585 
A VISIT TO ASPERN AND VVAGRAM. 
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PASSAGE OF THE DANUBE 
BY NAPOLEON IN 1809. 
BY 
MAJOR E. S. MAY, R.A. 
Natural obstacles, apparently insurmountable or impassable, have more 
than once in history failed to set a limit to the enterprises of genius. 
The mighty Rhine has repeatedly been crossed, the deep Danube and 
the lofty Alps have alike proved unreliable bulwarks, while even the 
sea, we proudly call inviolate, has failed in past ages to keep invasion 
from our shores. Yet such natural frontiers as broad rivers and 
mountain chains afford are those that most impress popular imagination, 
and are regarded with an almost superstitious reverence by the bulk 
of nations. Our confidence, from the time English history proper began, 
has happily been justified, but, since experience has proved that there 
is no obstacle which genius may not with good fortune surmount, and 
since in India we rely on high mountains, and, in the second line, on a vast 
river, the tale of how a General of more than average capacity was out¬ 
witted, and a mighty barrier passed with comparatively little sacrifice, 
should still interest us. When in Austria, two years ago, I spent 
several days in walking over the two great battle-fields which lie in 
the neighbourhood of the capital, and occupied my leisure hours in 
writing the following account of the great events of 1809, which the 
pressure of other work has prevented me from completely finishing 
until now. 
An hour’s journey in a steam tramway from Vienna brings one to a 
trim quiet little village straggling along one principal street composed 
of dainty white cottages with neat gardens in their front. At one end 
a small church with a taper spire stands across and closes the vista 
between the houses. A great stone lion in the churchyard, writhing 
with the pain of a sword thrust through his side, is the only object 
which strikes you as unusual. No monuments or obelisks, such as one 
sees at Gravelotte or Waterloo, are there. No ruins or loopholes or 
parapets remind you of war or victories. Yet it is at Aspern that we 
are, and the lion represents the power of the great Napoleon, who first 
was here taught to feel the keen mortification of defeat. The level 
plain, now brown with the freshly turned soil, stretching away to the 
north is the Marchfeld, where the House of Hapburg has more than 
once had to fight for its supremacy, and wo arc standing on a spot 
12 . VOL. XX. 76 
