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tion." Finding that the immense number of prisoners that he had already taken were likely to become troublesome, he issued an order that on their arrival in France they should be placed at the disposal of prefects of departments. Such agriculturists and manufacturers as were at a loss for workmen were to apply to the prefects or to the mayors of municipalities, who were ordered to allot to them as many as they could employ.

In the mean time the archduke Charles, who had by incredible activity re-inforced his army with the wrecks of regular divisions and new levies from Bohemia and Moravia to the number of 75,000 effective men, having learned the fall of Vienna, moved down on the left bank of the Danube for the purpose of watching the movements of the enemy, and checking any attempt that might be made to cross the river. He fixed his head quarters, on the 16th of May, at Ebersdorf. The chain of his out-posts extended, on the right, as far as Krews, while lower down the river some battalions occupied Presburgh. The advanced guard was pushed forward near to the Danube, and the cavalry was posted along the banks of a small rivulet, on ground covered and partly concealed by bushes. Buonaparte having resolved to attack the archduke in his position, marched his army along the south bank of the Danube, till it had reached the distance of about six miles from Vienna. Here the breadth and rapidity of the Da

VOL. LI.

nube are broken by two islands. From the south bank to the smaller island on that side the distance is about 1000 fathoms; from this smaller island to the larger island, called the isle of Lobau, the distance is 120 fathoms; from the isle of Lobau to the north or left bank of the Danube the distance is only about 70 fathoms. At this favourable point Buonaparte determined to cross the Danube.

As soon as the engineers had established two bridges across from the south side to the smaller island, and from the smaller island to the larger, Buonaparte fixed. his head quarters in the latter, and in less than three hours threw a bridge of pontoons from it to the north bank. As the French advanced the archduke retreated, and permited them to extend themselves along the north bank of the river. Buonaparte, left at liberty to fix on the field of battle, posted the right wing of his army on the village of Essling, and the left on the village of Aspern. The archduke, who in his retreat had halted when he came to a favourable position, on the 21st of May at day-break called his troops to arms, drew them up in the order of battle, and communicated his plan of an attack on the French to his generals of division. For a particular account of the two dreadful battles that ensued on that day, the 21st and 22d of May, we refer our readers to the supplement to the London Gazette of the 11th of July.* They were both of them most sanguin

Appendix to Chronicle, p. 436 P

ary

ary and destructive, and harder fought, even by considerable odds, than that of Prussian Eylau, in 1807.* The battle of the 21st was terminated only by the darkness of the night. The French had by this time been driven from Aspern, They still retained possession of Essling: but the general position of their army was nearer the Danube than it was at the commencement of the engagement. The morning of the 22d saw Aspern again in possession of the French; but by repeated attacks, after repeated repulses, the French were driven from both Aspern and Essling. In the night between the 22d and 23d they effected their retreat from the left bank of the Danube, and took up a position in the island of Lobau. In these two battles, obstinate and bloody, hitherto perhaps beyond example in military annals, the intrepidity and perseverance of the soldiers, as well as the cool courage and presence of mind of the generals and other officers, on both sides, was astonishing. Both the archduke and Buonaparte exposed their persons wherever circumstances called for their presence. The archduke being entreated not to endanger himself by exposing so very much his own person, replied, "I am determined

to terminate this contest or to die in the streets of Vienna." The hostile parties combatted each other with bayonets and sabres, as had been done in Saragossa, in every street of Aspern, in every barn and every house, and even amidst the flames of Essling. The loss on both sides was very great; but few prisoners were taken by either party, both being determined to conquer or die. The prisoners taken by the Austrians did not exceed 2,300. The loss of the French was immense: it amounted in killed, wounded, and prisoners, according to a computation founded on the most probable data, to not less than 30,000 men. Five of their generals were killed, eight wounded, and two taken. The loss of the Austrians was also very great: eighty-seven officers of rank and above 4000 subalterns and privates killed, from 2 to 3000 officers and privates wounded, and 830 officers and privates taken by the French. Many hundreds of dead bodies. were floated down and thrown up on the shores of the Danube. Ā long time was necessary to the burying of the slain on the field of battle; "and (in the picturesque style of the Austrian Gazette) a pestilential air was wafted down the theatre of death."

• See Vol. XLIX. (1807). HIST. EUR. p. 11.

CHAP.

CHAP. XII.

Protracted inaction of the opposite Armies.-Observations on the conduct of the Archduke Charles. Insurrections in the North of Germany.Vicissitudes of War in Poland and Saxony-and in Italy-Concentration of the French forces.-Preparations on the part of the Archduke for defence and on that of Buonaparte for an attack.-Battle of Wagram.-Armistice.-Peace.

IN proportion to the general con

for crossing the Danube; and

wisdom or skill too, derived from the experience of the two former battles, to attack the Austrians.

Germany but throughout Europe, France itself perhaps not excepted, was the joy and exultation at the result of the two battles on the Danube, of Aspern and Essling. The invincible, it was said, was at last vanquished; the tide of fortune has turned; Germany is ved; Europe breathes; the world is revived! There was a general expectation that the repulse of Buonaparte to his island would be quickly followed by further disasters, and that the glorious achievements of the Austrians would immediately be followed up by farther successes. But day elapsed after day, and week after week. No intelligence of any farther operation on one side or other: an unequivocal sign that both parties were excessively weakened and exhausted. But while the archduke Charles contented himself with recruiting his army by new levies, as well as some garrisons in Moravia and Bohemia, and strengthening his position on the left bank of the Danube by new works and entrenchments, Buonaparte was allowed for the space of six weeks to restore the spirits, and to reinforce his army by troops called from different quarters, and to make every other preparation

