Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
The fate of Austria now depended on the issue of the struggle about to take place on the Danube. The archduke's troops were still elated with recent victory, but Napoleon had been strongly reinforced and again began the attack at Wagram, not far from the battleground of Aspern. The contest lasted two days, the 5th and 6th of July.
After Aspern, the Emperor Francis promised that he would never lay down his arms until they were re-united with his Empire. This promise now went the way of the many fond hopes of reform and championship of German nationality which her ablest men had lately cherished, and the Empire settled down in torpor and bankruptcy.
If the victor had been fighting for life, his position would have been morally strong; fighting as a world-conqueror, it was illogical; fighting as equal with equal to repel aggression, it was comprehensible. This last was the attitude into which he was forced by the campaign of Aspern, Essling, Wagram.
Holding his own on the hills behind the Russbach, the Archduke swung forward his right in such strength as to drive back Masséna on Aspern; but his weakened centre was now pushed back and endangered by the persistent vigour of Macdonald's onset.
Napoleon crossed the island and embarked with Berthier and Savary in a small boat, which brought him back safely to the right bank of the river. Massena returned to Aspern, momentarily invested with the chief command. The retreat commenced. The cannonade was still heard in the plain, but faint, and separated by long intervals; the artillerymen, worn out, stood to their guns with great difficulty.
Two days before, eight hundred French soldiers had crossed into the island of Lobau to drive out the Austrian scouts; on the nineteenth Napoleon arrived, and the necessary fortifications were constructed; on the twentieth the passage began, and Masséna, with Lannes's light cavalry, was sent out to reconnoiter. Smekal: Die Schlacht bei Aspern und Essling. Strobl: Aspern und Wagram.
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 Massena 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.
He trusted to the star that had befriended him at Marengo and at Aspern; that is, he would not admit the truth, even to himself, that he had been overdaring, that it was fortune, and fortune alone, that had saved him from destruction, and Moscow and Vittoria, Leipsic and Waterloo, were the result.
The battle of Aspern had softened Napoleon, he said, and Austria might secure an advantageous peace. But Francis had not changed his nature; he would await the final decision. His brother Ferdinand would soon arrive from Poland, and John was already in Hungary. To Frederick William III he had offered Warsaw if Prussia would only come to his assistance. But the King of Prussia was stubborn.
Poor Miss Tita colored, as if she found me over-insistent. "Well, if you don't believe she wants to see you I haven't invented it! I think people often are capricious when they are very old." "That's perfectly true. I only wanted to be clear as to whether you have repeated to her what I told you the other night." "What you told me?" "About Jeffrey Aspern that I am looking for materials."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking