Wolf Hunt (27 page)

The cavalry set off in a cacophony of hammering hoofs, whinnying and trumpet blasts. The 8th Hussars were at their head, riding in sparse groups. Relmyer was amongst the first. Pagin and Major Batichut were slightly ahead of him, hard on the heels of General Lasalle and his escort. The hussars were yelling, their faces whipped by the wind, brandishing their sabres, drunk with the excitement of their speed and the madness of war. They saw the enemy masses rapidly grow larger. In front of their eyes, regiments hastily formed square, lines of Austrian or Hungarian fusiliers took aim, battalions of the Landwehr or of Volunteers organised themselves as well as they could, artillerymen reloaded their cannon, uhlans, dressed all in green, before charging the assailants with their lances ... Relmyer bent low over his horse’s mane, his sabre in his hand. Pagin, sitting straight in his saddle, waved his sword, shouting, ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ The Austrians disappeared in the white smoke of their gunfire. A ball to the chest felled Pagin in the full flush of youth. Hussars were slipping out of their stirrups, collapsing with their mounts, shot to pieces by balls or canister shot ... The cavalry fought the Austrians. They sabred the artillerymen, massacred the isolated infantry, crushed the regiments ... Relmyer threw himself on a group of soldiers in grey coats. Suddenly he jumped. Here! Right here! He had just spotted him. It was him! The man he was hunting! Relmyer began to sabre with fury to clear a passage as far as his tormentor. But it seemed to him that the face kept moving, disappearing only to reappear elsewhere, like a reflection projected onto face after face in that crowd. Relmyer struck, slashed, struck ... Forms collapsed, soldiers threw themselves to the ground to avoid his blade, many fled and were killed by other hussars ...The formation finally broke up. It was a battalion of the Landwehr from Prague and not the Viennese Volunteers at all.

Finally the cavalry yielded to the superior number of their enemies and left at the gallop under a hail of Austrian bullets and round shot, taking away with them two cannon stolen from the enemy. During this time the Great Battery had finished positioning itself.

The one hundred and twelve cannon opened fire on Kolowrat’s III Corps, generating a thunderous roar loud enough to drive the soldiers mad. The round shot caused chaos amongst the Austrians, flattening their ranks, destroying the lines, cutting the columns to pieces, and exploding the artillery’s ammunition wagons ... Kolowrat, stopped in his tracks by this barrage of fire, pulled his troops back to put them out of reach of the canister. He placed all his cannon in position and ordered a counterbarrage of fire. Whilst the two artilleries fought a titanic duel, pulverising each other cannon for cannon, Massena’s IV Corps pursued its course under that hail of projectiles. To encourage his soldiers, Massena placed the musicians of one of the regiments at the head of the column to belt out military marches, the drum major, in his lace-trimmed coat, twirling his silver-topped cane ...

The attack on the Austrian centre was starting to turn in favour of the French. In spite of the hand-to-hand conflict and the counterattacks, Charles did not succeed in checking the French advance. Yet the French left was still in danger. To the north-west the din of

the Great Battery was gradually diminishing. Austrian fire was decimating the artillerymen. Napoleon decided to hide this weakness, otherwise the Archduke would have immediately ordered his troops to attack that part of the front. He therefore called on the volunteer soldiers in the ranks of his Guard, who arrived to mingle with the surviving gunners. They manoeuvred the guns in the midst of the bodies of the artillerymen they were replacing and whom they soon joined one after the other, before being replaced themselves. The Great Battery increased the rhythm of its firing and the Austrians did not realise how much the wing was breaking up under their rain of balls.

To the south-west the situation was veering towards disaster. The poor Boudet Division was still having to withdraw and now found itself level with Lobau. The advance of Klenau’s VI Corps seemed irresistible and the Austrians were nearly at the bridges, the only escape route available to the French.

Faced with the danger of the Austrians cutting off the bridges, Napoleon was forced to change his plans. Instead of keeping all his reserve troops to send in at the end against the Austrian centre, he took a large part of them — the Italian army of Prince Eugene - and directed it towards the north of the left wing. This change of plan had several consequences. It supported the left flank but also meant that not all French efforts were concentrated on the single objective of attacking the enemy centre. So the eventual breakthrough would not have the devastating results hoped for by the Emperor.

