The Battle

by Patrick Rambaud

  The Emperor swept his soup and glass off the table with his sleeve and stood up in a fury. 'Who in the devil's name has burdened me with such jackasses' Shot for desertion in the face of the enemy: that's what the ponton-eers deserve!'

  'Explain yourself!' Berthier asked his aide-de-camp.

  'Well,' said Perigord, catching his breath, 'there was a sudden spate, the river rose very fast. . .'

  'Wasn't that taken into account.5 ' roared the Emperor.

  'It was, Your Majesty, but what wasn't was that the Austrians stationed a long way upstream at a bend in the river would launch boats full of stones at the bridge: they smashed the posts and broke the mooring ropes . . .'

  'Incapaci! Incompetents!'

  The Emperor paced up and down, shouting. He caught Lejeune by his fur dolman. 'You were in the engineers, go and rebuild this bridge for me!'

  The officers summed up the situation: no passable bridge, no communication with the right bank, the supplies, the munitions, the troops arriving from Vienna or Davout's army. Lejeune saluted, mounted the first horse to hand - Perigord's, who didn't dare protest in the emergency -and disappeared, digging his spurs into his mount s ribs. Enraged, the Emperor glared round at his entourage and said in an icy voice, 'Why are you standing there rooted to the spot like buckets of shit' This contretemps changes nothing! Return to your posts, massa di cretini Good foi nothings!'

  Then to Berthier alone - suddenly milder tempered, as if his anger had been feigned - he said, if the Archduke finds out about this mishap, he will want to take advantage. He will speed up the advance and attack us

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  in force, presuming that we're now trapped on the left bank.'

  'We will meet him, sire.' 'Idiots! The Danube is with us!'

  'Let's hope it can hear you, sire,' the major-general muttered.

  'Perigord!' called the Emperor. 'Inform the Duke of Rivoli that the Austrians may suddenly appear along the bend of the Danube which ends at Aspern.'

  Perigord also borrowed the first horse he could find, which happened to be fresher than his own, and set off to deliver the order to Marshal Massena. The Emperor watched him riding away through the brushwood, smiled and murmured to Berthier, 'If they're launching boats against the bridge, Alexandre, then they must already have taken up position by the Danube.'

  'A vanguard at least . . .'

  'No! Come here.'

  Napoleon pushed his major-general towards the table, turned over the map and sketched a rough diagram on the back in pencil:

  Berthier watched and listened.

  'Charles is sending troops down into the plain, they're arrow A . . .'

  'Who are the only ones we can see.'

  'Exactly! Meanwhile, from the Bisamberg - there, on the top left of my map - where we know the Austrians have been encamped for several days, he sends another body of men, probably more sizeable and with cannon, to march along the Danube - they are arrow B. They plan to come out behind Aspern, attack us by surprise while we're expecting them somewhere else, swarm in behind our lines and encircle us.'

  The Emperor continued sketching until his map became an illegible scribble, but Berthier had understood.

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  As he galloped round a copse, Lejeune recognized the plumes of Molitor's voltigeurs; he didn't want to delay, first because there was no time to waste and secondly because he had no desire, by a wretched stroke of luck, to come face to face with Private Paradis, who had had such hopes of remaining with the headquarters staff, far away from the firing line. How could he explain to him that Berthier had been very firm. 'No favouritism, Lejeune: everyone must go to their post. Send your rabbit catcher back to his regiment. I don'tf want anyone setting a bad e xample!' Lejeune hadn't known what to say. At this stage of events, what the devil use could a scout be? Gunners and marksmen were what was needed. Obedience, however, did not preclude remorse. But anyway, it would all be swept away by the fighting.

