The Battle

by Patrick Rambaud

  Entrusting the prisoners to the cuirassiers, Lejeune followed Cuirassier Fayolle as he led his horse through the sheets of mist. At the foot of a hill they passed the immaculate battalions of the Young Guard's skirmishers, muskets slung over their shoulders, white gaiters, shakos topped with a long white and red plume, and then a division of the Army of Germany climbing in silence towards the plain. They heard the crack of the artillery train drivers' whips and saw their light blue jackets and the gunners' red woollen epaulettes as they hauled dozens of cannon towards the front. Finally they rode alongside the interminable columns of infantry under Tharreau and Claparede's command. Fayolle halted to give way to a stream of chasseurs a cheval going to join Bessieres's cavalry. The fog was thinning and the burnt houses on the outskirts of Essling were now clearly visible.

  'That's as far as I go, sir,' said Fayolle, without looking at Lejeune.

  'Thank you. This evening we'll be celebrating victory, I promise you that.'

  'Oh, that won't do me any good. I'm just one of the herd . . .'

  'Come now!'

  'When I see that village all smashed to pieces, I get a strange feeling.' 'Are you afraid''

  'It's not normal fear, sir. It's not really fear, I don't know what it is, it's like fate has got something bad in store.'

  'What did you do before thisr'

  'Nothing, or not very much. Rag-and-bone man. But whether it's a towing hook or a sabre, it's still dirtv work tor three sous. Look, there's Marshal Lannes coming out of Essling.'

  Fayolle wheeled his horse. Lannes was riding towards them with Generals Claparede, Saint-Hilaire, Tharreau and Curial.

  Standing firmly in his dusty boots in front of the tileworks which housed his headquarters staff, the Emperor crossed his arms. He smiled at the clearing fog. It felt as if he were controlling the elements, since this bad weather was like-having another ally. In the past he'd been able to use winter, rivers, mountain ranges and valleys to fall like lightning on his enemies. Today, thanks to the fog still veiling the countryside, his army would be able to burst out en masse against the Austrians on the slope between the villages. Lejeune had delivered Marshal Lannes's orders and the masses of infantry could be seen manoeuvring in squares on the sloping bank. The steel of the raised swords

  and bayonets, the golden braid of the generals' uniforms and the eagles on the regimental standards glinted in the rising sun. The drums rolled, each regiment's drummers answering those of the next, their patterns blending, merging and swelling into one continuous, rhythmical clap of thunder. The squadrons followed in the second file, formed up at the bottom of the shallow valleys: the blue lancers of Warsaw, hussars, Gardes du Corps of Saxony and of Naples, chasseurs of Westphalia. At the sight of this spectacle, Napoleon thought that there was no longer such a thing as troops from Baden, Gascony, Italy, Germany or Lorraine, only a single well-ordered force gathering itself to sweep away the Archduke's weakened troops in the fury of its onslaught.

  A short while before, a patrol of cuirassiers had brought in a group of Landwehr, with their strange hats festooned with leaves, whom they had taken prisoner. The Emperor had questioned them and General Rapp, an Alsatian who spoke their language, had translated. They had pointed out their units, named them and spoken of their tiredness, their weaknesses, their lack of conviction. Lannes, therefore, was going to launch twenty thousand infantrymen at a point in their front line between the Hohenzollern guard and the reserve cavalry commanded by Liechtenstein, that prince whom the Emperor would have liked as ambassador in Paris. Berthier passed on the latest information he'd received. Aspern's church had at last been captured and Massena was consolidating his position. Riding up from Lobau, Perigord confirmed that Davout's thirty thousand men had arrived and were marching towards Ebersdorf on the opposite bank of the Danube. They would cross the main bridge in an hour. Everything seemed to be following

  the plans of attack drawn up overnight. Bessieres's six thousand cavalry were going to swarm into the breach opened by Lannes, while Massena, Boudet and Davout simultaneously advanced from the villages to attack the enemy's flanks. We should have victory, the Emperor reckoned, before midday.

  Knowing the influence he had on his men, and the ways to exploit it, Napoleon decided to ride along the columns and show himself. The sight of him would rouse their spirits and redouble their courage. He had his most docile grey horse brought round, climbed up a little stepladder which had been unfolded beside it, and swung himself into the saddle.