General Macdonald, serving under Prince Eugene, was assigned to lead this manoeuvre. Adhering to his convictions, he still wore his old republican general’s uniform, which Napoleon did not appreciate. He formed a square, each monumental side stretching for half a mile. The survivors of a large part of the Italian army, that is to say eight thousand men, stood closely packed together to form the edges, while Macdonald and his general staff were placed in the clear space in the centre. This square began to march in the direction of Kolowrat’s III Corps and the élite Liechtenstein Corps. Macdonald had chosen this unusual formation to protect himself

from the cavalry and because his troops included an enormous number of conscripts. They were too inexperienced to be able to advance in line or to change formation under fire. The formation was, however, inconvenient. It moved slowly and as the soldiers found themselves massed in a restricted space, Austrian fire power converged on them, causing carnage. As the giant square advanced, it shed, leaving behind a carpet of wounded and dead. It nevertheless succeeded in resisting attack by Scharzenberg’s dragoons, helped by the support of Nansouty’s four thousand cuirassiers and carabineers, and by the cavalry of the Guard, which launched repeated charges on the enemy flanks. The cavalry fell like rain under the canister shot and the bullets before being struck by Hesse-Hombourg’s cuirassiers. The mounted chasseurs of the Guard harried the enemy infantry, which held firm, while the Polish Light Horse attacked Scharzenberg’s uhlans. They seized the uhlans’ lances, their favourite weapon, and improvised as lancers. Part of the Great Battery also helped Macdonald with their fire. Finally the Austrians began to retreat but continued to fight.

In less than an hour, Macdonald’s giant square had ceased to exist. Only one thousand five hundred of its soldiers survived unhurt. But the Austrians, shaken and worried about their centre and left flank, did not succeed in exploiting this success.

Napoleon then launched his last reserves, including General Wrede’s Bavarians dressed up as if for a parade, the Young Guard and Marmot’s XI Corps, against the centre and the north of the Austrian right flank. He kept with him only two regiments of his Old Guard. Archduke Charles, in contrast, had already used all his available soldiers.

After two hours of marching interspersed with fighting, Massena’s column finally arrived to face the troops of Klenau’s VI Corps.

Three miles away, on the other side of the Danube, the Viennese were watching the battle perched on the roofs of houses, on clock towers, on ramparts and neighbouring hills. Thousands of plumes of smoke smothered the plain and the plateau of Wagram, and filled the sky. Half the world seemed to be burning. But the spectators could make out Klenau’s regiments, the closest to them,

and they cheered the line of white soldiers flowing along the river-bank and increasingly pushing back the astonishingly few blue troops. The flow of white was ravaging the back of the French army and playing a significant role in the outcome of the battle. Then Massena’s column appeared, sliding slowly through the fields of corn. To the Viennese it looked like a monster, a great dark blue Leviathan interspersed with the shimmering reflections of bayonets and sabres. Klenau’s forces were made up of white blotches like enormous snowflakes, which moved, changed shape, regrouped or were absorbed by a village. Looked at from that distance, the war seemed unreal. The blood did not reach as far as the spectators.

The Viennese encouraged their troops by waving their hats and white favours. Their cries could not be heard above the tumult of combat. Luise’s loyalties were divided. As much as she rejoiced at the advance of the Austrians she also felt they were tearing away a part of her. She did not know whether Relmyer and Margont were among the French marching on Aspern and Essling and if they might die at any minute as she watched from afar.

Massena’s giant column split into several. These branches divided up in their turn and burgeoned into regiments in battle order. Massena directed part of his forces to the west against Hohenfeld and Kottu I insky’s divisions. The Boudet Division, having withdrawn as far as the bridges, received Marulaz’s light cavalry as reinforcement. It was to retake Aspern. General Legrand meanwhile had been ordered to take Essling where Vincent’s division had retrenched. The cannon on Lobau would back up these assaults.

Margont’s company, a hundred soldiers strong, was arranged in a column three soldiers wide. The seventeen other companies of the 18th replicated this geometric pattern, making up blocks that together made one column of attack. The 26th Light Brigade, which was ahead of the 18th, was arranged in the same manner. This hammerhead was preparing to strike the village of Essling, swarming with Austrians.

‘What’s happening? Where are we? Are we losing or are we

winning?’ demanded a soldier, his face as white as a sheet. Piquebois stopped in front of him.