  The colonel walked his horse across the small bridge as

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  the swirling water beat against its sides: the Danube had swollen greatly, the planks were unsteady and his horse trod in puddles of water. On the island, he was able to pick up speed and quickly saw the catastrophe on the other side. The large pontoon bridge was gaping open towards the middle of its span, and fierce waves rolled into the breach, continuing to tear its beams loose. Stretched too tight, the mooring ropes were snapping, one after another, and a section of the bridge was on the verge of floating away, despite the efforts of the bridging troops and the pon-toneers. With poles, boathooks, axes and pickaxe handles, they were trying to repel the boats loaded with rubble which the Austrians were launching into the current. One of these craft had run aground on the bank of the island of Lobau and Lejeune inspected it. It was a small, triangular, steep-sided boat, filled with large stones: because of their shape, they span around as it floated downstream and, whatever the angle of impact, collided at high speed with the row of boats chained together which kept the long bridge afloat. What folly, Lejeune thought, throwing a pontoon bridge in haste over a river in spate! Now the enemy were taking advantage, and with good reason: nothing could have been simpler. He cursed the rushed, slipshod workmanship, not that he would have dared do so in anybody's presence. The sensible thing would have been to wait for the Danube to subside and regain its natural course — two weeks, a month at the very most — and then establish a solid bridge on piles driven into the riverbed. This speculation was useless. What he had to do was direct the repairs and find a way to deflect onto the island the crafts and tree trunks which the Austrians were sending downstream to destroy the fragile bridge.

  With a certain weariness, Lejeune took off those accoutrements to his uniform which might get in his way - his sabre, shako and sabretache - and dropped them on the grass. He caught sight of an officer of engineers trying to fend off one of the terrible triangular boats. He and ten other men were holding a thick beam swung out into the river as a buffer, and bracing themselves for the impact. The fast-moving craft hurtled into the improvised battering ram, the men lost their grip, four of them flew into the turbulent waters, but they managed to hang on to the posts and moored pontoons, shouting and swallowing mouthfuls of the muddy water; the projectile veered off course and overturned against the island.

  'Captain!'

  The officer of engineers, his uniform drenched, his moustache dripping with water, took the hand Lejeune offered him and hauled himself up onto the bridge. He didn't ask any questions and stood ready for the orders oi the headquarters staff's envoy in the red trousers. This was a relief to Lejeune.

  'Captain, how many of the boats supporting the bridge have been swept away?'

  'About ten, Colonel, and there's no chance of coming up with any others.'

  'I know that. Let's make rafts.'

  'Gad! That'll tjfke hours!'

  'Do you have another solution?'

  'No.'

  'Round up your men.' 'All of them?'

  'All of them. They have to fell the trees, strip them, collect them together, nail them with planks, i.ish them

  whatever you think best. But we have to have rafts as soon as possible, and as many of them as boats have been sunk.' 'Agreed.'

  'Look, not all the planks of the roadway have been lost: I can see some from here that have been washed onto the island. Have someone go and fetch them.'

  'There aren't that many . . .'

  'It's a start! We must re-establish the link with the right bank at all costs and we must do so quickly!' 'Quickly, quickly, Colonel.'

  'Captain,' said Lejeune, remaining calm, 'the Austrians are going to attack at any moment. I hope that at Ebersdorf, over there, they know that and are taking appropriate action.'

  Molitor's soldiers were crowded into a long sunken lane which ran from the rear of Aspern to one of the Danube's many oxbows. They had loaded their muskets and were waiting, as if in a trench, under cover of the lane's natural parapet,
which was overgrown with brushwood. They thought that they were in reserve, since the Austrians were marching across the plain towards the villages and so would encounter the cavalry or Massena's cannon first. Anxious, but at least certain that they wouldn't have to endure the first onslaught, some were listening to Sergeant-Major Roussillon's stories to distract themselves, despite knowing all of them by heart. He had fought everywhere and the fact that he had survived filled him with pride: so, for the umpteenth time, he was telling the story of his wounds and horrors he'd seen that would make one's hair stand on end. How, for example, in Cairo, a single executioner had decapitated two thousand Turkish rebels in five hours

  without spraining his wrist. Vincent Paradis had moved away from the group. He dreaded the thought that this could be the last day of his life and, to clear his mind of everything except the immediate present, he was teasing a large tortoise with a reed; curled up in its shell, on its back in the mud, it struggled as he tickled it.