On the morrow after the battle of Essling, when general Hiller was advancing against the French in the isle of Lobau with 60 pieces of heavy cannon, colonel Smolla, the particular favourite of the archduke, came up at full gallop, with orders to the general to desist from his enterprize, as his imperial highness did not think it worth while to waste his troops, or even ammunition, for the possession of the isle of Lobau. He was no doubt aware of the desperate resistance that would be made in so perilous a situation by such a general as Buonaparte. It was said by some, that the archduke, by crossing the Danube, might have cut off the retreat of the French from the island. But if the archduke had ventured on this enterprize, he would have placed himself between Buonaparte and the numerous corps that were advancing rapidly to his assistance. There were some other animadver. sions on the conduct of the archduke that appear to have been better founded, or at least much more plausible. The first movements of his highness, it was said,

in the present campaign, were faulty. Instead of taking advantage of the great superiority of his numbers, his army being little short of 200,000 men, he marched with his undivided force to one part, namely, Ratisbon, suffered Davoust with his corps to escape, and gave Buonaparte an opportunity of beating the Austrian corps one after another. The operations of the archduke Charles, it was observed, were so il combined, that there were no less than three corps of the Austrian army that were not engaged in the battles of Abensberg, Eckmüll, and Ratisbon; although these French corps or armies were not at a greater distance than one day's march from the Austrian army. When the archduke found it necessary to cross to the left bank of the Danube by the bridge at Ratisbon, he should have withdrawn the garrison there and cut down the bridge. If he could not withstand the impetuosity of the French with his whole force, how could it be expected that it should be withstood by 10 or 12,000 troops, including the cavalry and others stationed without the city for covering it, as above related, and the garrison. In truth, the conduct of the archduke on this occasion, bore a strong resemblance to that of sir A. Wellesley, when he chose the option given him by Cuesta, of going or remaining at Talavera. The archduke, instead of attacking Davoust at Ratisbon while Buonaparte was in pursuit of fieldmarshal Hiller to Lintz and Vienna, and of obliging the French, by this diversion, to halt in Bavaria, (where Buonaparte had just the same reasons to defend the passage

of the Danube against the archduke, as the archduke had to defend the passage of the Danube against Buonaparte at Vienna) ran with the main Austrian army along the left bank of the Danube after Buonaparte to Vienna. After the defeat at Aspern and Essling, Buonaparte extended his right wing along the Danube into Hungary, exercising his troops by excursions, and thus preparing them for a fresh, general, and decisive engagement.

The same motives that induced Buonaparte to occupy the territory of his adversary to the right, should have induced the Austrians also to have extended their right, and made incursions into the north of Germany. They might have employed in this quarter, besides what regular troops could be spared, 30,000 militia of Bohemia. It should have been their object to place Germany in a state in which that large and populous country alone would have engrossed the whole attention of Buonaparte, namely, a state of insurrection. That the German nation was ripe for such an explosion was manifest from the insurrections that burst forth in so many parts of the Ger man empire, even divided as it was into so many hands. It may easily be conceived what the 80,000 Germans who were forced to fight the battles of Buonaparte against the Austrians could have done, if they had been encouraged by the pre sence of a great Austrian army. The king of Saxony, who like the rest of Buonaparte's vassal princes had been forced to take up arms against Austria, was stripped of a great part of his dominions. by the army sent under the archduke Fer dinand into Poland, and compelled

to

over.

to abandon his capital. The Austrians had not only obtained possession of Dresden and Leipsick, but even threatened the territories bestowed on Jerome by his brother Napoleon Buonaparte. A formidable insurrection had started up in Saxony, Westphalia, and HanAt the head of the insurgents appeared two men well fitted to unite and to animate them by their characters, their talents, and their influence, colonel Schill and the duke of Brunswick Oels, the only German prince (the Austrians in the present case of course excepted) who needed not to blush in the present struggle for his conduct. Colonel Schill had been raised for his eminent services to the rank of lieutenantcolonel by the king of Prussia, who gave him a regiment, with which he was doing duty at Berlin, when he formed the resolution of again trying his fortune against the common enemy of Germany. He was soon joined by a very considerable number of partizans, calculated in the German newspapers, not yet under the entire control of Buonaparte, at not less than 40,000 men: an exaggeration undoubted, but which exaggeration plainly indicated the wishes of the country. That the insurrections headed by colonel Schill and the duke of Brunswick were considered to be formidable by Buonaparte, appears from the circumstance that marshal Kellerman was sent to the Elbe with a force from 30 to 40,000 men to watch and counteract their movements. Colonel Schill, after traversing the whole of the north of Germany in different directions, and after defeating or perplexing the troops sent

against him, by the boldness and vigour of his attacks and the rapidity of his movements, was com pelled to take refuge in Stralsund, where the town being forced he was killed with 20 of his officers, in the act of a brave and glorious resistance to overwhelming numbers. Such of his officers as were taken prisoners were tried, condemned, and executed, as deserters from the service of the king of Prussia.-The duke of Brunswick distracted for some time the attention of the French, and arrested the progress of those troops which, but for him, would have reinforced the army of Buonaparte, but he was compelled, with his little corps, not exceeding 2000 men, to retreat to the shores of the German ocean, where he, with his troops, was received on board some British ships of war, and conveyed safely to England. The tide of war had been turned against the Austrians in Poland and Saxony; but it was stemmed and driven back by the Austrian general, Kinmaire, who defeated the French general Junot, and defeated the Saxons, Hollanders, and Westphalians, under the authority and orders of king Jerome.

In a word, the state of affairs in the north of Germany was such as to invite the archduke to turn his main force towards that quarter, where he might have gained as much territory as Buonaparte did to the south of Vienna, and where his power might have been consolidated by an easy co-operation with England. Ideas of this kind had been entertained by the emperor Francis, who had issued proclamations for rousing the exertions of the whole of the German nations; but after the

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