‘Well, I’ve just been discussing at length with the Emperor. He said: “My dear Piquebois, let me tell you my secret plans for the battle: tell our good soldiers to fire on anything that moves.’”

The ruins of Essling appeared intermittently through the smoke of the cannon fire. The facades of the houses were punctured by holes made by round shot, Austrians were keeping guard on the collapsed roofs ... There were also entrenchments. Lefine began to laugh. It was unbelievable. A month and a half earlier, he had almost been killed twice in the village of Aspern, not a mile from here. Now after six weeks of encounters, emotions and pleasure punctuated by some moments of fear, here he was again. It was a case of 
deja vu.
 As if the gods or Destiny had said to themselves: ‘What? They didn’t all die at the Battle of Essling, these little humans? We must correct that oversight: we’ll send them back there and this time we’ll kill every last one of them.’ Lefine was often ironic, but he was forced to admit that he had nothing on what life could offer in that respect.

With Saber, fear induced hatred. He was pacing up and down along the ranks of the company.

‘Remember how we marched under the bullets. It’s payback time: we’ll make them dance Napoleon-style!’

He went up to Margont, who was watching the crowd of Viennese. The smoky atmosphere made it appear that they belonged to another world, floating in the clouds. Saber pointed in their direction.

‘How I would love to have some cannon to point at them.

We would just need them to come a little closer...’

The next day he would repent of having uttered such a barbarous threat, but at that moment he meant what he said. War had changed him into a monster.

‘Why don’t you address our soldiers, to motivate them?’ Margont suggested, to divert his attention.

Saber liked nothing better. He launched into his tenth harangue of the day, evoking heroism and the prospect of promotion.

‘Our only limitation is ourselves!’ he cried.

Margont, who was barely listening, suddenly looked at his friend. But Saber had nothing more to say and concluded his speech. All his speeches ended in the same way: ‘What does our Emperor say about us?’ he bellowed.

As always, dozens of men replied enthusiastically: “‘Brave men of the 18th, I know you: the enemy will not be able to withstand your attack.”’

This phrase, endlessly repeated, bolstered them like a mantra.

The village of Essling marked the most advanced point of the march of the Austrian army into the back of the French army. It was the key position in the confrontation between Massena and Klenau. The 26th Light Division and the 18th of the Line began to make their move to the sound of beating drums.

‘Forwards! Forwards!’ cried the officers.

The soldiers advanced, packed so tightly one against the other that even had one of them wanted to flee they would not have been able to. The village of Essling came to life, as if the myriad

Austrians occupying it had been reanimated. Plumes and plumes of white smoke were released as artillery and their hordes of gunners stormed into action, like a volcano erupting. And at the same time, there were explosions on all sides, caused by the fury of the fire from the heavy artillery on the Isle of Lobau. Buildings were blown to smithereens but their smoking debris was immediately blanketed with new soldiers defending the village. That determination impressed the French - these Austrians were not the same breed as they had fought at Austerlitz. Those Austrians had rapidly thrown in the towel under pressure. Margont did not understand their resistance - he wanted to shout that they should ally themselves with Napoleon against their oppressive monarchies. But the Austrian bullets responded to his dreams of brotherhood by storming his ranks. The drums beat out the charge, one of the few sounds distinguishable in the uproar all around.

‘Long live the Emperor!’ yelled the infantry.

The 26th Light Infantry and the 18th of the Line swarmed into the village and its redoubts. Saber, with sabre aloft, speeded up to

overtake Margont and lead the company in a shock frontal attack on the Austrians barricading the main street. The two sides fired at point-blank range before throwing themselves at each other. Smoke drowned everything. Margont was suffocating in the blanket of fog and could recognise no one in the tumult of gesticulating figures. The flares of successive gunshots were like chaotic will-o’-the-wisps. Soldiers were firing so near to Margont that he could feel the burning wind of the guns on his face. Ghostly shadows hurried towards him, filling out and revealing themselves as enemy soldiers. A Hungarian tried to hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle. Margont dodged but, encumbered by the soldiers around him, could only defend himself by striking his assailant on the chin with the hilt of his sword. Pain forced the Hungarian to drop his weapon. The flow of French knocked him over and trampled on him. A dismounted hussar - one of Wallmoden’s cavalry - flung himself on Margont. The hussar was wounded all over and bleeding copiously, and there was a mad glint in his eye. His sabre was bent from having broken the skulls of Boudet's artillerymen.