  'That little fellow will never manage to right himself,' commented another voltigeur. 'His legs are too short, like ours. Now if I had longer legs and they didn't shake so much, I swear I'd run for it before you could snap your fingers!'

  'Where to, Rondeletr'

  'To bury myself in a hole, of course, until all this is over. Right now, I envy moles, I can tell you that.' 'Quiet...'

  Paradis strained his ears. 'Do you hear that, Rondeletr'

  'I can hear the sergeant-major's tall stories, but that doesn't mean I'm listening.' 'The birds . . .' 'What about the birds?' 'They've stopped singing.'

  Voltigeur Rondelet couldn't care in the slightest. 1 h chewed a biscuit that was so dry it nearly cracked his teeth and, with his mouth full, started singing,

  'Long live Napoleon He keeps us in Roast chicken

  Bread and wine by the gall-e-on Long live Napoleon.'

  Paradis pulled himself up to the edge of the sunken lane, which screened his company. He saw a yellow flag

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  fluttering above a hill, then black iron helmets, pointed bayonets glinting in the sun and, soon, a column of white uniforms, then a second, then a third: no drums, not a sound. Paradis slid down the bank on his backside and managed to utter the words, 'They're coming!'

  'This is it, they're coming our way,' repeated Voltigeur Rondelet to his neighbour, who passed it on and, whispered from one young soldier to the next, the news sped to Aspern.

  They formed up into about ten ranks and stood ready to climb up into the meadows and hills to face the danger. Without changing their tone, their voices firm, the officers ordered the first three ranks to assume the firing position. Roughly five hundred voltigeurs scaled the bank of earth and loose stones in silence. Going down on one knee in the grass, behind the bushes lining their entrenchment, they levelled their muskets and took aim at the hills. Behind them, their comrades prepared to take their places as soon as they'd fired, so as to give them time to reload and ensure a continuous field of fire.

  'No impatience now!' grumbled Sergeant-Major Rous-sillon. 'Wait until they get close . . .'

  The voltigeurs lowered their muskets.

  'When they reach that little stunted tree: do you see the one.' At five hundred metres. Then you can let them have it!'

  To their right, halfway towards the village, they could see the shakos of another company under a barn and behind the low walls of a large, stone farm. Molitor had positioned his troops so as to take advantage of every irregularity in the ground, even the banks of dried mud which the peasants used as flood barriers. Paradis suddenly felt very

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  calm. He became absorbed in watching the columns -white, orderly, slow-moving, almost immaterial - which were marching straight at him one moment and then vanishing behind a rise the next, as if thev had been swallowed up. The rugged ground near the banks of the Danube distorted the perspective and those damned Austri-ans knew it.

  It was one o'clock, and hot, when isolated gunshots rang out near the farm. Tense, their muskets pointing at the ground, the soldiers stared fixedly at the shimmering horizon and the nearest hill, from behind which, at any second, the Archduke's skirmishers could emerge. Where were they, for God's sake.'

  They suddenly appeared in the tall grass, formed up in perfect order in diagonal lines, with their long, grey-gaiters and their spotless matching uniforms, levelling their bayonets in a single movement as if they were on parade. Paradis glanced down at his breeches, which had been torn by brambles that morning; Rondelet was wearing a civilian's jacket and a cross-belt whitened with chalk. Their officer had lost his hat and his face was flecked with two days' growth of stubble. In front of them, the Austrians were still advancing, and more of them kept on coming; how many of them could there be?

  'There's ten times more of them than us,' muttered Rondelet.

  'Don't get bloody carried away,' Paradis replied, so as not to lose his nerve.

  The enemy were on the verge of passing the stunted tree: everyone took aim, their fingers trembling on the trigger.

  'Fire!' commanded the officer, who had drawn his sabre and held the empty scabbard in his left hand.

  Paradis fired and the recoil was so violent he thought he'd wrenched his shoulder. He ducked down to let his comrades in the second rank take his place. Aiming straight ahead, at chest height, he had fired blindly and had no idea if he'd hit anything.

  Tire!'