  'Sire,' said Berthier, 'our troops are on the march. Why not rather stay here, where we can take in the full sweep of field?'

  'My job is to cast a spell over them! I must be everywhere. I hold those fellows by their heart-strings.'

  'Sire, for pity's sake, keep out of the range of the cannon!'

  'Do you hear cannon? I don't. They growled at dawn to wake us, but since then they've kept silent. Do you see that star?'

  'No, sire, I see no star.'

  'Up there, not far from the Great Bear . . .'

  'No, I assure you.'

  'Well then, as long as I'm the only one to see it, Berthier, I will carry on my own way and I will not suffer any remarks! Let's be off! I saw this star of mine when I set out for Italy with you. I saw it in Rgypt, at Marengo, at Austerlitz, at Friedland . . .'

  'Sire . . .'

  'You are getting on my nerves, Berthier, fussing around me like an old maid! If I were going to die today, I would know!'

  He rode off, loosely holding the reins and followed at a short distance by his officers. The Emperor held in his clenched fist a stone scarab which he had carried with him everywhere since Egypt, an amulet he'd picked up in a pharaoh's tomb. He felt fortune on his side. He knew that a battle was like a mass, that it demanded the same ceremony. The cheering of the troops going off to die took the place of canticles and gunpowder that of incense. He hastily made two signs of the cross, as Corsicans do when they take a important decision. An electrifying clamour greeted him as he reached the grenadiers of the Old Guard, to the rear and the left of the tileworks. Seeing him, General Dorsenne raised his tricorn and shouted, 'Present arms!' but his 'grumblers' waved their bearskins or shakos on the tips of their bayonets and bellowed the Emperor's name.

  In the centre of the troops deployed on the edge of the plain, Marshal Lannes was giving his generals their instructions. 'The weather is brightening, gentlemen. Go and take up your commands. Oudinot and his grenadiers on the left of the front line, Claparede and Tharreau in the centre and you, Saint-Hilaire, on the right, in front of Essling.'

  'Aren't we waiting for the Army of the Rhine?'

  'It's already here. Davout will arrive at any moment to support us.'

  Count Saint-Hilaire had the profile of a Roman coin, with short hair combed onto his forehead and a high,

  embroidered collar tightly buttoned up to his chin. Ramrod-straight in the saddle and firmly reining in his temperamental horse, he returned to his chasseurs, a cohort in freakish uniforms identifiable only by their green woollen epaulettes. He halted in front of the line of drummers and, noticing one who looked to him like a child, he questioned the drum-major, a colossus made even more imposing by his plumed bearskin whose sparkling uniform was thick with garlands and braid from his collar to the tops of his boots. 'How old is that boy?' 'Twelve, General.'

  'And what of it?' growled the young lad.

  'What of it? I think you have time to get yourself killed. Are you in such a hurry?'

  'I was at Eylau before and I beat the charge at Ratisbon and I didn't get a scratch.'

  'Neither did I,' laughed Saint-Hilaire, although he was lying, having forgotten the wound he'd received on the Pratzen plateau at Austerlitz.

  From his saddle he looked down at the little fellow and his drum, almost as large as he was, supported by a round leather apron.

  'Your name?'

  'Louison.'

  'Not your first name, your family name.' 'Everyone calls me Louison, sir.'

/>   'Well, then, take your drumsticks from your shoulder strap, Louison, and play as you did at Ratisbon!'

  The child obeyed. The drum-major raised his malacca cane with its silver pommel and the others began drumming in time with the little boy.

  'Quick march!' ordered Saint-Hilaire.

  'Quick march!' shouted General Tharreau in the distance to his men.

  'Quick march!' shouted Claparede.

  The army advanced into the green wheat. The fog was thinning into strips and the Austrians caught sight of Lannes's infantry as it was marching on them. The Marshal galloped forward and fell into a trot beside Saint-Hilaire. He raised his sword and the division charged, preceded by Louison who beat his drum like a madman, convinced that he too had something of a marshal about him.

