to Innspruck and took possession of it. The peasants had retired to the mountains, and the Austrian forces fell back upon Hungary. Prince Poniatowski defended victoriously the right bank of the Vistula, and threatened Cracow, while Galicia was rising in favor of Polish independence. The Archduke Charles's army, however, still existed—large, powerful and eager to avenge its defeats. The Archduke Louis had brought him the remainder of the troops, and the Archduke John was advancing to the assistance of his brothers. In order to prevent this junction, and conquer his enemy before he had been reinforced by the army of Italy, Napoleon decided upon crossing the Danube in the very suburbs of the capital, by making use of the numerous islets there. At the island of Lobau, which was the point chosen for the passage, the bed of the Danube was broad and deep; and the island not being in the middle of the stream, the branch separating it from the bank was comparatively narrow. The emperor gave orders to construct bridges.

The attempt was a bold one at any time; it was rash, at the moment when the waters of the Danube, swollen by the melting of the snow, threatened to sweep away the bridges, prepared with difficulty, on which depended the success of the operation. On the 20th May, Marshal Masséna's troops crossed the river entirely, and took up position in the villages of Aspern, and Essling; a ditch full of water joined the two villages, and its banks were immediately covered with troops. The archduke's advance- guard had alone appeared, till at three o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st May, the Austrian army, 70,000 to 80,000 men strong, at last poured on the plain of Marchfeld. The large bridge thrown from the right bank to the island of Lobau had been broken for the second time during the night, and therefore only 35,000 or 40,000 Frenchmen were there to meet the enemy. The emperor, however, was there, the bridge was about to be repaired, and the generals were opposed to every thought of retreat. Marshal Lannes had gone forward to occupy Essling, while General Molitor had fortified himself in Aspern. The struggle began with the passionate ardor of men playing the great game in which their glory or their country's liberty is at stake. The position at Aspern, covering the bridge to the island of Lobau, was several times taken and retaken, till at last Molitor barricaded the houses of the village, and drove back the Austrian attack with the bayonet. No assault, however fierce, was able to dislodge Masséna from the burying-ground, nor Lannes from the village of Essling. At one time the Prince of Hohenzollern's division was very nearly cutting off our communication between the two villages, at sight of which Lannes, turning towards Marshal Bessières, ordered him, in a voice of thunder, and without regard for his rank or age, to put himself at the head of the cuirassiers for a "thorough" charge. Deeply hurt by this order, and the tone in which it was given, Bessières deferred demanding an explanation, and made a dash upon the Austrian lines. He had to meet in succession the artillery, the infantry, and the cavalry; General Espagne, who was in charge of the heavy horse, was killed by his side; then General Lasalle made a charge in his turn, bringing to the marshal assistance of which he stood in great need, and Prince Hohenzollern's division was stopped. In the evening, when bivouacking, the emperor was obliged to interpose to prevent Lannes and Bessières from using against each other the swords which they had so gallantly used during the fighting against the enemy.

The archduke having ordered retreat after nightfall, both armies camped in their positions. Large forces had already crossed the Danube, including the whole corps of General Lannes. The guard also arrived, which had not yet shared in any engagement during the campaign. Seventy or seventy-five thousand men having reached the left bank, they only waited for Marshal Davout's corps, which had received orders to hasten its march, when the large bridge broke for the third time. Part of the artillery and most of the ammunition-wagons were still on the right bank. When communication was again affected, the fighting was everywhere carried on with fresh fury.

Another attack was made on the villages of Aspern and Essling, which had already been reduced to ruins. One after another, Masséna recovered the positions which Molitor was forced on the previous evening to abandon; he also carried the church occupied by the Austrian general, Vacquant. Lannes had received orders, while protecting Essling, to march into the plain, and by a circular movement pierce the enemy's line and cut them in two. This operation was about to be accomplished, and the marshal sent an aide- de-camp to the emperor to ask him to have his rear protected by the guard on his leaving Essling unprotected, when frightful news was brought to Napoleon. The trunks of trees, stones, and rubbish of every kind, brought down by the rapid current of the river, had again broken the cables which held together the boats composing the great bridge, and both parts were carried down the stream, taking with them a squadron of cuirassiers, who were then defiling over. The passage of the troops being stopped, and the ammunition running short, Napoleon ordered Lannes to fall back on the line of the villages and abandon the pursuit of the Austrians, who were just before that hardly pressed everywhere. Whilst the marshal, bitterly disappointed, was effecting this backward movement, the archduke ordered all his artillery to be directed upon him: General St. Hilaire was killed at the head of his division, and whole files of General Oudinot's regiments were shot down—unfortunate lads, so recently enrolled that their officers durst not deploy them before the enemy. It was now midday; Major-General Berthier had just written to Marshal Davout, retained on the opposite bank of the Danube: "The interruption of the bridge has prevented provision-supplies: at ten o'clock we were short of ammunition, and the enemy, perceiving it, marched back upon us. Two hundred guns, to which we cannot reply, have done us much harm. In these circumstances, it is extremely important to repair the bridges and send ammunition and food. Write to the Prince of Ponte Corvo (Bernadotte) not to open a campaign in Bohemia, and to General Lauriston to be ready to join us. See that Daru sends us ambulance-stores and provisions of every kind. As soon as the bridge is ready, or during the night, come and have a consultation with the emperor."