  He heard the next volley, but couldn't see anything from the sunken lane where he had taken cover to reload. He took a cartridge, tore it open with his teeth, poured the powder in the hot barrel, tamped it down with the ramrod and slid in the ball: each time the whole operation took three minutes and it felt like a respite. Above his head, the voltigeurs were still firing. And the Austrians? Paradis hadn't seen any wounded yet. When it was his turn to climb back up, the smoke had cleared and the Austrians had again disappeared behind the hills.

  Rather than vanishing, as Vincent Paradis convinced himself they were doing, the Austrians were forming up according to a carefully designed plan. What the infantryman was not in a position to know as he fired at random in the field, Marshal Massena was discovering for himself from Aspern's belfry. Brushing past the bronze bell, he moved from one window to the next, and, looking through the tall, narrow, ogival slits, he was beginning to make sense of the enemy's manoeuvre. Three vast, disciplined masses of men were enveloping the village, their lines stretching from the swampy ground by the bend of the Danube to the middle of the Marchfeld plain, and perhaps even on past Essling at the other end of the front line. Here

  and there regiments were opening up to let through dozens of horse-drawn cannon and caissons, the gunners astride the cannon barrels as if on horseback. Pale and silent, Massena struck the walls with the whip hanging from his right wrist; he cursed himself for not having loopholed the buildings or had trenches dug to delay the remorseless Austrian advance. He realized that the Archduke was planning to encircle the villages, destroy the bridges, hem in the thirty thousand soldiers who had already crossed onto the left bank, deprive them of reinforcements - and then annihilate them with an army three times their size. From now on, Massena sensed, everything depended on what he decided. Descending the staircase of the clocktower with Sainte-Croix, his aide-de-camp, following, he shouted, 'They're going to besiege us and pound us to dust!' 'Most likely,' said Sainte-Croix.

  'Without a shadow of a doubt! You've got two eyes, haven't your What would you do in a situation like this : 'I'd protect the bridges, first and foremost, Your Grace. 'That's not enough! What else?' 'Well . . .'

  'Did you see any bears in Bavaria?' 'Bears? Only in the distance.'

  'When a bear's wounded, does he lick himself and go to sleep?'

  'I don't know, Your Grace . .

  'He attacks! And we will do the same! Our rascals are going to punch holes through their pretty battalions with their fine uniforms! Take them by surprise! Throw them into disarray! We're going to cut them to pieces, my little S
ainte-Croix!'

  In the sacristy, Massena picked up a magnificent stole embroidered with gold thread and threw it over his shoulders, saying, 'These sort of things are worth a fortune, Sainte-Croix; it would be stupid just to trample on this priest's scarf! Do you believe in churches, eh, with a name as suspect as yours?'

  'I believe in you, Your Grace.'

  'Good answer,' said Massena, and he burst out laughing.

  He was going to take the initiative and attack and it made him supremely happy. Under the elms in the square, he said to the officers gathered to await his orders, 'We have a two-kilometre-long front line to hold until our troops arrive from the right bank. We are facing an army three times our size, with at least two hundred cannon which they are putting in position now. It is up to us to launch the first assault!'

  'The main bridge hasn't been repaired yet. . .'

  'Precisely! There's no time to waste.'

  Massena leapt on a horse which one of his equerries held out to him by the bridle, put on his white gloves, gave his mount a flick of his whip and rode over to the gunners whom he had deployed on the periphery of Aspern, under cover of trees or at the corners of buildings. Everything was ready. The crews were standing behind some twenty loaded guns. At Massena's signal, they lit the fuses with their linstocks. In clear view on the plain, the VI Austrian Army Corps commanded by Baron Hiller - a skilful, if old, officer - were standing at ease in close order, their ranks densely packed.

  'Aim just above the wheat!' the marshal ordered.

  He snatched a linstock from a gunner and, without dismounting, his eyes blazing fiercely, he gave his instruc-

  tions. 'When I light the charge of the first cannon, wait for one breath and then fire number four cannon, followed by numbers seven, ten, thirteen, and then numbers two, five, nine, and so on. I want a line of fire! Those dogs are within our grasp!'