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Updated: May 17, 2025
Bitten by the demon of aristocracy, the sight of the blue ribbon put him beside himself. The gallant cuirassier of Essling would have licked up the mud on the Pont-Royal to be invited to the house of a Navarreins, a Lenoncourt, a Grandlieu, a Maufrigneuse, a d'Espard, a Vandenesse, a Verneuil, a Herouville, or a Chaulieu.
Apart from the fact that this unexpected question renewed her grief, the inconceivable thoughtlessness the Emperor had shown wounded her so deeply that, her friends had much difficulty in persuading her to resume her duties near the Empress. The battle of Essling was disastrous in every respect.
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 Massena from the burying-ground, nor Lannes from the village of Essling.
As to the other orders of battle explained above, it cannot be denied that at Essling and Fleurus the general arrangement of the Austrians was a concave line, and that of the French a convex.
At the battle of Essling the brave General Daleim, commanding a division of the fourth corps, found himself during the hottest part of the action at a spot swept by the enemy's artillery. The Emperor, passing near him, said: "It is warm in your locality!" "Yes, Sire; permit me to extinguish the fire." "Go." This one word sufficed; in the twinkling of an eye the terrible battery was taken.
He had selected the heights from Neusiedl to Wagram, occupied by the Austrians, but not fortified by them, as a more favorable point, and during the night of July 4th he threw fresh bridges from Lobau to the main land and set in motion the strong force occupying the island. This moved against the heights of Wagram, occupying Aspern and Essling in its advance.
Essling, in 1809, is an example of the advantageous use of a concave line; but it must not be inferred that Napoleon committed an error in attacking the center; for an army fighting with the Danube behind it and with no way of moving without uncovering its bridges of communication, must not be judged as if it had been free to maneuver at pleasure.
Napoleon was at Schoenbrunn, already victor in the five days' battle which had rendered him master of Vienna, and more certain than he was immediately after Essling of the promptitude and extent of his success. It was then that he drew up, and sent by Champagny, two decrees relating to the taking possession, pure and simple, of the States of the Pope.
By midnight the French bridge was again repaired, and Davout, in response to Napoleon's urgent orders, began to bring up reinforcements, especially artillery, holding them on the south shore of the main stream in readiness for crossing. At two in the morning the Austrians made still another effort to drive out the enemy from Aspern; soon afterward they again attacked Essling.
Balked at Aspern and Essling, he gained his point at Wagram on the 5th of July, and hostilities ceased with the armistice of Znaim on the 11th after having lasted for a period short of three months by a week.
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