At the same moment the Austrians began a movement similar to that which Lannes so recently was on the point of effecting. The Archduke Charles combined his best troops, to overpower our centre and finally break our lines. Marshal Lannes was immediately on the spot, bringing up in close succession the already decimated divisions—the cuirassiers, the old guard; and these were soon supported by the charges of the light cavalry. The conflict was now frightful. The French artillery, placed on the bank of the ditch connecting Aspern and Essling, fired slowly, with the precaution and prudence due to their shortness of ammunition, while the Austrian cannons thundered unceasingly. Lannes galloped in front of his regiments, which were immovable before the enemy, whose advance had been stopped; and when encouraging his soldiers by gesture and voice, one of his aides-de-camp conjured him to dismount. When in the act of obeying, a cannon-ball struck him, shattering both his knees. Marshal Bessières assisted his terrified officers in wrapping round him a cuirassier's cloak and getting him carried to an ambulance; but, recollecting his irritation of the evening before, he turned away his head as he grasped the hand of his dying friend, lest the sight of him should cause any sorrow or vexation.

Ominous news were now coming from all parts to Napoleon, who had not quitted the angle formed by the line between Aspern and Essling. Marshal Masséna still kept in the midst of the smoking ruins which marked the spot where stood so recently the pretty village of Aspern. The Austrians were advancing in dense masses against the village of Essling. Marshal Bessières defended that post, indispensable to the safety of the army. The emperor sent for the fusileers of the guard and placed them under General Mouton's orders. "I give them to you," said he; "make another effort to save the army; but let us put an end to this! After these, I have only the grenadiers and chasseurs of the old guard; they must be reserved for a disaster." General Mouton advanced, and his first effort was rewarded by freeing General Baudet, who was hemmed in in a barn, which he defended like a fortress. Five times did the enemy return to the charge, and now they prepared for a new attack, when General Rapp, shouting, "The emperor says we must put an end to this!" combined his forces with Mouton's, and both rushed forward, followed by their soldiers, with their bayonets in front and their heads held low. The Austrians at last recoiled, and Essling remained in our hands. The battery which had been raised on the island of Lobau had fired with effect upon the masses of the enemy when, for a short time, they were near the river. The bridge was free, the only way left us to effect our retreat, when night at last permitted us to withdraw without disgrace or danger. The long summer's day was at its close.

Having for a long time understood the necessity of this backward movement, the emperor longed only for its execution, and wished to inspect himself the resources of defence afforded by the island of Lobau. He would not hear of leaving the battlefield without being certain of the position of Aspern, and sent to ask Masséna if he could undertake to hold the village, as he had constantly done for the two previous days. The old soldier was sitting on a heap of ruins, in the midst of the smoking remains of the place, and, rising at the first words of the aide-de-camp, he stretched out his arm towards the Danube, as if to hasten the messenger's return: "Go and tell the emperor that I shall keep here two hours, six, twenty- four, if need be—so long as the safety of the army requires it."

The Archduke Charles, however, was himself tired of a struggle that led to no decision—cruel and bloody beyond all that he had seen in his long military career. He had brought together all his forces, and placed all his artillery in a line, in order to crush once more with his cannon-shot the invincible battalions which separated him from the river and still forbade his passage. General Mouton brought to this threatened point the fusileers of the guard who had just freed Essling; our dismounted guns replied at rare intervals to the continued fire of the enemy; the bodies of infantry, slightly protected by the inequalities of the ground, were massed behind useless cannon, and supported by the cavalry, which covered at one part the road from Essling to Aspern, and at another the unprotected space between Essling and the Danube. Parallel to them were arranged the guard in order. All these glorious remnants of a two days' unexampled struggle, motionless under the cannon-balls, looked in silence upon their officers moving about in front of the lines between the cannon of the enemy and the men whom they commanded. "Only one word escaped our lips," said General Mouton, afterwards Count Lobau, when telling the story of that day; "we had only one thing to say, 'close up the ranks!' whenever the soldiers fell under the fire of the archduke's 200 guns."