  Surprised by the fierceness and suddenness of the attack, the Hohenzollern soldiers tried to retaliate but the chasseurs strode over their dead comrades and rushed forward with levelled bayonets. Under the onslaught, the Austrian front lines fell back and kept on falling back. Behind the throng of infantrymen, they could see the mouths of a hundred cannon aiming at them from the crest of the slope.

  In the cruellest heart of , Lannes shed all his doubts. He became nothing more than a fighter. He shouted himself hoarse, gesticulating among the men whom he kept on urging forward. Leading by example, he dazzled them with his bravery, he swept them along, he parried blows, he even had a decoration torn from his chest. One moment they saw him launch his highly strung horse against some gunners, knock them to the ground and sabreing them furiously. The next, he was ignoring the whistling bullets to charge an enemy square, pick up an intricately patterned yellow flag and run a lieutenant through with its gilt spike. Saint-Hilaire rode to his aid, burying his sword in the back of a white-uniformed grenadier. Side by side they flung themselves into the fray,

  terrifying the enemy and inflaming their soldiers to such a degree that the Austrians, who had at first retreated methodically, started to panic, and their fear showed in the disorder of their withdrawal and the breaches that opened up as they scattered over the trampled crops.

  'We are winning, Saint-Hilaire,' Lannes said, panting, and he gestured to a scene unfolding in the rear of the Austrian army. A hundred metres from them, officers were beating their runaways with sticks to make them return to the ranks.

  'The Emperor was right, Your Excellency,' replied Saint-Hilaire, still on his guard.

  'The Emperor was right,' repeated Lannes, looking all around him.

  And then they redoubled their murderous rage, taking lethal risks, killing and yet coming through unscathed, as if they were invulnerable. Suddenly Liechtenstein's cavalry burst out on their right with sabres drawn to relieve their routed compatriots, but the chasseurs met them with a violent hail of fire. Then the cuirassiers sent by Bessieres rode forward to engage and repulse them. For a long time the air was thick with the metallic clatter of cuirasses being struck by sabres. Like Eckmiihl! thought Lannes. Their cavalry's only good for covering their defeated infantry. My friend Pouzet, my brother, my master, would say that either they have too much cause to be afraid or too little to believe in! We'll be celebrating this in Vienna tonight! He thought of the beautiful Rosalie, of clean sheets, of a lavish supper, of being able to sleep without nightmares. He thought also of the Duchess of Montebello, who had stayed behind in France. He saw her face, her smile; he

  murmured, 'Ah! Louise-Antoinette . . .' Then he brandished his sword to continue the massacre.

  Major-General Berthier had sent Lejeune to tell Davout to speed up his march. The colonel had taken his orderly officer with him some of the way. 'Follow me onto the right bank and then cut along to Vienna to deliver this letter to Mile Krauss.'

  'Gladly, Colonel,' said the orderly officer, delighted to be given such a simple assignment so far from .

  He slipped the letter under his dolman and rode ahead of his officer onto the main bridge.

  'Not so fast, hothead!'

  Lejeune's voice was drowned out by the noise of the river. His orderly officer had too much of a head start to hear. He was riding at a brisk trot and the colonel repeatedly thought that the imbecile was going to topple over into the rushing waters, taking the horse and letter with him, because the Danube was lashing the long bridge and making it lurch from side to side. But no, he had almost reached the other bank. He turned in his saddle, raised his gloved hand to salute the colonel, who saluted back, and then dug both spurs into his horse's flanks to set off on the road to Vienna, past the troops of the Army of the Rhine. On the horizon, above the last, thin strips of mist, Lejeune caught sight of the tall spire of St Stephen's Cathedral and his spirits soared: at last his letter was going to reach Anna. He swung his gaze back to the right bank, along which the interminable columns of Davout's men, an artillery train and wagons of munitions and supplies were making their

  way. Sent on ahead as scouts, some chasseurs a cheval in dark green uniforms, with black fur caps as round as bowling balls pulled down over their foreheads, were stepping onto the bridge. With a squeeze of his knees, Lejeune urged his horse into a walk to go and meet them without skidding on the sodden and, in places, loose boards of the roadway. Since the day before, the pontoneers and sappers had organized themselves so as to check the progress of the beams, tree trunks and burning rafts the Austrians were still launching into the current. They patched up the bridge as soon as it was damaged and Lejeune paid no attention to this now routine work. He had almost reached the middle of the bridge when he was startled by shouting. Opposite him, the troopers had halted and were looking upstream.

