A VISIT TO ASPERN AND WAGRAM. 
603 
The corps of Davout and Eugene thus set free were advanced by 
forced marches to the Lobau, while Marmont, Bernadotte, Bessieres’s 
Cavalry, and the Guard pressed forward to the same rendezvous. 
On the 2nd of July the Emperor left Schonbrunn, where he had 
established his headquarters since the capture of Vienna, and rode to 
the Lobau, while on the afternoon of the same day the various reinforce¬ 
ments which he had set in motion began to make their appearance. 
Never had greater precision in such calculations been witnessed, and 
never had results better repaid accuracy and attention. From the 
afternoon of the 2nd till the evening of the 4th the ceaseless flow of 
armed men continued, every regiment found its particular position 
assigned to it, and its arrival provided for, and was soon instructed in 
the part it was to play in the well matured schemes which were soon to 
be unfolded to the world. That part of the stream which the Arch¬ 
duke Charles had imprudently left uncovered was simply to cease to 
exist as an obstacle, so much had the points of passage been mul¬ 
tiplied, and the Emperor had so thoroughly laid his plans that he 
calculated that his whole vast force of nearly two hundred thousand 
men might be thrown across during the course of a short sum¬ 
mer’s night. Should his anticipations prove correct he would fight 
with nine chances out of ten in his favour, for while he held such 
a magnificent force closely and firmly in his grasp, the Austrian army 
lay loosely scattered and widely separated from the reinforcements 
which might reach them from Hungary. Largely reinforced since 
Aspern, the Archduke Charles had command of one hundred and forty 
thousand men, while the Archduke John was advancing towards him, 
though still ten leagues distant, at Pressburg, with thirty-six thousand 
more. But of these, the corps of the Prince of Beuss was watching the 
Danube opposite to and above Vienna, Kollowrath was at Hagenbrunn, 
the reserve of Grenadiers at Gerasdorf, Klenau at Essling and in the 
entrenchments opposite to the bridge south of Aspern. Nordman was 
at Enzersdorf and along the Danube lower down. Bellegarde, Hohen- 
zollern, and Rosenberg were on the Wagram plateau. A glance at the 
map will enable anyone to realise how dangerously the line of resistance 
was therefore extended, while on the actual ground the flatness of the 
plain makes the distances appear even greater than they really are. 
The Austrians, during the lull which followed Aspern, had been no 
less industrious than the French, and while the batteries were reared 
apace in the Lobau, earthworks sprung up rapidly too along the space 
between Aspern and Essling, while the northern side of the island was 
flanked by formidable works and entrenchments in front of and below 
Enzersdorf. 
The better to conceal his designs and direct the enemy’s attention to 
the original point of passage, Napoleon seized the mill island between 
Aspern and Essling on the 2nd of July, and commenced to connect it 
with the southern shore. Fully persuaded that a genuine effort was 
being made to cross here, the Austrians directed a furious cannonade 
on this spot, and the presence of Napoleon himself helped to lend im¬ 
portance to what seemed likely to develop into a serious engagement. 
On the 3rd, the French seized the wood to the west of the point of 
passage before Aspern. 
