assailed by Austrian commando raids, sometimes even having to endure
violent storms and the attacks of fireships, French engineers and pioneers
took a week to build a pontoon across the 825-yard stretch from the right
bank to Lobau, using 68 pontoons and nine rafts. The first French units
reached the island on 20 May and, after completion of the much shorter
bridge across the third channel to the left bank, Massena's and Lannes's
corps crossed north to the mainland and established a bridgehead at the
villages of Aspern and Essling.
By 2I May Napoleon had 25,000 men on the large open plain kndwn as
the Marchfeld, an arid and desolate spot on the north bank of the
Danube. Timing his attack brilliantly, Archduke Charles then attacked
with a huge army of Ioo,ooo men and 250 guns; he quickly drove the
French out of the villages of Aspern and Essling and back to the bridge.
Once again, it turned out, Napoleon had miscalculated. He had not
known that Charles was within striking distance on the bridgehead on the
left bank and assumed he would be able to reinforce Lannes and Massena
easily. But now the news came in that the bridge fr om the left bank to
Lobau had been breached, first by rising water and then by Austrian
fireships and battering rams. By now the Austrians had perfected a
technique of floating huge hulks and logs down river which smashed into
the pontoons.
On the north bank an increasingly serious battle developed around
Aspern; in the nick of time Napoleon got enough men across the repaired
bridge to fight the Austrians to stalemate. But the French position
remained grave, for Charles could easily get reinforcements and they
could not. On the 2 I st 3 I ,ooo French troops had to confront more than
Ioo,ooo Austrians with 260 big guns at their disposal. On the 22nd, after
makeshift repairs to the pontoons, Napoleon managed to fe rry more men
over; now he had so,ooo infantry, I2,000 cavalry and I44 guns to face the
Austrian host. Ferocious streetfighting went on in Aspern and Essling on
the morning of the 22nd, and then Napoleon ordered a strong attack on
the Austrian centre.
At first Lannes seemed to carry all before him, but he was eventually
fo rced to retreat by his own shortage of ammunition as much as an
Austrian counterattack. In any case, Napoleon could not get Davout's
corps across the river fo r the coup de grace, as the bridge had broken once
again. The hand-to-hand fighting of that morning in Aspern and Essling
was repeated in the evening darkness; in one of these desperate
encounters perished General St-Hilaire, on the point of receiving his
marshal's baton. After murderous close combat General Rapp and the
Young Guard managed to retake Essling but then came news that the
marcin
(Marcin)
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