22 May 1809, morning
Lannes attacks the centre
During the night Lannes’s corps crosses the bridge, Louis-Vincent Saint-Hilaire’s division and Nicolas Oudinot’s grenadiers, with more cavalry and artillery. By 4 am Napoleon has between 62,000 and 71,000 men on the left bank by different counts, against more than 100,000 Austrians. Davout’s III Corps is still on the south bank, waiting for its turn on the bridges.
Fighting at Aspern resumes before dawn in thick mist, and at about 7 am Masséna retakes the whole village. Boudet holds Essling against Rosenberg’s renewed attacks.
Shortly after 7 am Lannes advances on the Austrian centre in echelon, Saint-Hilaire leading on the right and Oudinot’s divisions under Jean Tharreau and Michel Claparède following in the centre and on the left. Under heavy fire the Austrian front wavers, until Charles brings up his reserve grenadiers and rallies the Zach infantry regiment in person. The French are halted, and Bessières’s cavalry charges are driven back. Between 8 and 9 am the bridge to the Lobau breaks again, and Napoleon orders a gradual withdrawal to the line of the two villages.
Archduke Charles with the colour of the Zach regiment at Aspern, painting by Johann Peter KrafftWikimedia Commons, Johann Peter Krafft, Public domain (Johann Peter Krafft 003.jpg)
Sources
- John H. Gill, 1809: Thunder on the Danube, volume II: The Fall of Vienna and the Battle of Aspern (2009).
- Gunther E. Rothenberg, Napoleon’s Great Adversary: Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792–1814 (1995).
- Ian Castle, Aspern and Wagram 1809 (1990).
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