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Updated: June 16, 2025
But the Archduke Charles remained resolute, and on 21-22 May inflicted such a reverse on Napoleon at Aspern on the Danube below Vienna, that, had there been prompt cooperation on the part of other Austrian commanders and speedy assistance from other states, the Corsican might then have been overthrown and Europe saved from a vaster deluge of blood.
But all at once my minister of foreign affairs has changed his mind: the victory of Aspern has converted him, and he thinks now that the generalissimo must remain at the head of the army.
I answered with some resentment that it was a scene of her own making that I couldn't think what she was angry with me for unless for not seeing my way to give a thousand pounds for the portrait of Jeffrey Aspern. "And did she show you that?
But the bulletin which he dictated ran, "The enemy withdrew to their position, and we remained masters of the field." This latter clause was exactly as true of the French at Aspern as it had been of the Russians at Eylau the affair was a technical victory, a moral defeat.
Both armies had fought with tremendous fury and animosity, for the Austrians wished to add fresh laurels to the fame just won at Aspern, the French to regain what the days of Esslingen at least rendered doubtful: the infallibility of success, the conviction that victory would ever be associated with their banners. It was the fury of the conflict which made the victory uncertain.
Pelet, in his memoirs, declares that the Emperor's orders were "to cross the river and march against the enemy." Be this as it may, there were as yet only three infantry divisions on the left bank of the Danube, and Aspern was but weakly garrisoned. Charles was determined to maintain if possible his superiority of numbers.
Then came Napoleon's defeat at Aspern, and the Tyrolese rose and again drove the invaders from their country. In July occurred Napoleon's great victory at Wagram, and the hopes of the Tyrol once more sank. All the Austrians were withdrawn, and Lefebvre again advanced at the head of thirty or forty thousand French, Bavarians, and Saxons.
The Austrians celebrated the battle as their victory, the honors of which they accorded to the last cavalry charge under Prince John Liechtenstein; and in the peaceful churchyard at Aspern lies the effigy of a majestic lion stricken to the heart, as a reminder to patriotic Austrians of those two days' victorious fighting, which literally drenched the spot with blood.
Tremendous clouds of smoke covered the country all around, and wrapped the villages of Aspern and Essling and the island of Lobau in an impenetrable veil of mist. Joseph Haydn passed these days, the 21st and 22d of May, in silent grief and gentle resignation; he prayed often, and played his imperial hymn three times a day. Thus the morning of the 22d of May had come.
He was received on the opposite bank near Aspern and Esslingen by the Archduke Charles, and, after a dreadful battle, that was carried on with unwearied animosity for two days, the 21st and 22d of May, 1809, was for the first time completely beaten and compelled to fly for refuge to the island of Lobau.
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