The Battle

by Patrick Rambaud

  'Lannes?'

  'His aide-de-camp will report to Your Majesty himself.'

  Berthier pointed at Captain Marbot, who was sitting on a caisson and unravelling strips of tow to dress a thigh wound which was staining his breeches with blood. 'Marbot!' the Emperor said. 'Only the Major-General's dispatch riders are entitled to wear red breeches!'

  'I am entitled to on one leg, sire.'

  'Your turn comes round often enough!'

  'Nothing serious, sire, just a flesh wound.'

  'Lannes?'

  'He is keeping up the fight and pulling Saint-Hilaire's men back in front of Essling.' 'And facing him?'

  'At first the Hungarian grenadiers struck terror into the youngest recruits, who had never seen such strapping and moustachioed fellows, but His Excellency gave them heart by shouting, "We're no worse than at Marengo, and the enemy's no better!"'

  The Emperor pulled a face and his blue eyes faded for a moment to grey: like a cat, he had the ability to change their colour according to his mood. Marengo? Lannes's example was a clumsy one. Of course Desaix's infantry had

  routed the grenadiers of General Zach, whom the Archduke was leading today, but it had been a very close-run thing. Kellerman, the son of the victor of Valmy, had followed up with a decisive cavalry charge, but what if General Ott's army corps had arrived in time? Napoleon thought of Davout, who had not arrived in time. What thread did victories hang by? A delay, a gust of wind, the whim of a river.

  'See for yourself, Colonel.'

  General Boudet pushed Lejeune into a wooden casemate cobbled together from wardrobe uprights and ammunition boxes. That section of Essling's fortifications commanded a panoramic view of the plain and, from here, the enemy's movements could be surveyed without undue risk. Lejeune looked out as he had been invited. 'We're soon going to have several regiments on our backs,' Boudet insisted wearily. 'The Archduke hasn't been able to break through Lannes's battalions and Bessieres's squadrons, so, with good reason, he is now turning to this village which he assumes to be less heavily defended. Hours of bombardment and musketry have brought us to our knees. The men are tired, they're hungry and they're starting to be afraid.'

  Lejeune could see the Hungarian regiments advancing towards Essling in order of attack. Vast waves of them were going to break against the barricades of furniture and stones which were too flimsy to hold for long. Given their numbers, they would swamp General Boudet's already decimated division. In the middle of the infantrymen and the black fur caps, the Archduke himself, flag in hand, was

  directing the floodtide as it began to roll towards the village. The soldiers standing mutely on sentry duty shivered or felt despair as they watched this deployment.

  'Take the news to His Majesty,' the general ordered Lejeune. 'You have seen, you have understood. If I don't get help very soon, we're all headed for disaster. Once they're in Essling, the Austrians will be able to reach the Danube. Rosenberg's cavalry is pawing the ground behind the wood. If the line is broken here, he'll be able to get through and cut off our rear. The whole army will be caught in a pincer movement.'

  'I'm on my way, General, but you?'

  'I'm evacuating the village.'

  'Where to?'

  'To the granary, back there a way, at the end of the avenue of elms. It has thick walls, dormer windows and reinforced sheet-metal doors. I've already had what's left of our munitions and powder taken there and we're going to try to hold out as long as possible. It's a fortress.'

  A shell trailing its fuse fell a few metres away from them, then another. A wall collapsed. A roof caught fire. General Boudet passed a hand over his lined face. 'Hurry, Lejeune, it's beginning.'

  The colonel remounted, but Boudet held him back. 'Tell His Majesty . . .'

  'Yes?'

  'What you have observed.'

  Lejeune spurred his horse into a full gallop and rode off down the main street. Boudet watched him depart, muttering, 'Tell His Majesty to go to hell. . .'

  He called his officers and ordered the drummers to beat an immediate retreat. At this sound, the voltigeurs left their

  posts, emerging from the church, the houses and from behind the barricades to gather together in a confused throng. The cannonade was getting heavier.

  Fifteen hundred men fell back to the granary and prepared to withstand a siege. Muskets pointed out of the dormer windows and windows half shielded by shutters. The doors were wedged open to accommodate the barrels of the cannon which had been hoisted into the ground-floor rooms that morning. A section of infantry took up positions nearby in grassy ditches, folds in the ground and behind the elms. The village was ablaze. The barricades must have already been shattered by roundshot.

