A VISIT TO ASPERN AND WAG RAM. 
599 
The Austrians may well be proud that they dealt the first blow that at 
all vitally affected Napoleon’s power. Yet, at the same time, one must 
admit that, had the bridge held out a little longer and the whole corps 
of Davout gained the northern shore, the battle must have ended in a 
very different way. The Archduke’s attack was not pushed home on 
the first day as it might have been, nor was all the numerical pre¬ 
ponderance he possessed thrown into the scale. Time was wasted in 
enveloping both the French wings, and the strongest portions of their 
position were assailed in place of the centre where there was no cover 
to cling to. His attack lacked concentration and his blow force. At 
the same time it should be remembered that had his brother, the 
Archduke John, co-operated, as he was ordered to do, with Kollo wrath 
in his menace on the French rear at Lintz, a powerful diversion, which 
formed an essential portion of the Archduke’s scheme, would have been 
effected, and the subsequent events which led to Wagram would prob¬ 
ably never have taken place. But Napoleon cannot be absolved from 
the charge of rashness in undertaking an enterprise so brimful of peril 
as to thrust an army across a river relying only on the frail means of 
passage he possessed. Sudden floods, owing to the melting of the 
Alpine snows, are not uncommon, and are even to be expected in the 
Danube during the spring, and the misfortunes which occurred to the 
bridge should have been allowed for when the scheme of passage w r as 
drawn up. A General, in Napoleon’s advantageous position especially, 
should have left nothing to chance, nor exposed a fraction of his force 
to an unequal contest, in which, even if it escaped destruction, it must 
incur immense loss, at a vast distance from its resources, and at a time 
when it would need all its strength for a subsequent battle. Genius 
would have been more fitly displayed in placing the army in a position 
from which it needed no genius to extricate it. As it was, if no one 
but Napoleon could have retrieved Aspern, scarcely anyone but 
Napoleon would have brought Aspern about, and his star shone 
brighter at Eckmuhl, where he made amends for the errors of others 
than in the Lobau where he redeemed his own. That genius was 
necessary to restore matters and did do so, is alike his censure and his 
praise. 
The place where Napoleon had determined to remain was by nature 
exactly intended for the site of an entrenched camp, the arm of the 
Danube which surrounds it on the north and east forming a natural wet 
ditch from 30 to 40 yards wide, and securing it against any sudden 
assault. Wide grassy lawns are interspersed plentifully with thickets 
and forest trees, and give the place the general appearance of a noble¬ 
man’s park in England, a resemblance which is heightened by the 
herds of deer and plentiful game which one everywhere disturbs there 
now. The island is about 2| miles long by 2 miles broad, and provided 
ample space, therefore, for the encampment of even the vast numbers 
Napoleon ultimately assembled. The neighbourhood of Vienna ensured 
a supply of food and hospital comforts, while the Austrian Arsenal 
furnished an almost inexhaustible storehouse from which to draw guns, 
ammunition, and other war material. It is clear that the island was 
not so much overgrown 80 years ago as it is now, for many of the trees 