  The yelling was coming from a team of carpenters who had climbed into one of the pontoons. They were nailing the boards and strengthening the mooring ropes. Lejeune dismounted and leant over. 'What is it?'

  'They're chucking houses at us now, to break up the bridge!'

  'Houses?'

  'That's right, Colonel!'

  'See for yourself,' said an officer of engineers with a thick moustache and a shirt open to the waist. He passed his field glass to Lejeune, pointing at a spot parallel to Aspern's blackened belfry. Lejeune scanned the Danube. He saw figures in white uniforms scurrying about a wooded islet. As he looked, they became clearer. The men were bustling around a large water mill whose wheels they had just removed. Others were forming a chain to carry large

  stones. The officer of engineers had climbed up onto the bridge beside Lejeune. 'Their plan is simple. Colonel." he explained. 'I've worked it out and it makes me shudder . . .' Tell me.'

  'They coated the mill with tar a while ago. and now thev're going to rope it onto two boats ballasted with stones. Do you see : '

  'Go on . . .'

  'They'll float the mill into the current and then bloody well set it alight. What can we do about that. eh : " 'Are you sure : ' 'I wish I wasn't!"

  'You saw them tarring this mill from here : "

  'Or course! It was pale wood before and now it's black! Besides, we've known tor hours what they're up to and thev've been sending down burning raits which we've had a hell or a job overturning. But this one's too big, we don't stand a chance.'

  'I hope you're mistaken,' said Lejeune.

  'Hoping doesn't cost a thing. Colonel. I'd love to be wrong, course I would!'

  He wasn't. Obsessed by this mill as tall as a three-storey house. Leieune studied the terrible manoeuvre. The Austri-ans were pushing their structure into the river: it began to float. Grenadiers accompanied it out into the middle ot the Danube in skirts to prevent it running aground on either bank. They were carrying torches wrapped in tow. which they lit with tinderboxes and threw at the base ot the incendiary. The mill caught rire in a second and was carried downstream bv the seething current.

  The helplessness of the French increased their panic: how were they to going to stop this hellish device? Trans-

  formed into a floating inferno, the mill was approaching the large bridge, picking up speed. The barriers the engineers had rigg
ed up to divert the burning rafts, with chains stretched across the river, wouldn't be strong enough to turn aside the colossal projectile, yet even so they all resumed their posts in the roped-together skiffs and hunched over the poles, boathooks and tree trunks pointed upstream like buffers. Each of them waited anxiously for the moment of impact and wondered if they would survive.

  Lejeune slapped the crupper of his horse to send it back to the island. The chasseurs had retreated helplessly to the right bank and Davout's columns of soldiers, horrified by the spectacle, had rested their muskets on the ground. The burning mill grew r larger as it came closer, listing from side to side in the choppy waters without toppling over. As it drew level with the skiffs and the chains, parts of its timber frame broke off and crashed into the water, sizzling and giving off a thick smoke, but the bulk of it stayed upright and increased its speed. When it crashed into the chains, it tore them loose and flung the skiffs and their crews against its blazing timbers. The skiffs burst into flames and were lost in the swirling waters. A soldier was catapulted against the burning tar, but no one could hear his hoarse screams and he, in turn, sank into the Danube. Now nothing impeded the burning mill's course. Some pontoneers, seeing there was no time fo climb onto the roadway and get away before the collision, dived into the river and the waves battered them against the hulls of the pontoons. Lejeune felt someone grab his arm. It was the moustachioed officer pulling him back and he ran towards the Lobau. Behind him he heard a huge crash and the bridge shuddered. The officer and Lejeune were thrown flat on their stomachs on

  the drenched boards. Sparks rained down around them, and were extinguished by the great waves thrown up by the impact. A number of sappers, their uniforms on fire, fell into the water and drowned. When he pulled himself up onto his elbows, Lejeune saw the extent of the catastrophe: the large bridge had broken open and its two halves were drifting away from the banks. The shattered mill was still burning and the mooring ropes, the beams and the roadway were catching fire.