  There wasn't long to wait. Barely half an hour had passed before the first white uniforms loomed up at the end of the avenue and in the neighbouring fields, running, bent double under their packs. Boudet recognized the regimental colours of Baron d'Aspre's grenadiers. He gave the order to fire. The guns played havoc with the first wave of attackers, but they were coming from all directions, in serried ranks, vast numbers of them, and there wasn't even time to wheel the flaming cannon inside to reload them. Musket fire sprayed from every window, behind the wire grilles and up on the roof; the Austrians were falling, but others were taking their places and running full tilt at the granary's solid walls. Boudet took a musket and laid out an officer in a grey cloak who was yelling as he raised his curved sabre. The man crumpled to the ground, but nothing stopped the soldiers in white, some of whom were working their way along the walls, carrying axes which they sank into the shutters and closed doors. Inside, the voltigeurs were coughing because of the smoke and the lack of air. Some were

  wounded by ricochets. They squatted down, reloaded, jumped up at the corner of a window, levelled their muskets and aimed blindly into the mass of men as if at a flock of starlings. They'd hit something, obviously, but, unable to see what, they'd crouch down once more, load, stand up, fire, duck down again and so on for an eternity.

  Eventually the fighting began to lose its edge. On the third floor, through the gap left by a sheet-metal shutter, Boudet saw intervals opening up between the waves of Austrian attacks. He ordered the ceasefire, and then everyone heard a familiar roll of drums. Boudet smiled, shook a young soldier who was as white as chalk, and roared in his Bordeaux accent, 'Lads! We're going to come through this yet!'

  Relieved, they opened the windows to peer out. They saw the green and red plumes of the fusiliers of the Young Guard. The uhlans threw down their lances and unsheathed their more wieldy sabres for hand-to-hand combat. was shifting back to the village. Boudet walked outside, holding a musket, as a plumed officer came out in front of the granary in the centre of a cavalcade. 'Monsieur, General Mouton and four battalions of the Imperial Guard are clearing Essling.'

  'Thank you.'

  Boudet made his way back to the ruined church on foot, stepping between pools of blood and corpses strewn across the road. Terrible screams rose from the cemetery. He asked what was happening. A lieutenant of the Guard replied that it was Hungarians having their throats cut among the tombs.

  'We can't afford to slow ourselves down with prisoners any more.'

  'How many of them are there?' 'Seven hundred, General.'

  On both sides the ammunition was running out. As the firing died down, the impression it gave of a general lull was deceptive, since the two armies clashed just as frequently and lethally with sabres, bayonets and lances, but the engagements had become less fierce. Sharpshooters fired to keep going and the attacks seemed to lack conviction, as if only in self-defence or to hold the front line. The grenadiers around Lannes had run out of cartridges. The marshal felt betrayed by the river in spate. He was walking with his friend Pouzet in a little hollow below the level of the plain, protected from Austrian cavalry by fences, which would break the legs of any horse that tried to jump them. Lannes unbuttoned his coat: the day was drawing on but it was still very hot. He wiped his forehead
with the back of his sleeve. 'How long before nightfall?'

  'Two or three hours,' answered Pouzet, consulting his fob watch.

  'We can't turn it around.' 'Nor can the Archduke.'

  'Our men are still dying, but for what? We have been fighting for thirty hours, Pouzet, and I've had enough of it! The noise of war sickens me.'

  'Sickens you? What, you haven't been wounded and yet you're moaning? Almost every single one of your officers has been put out of action. Marbot's a lame duck with that bullet in his thigh, Viry's taken one in his shoulder,

  Labedoyere's got a canister splinter in his foot, Watteville broke his arm falling off his horse . . .'

  'We stun them so as to lead them the more easily to their deaths. That bloody fellow Bonaparte will lead us all down that road!'

  'You've said that before. At Areola, wasn't it : '

  'This time I believe it . . .'

  'Tonight we'll cross the Danube by boat, and as long as we don't capsize we'll be in Vienna tomorrow/

  'Pouzet!' yelled the marshal. A bullet had struck Pouzet in the middle of the forehead. He fell over as if poleaxed. Some grenadiers ran up and saw that the general had not stood a chance. He had died instantly.

  W stray bullet,' said one of them.

  'Stray!' exclaimed the marshal and walked away from his friend's body.

  The stupidity of this battle made him quiver with rage. He set off towards the tileworks and then, seeing a ditch, lay down in the grass and stared at the sky. He stayed like that for a long time. Four soldiers carrying a dead officer in a greatcoat passed in front of him. The men stopped to catch their breath: the body was heavy and they had a way to go. They put their load down. A gust of wind blew open the coat and Lannes recognized Pouzet. He jumped to his feet. 'Is this sight going to hound me wherever I go?'

  One of the soldiers pulled the coat back over the general's face. Lannes unbuckled his sword and threw it to the ground.

  'Aaaaaagh!'

  When he had shouted until his voice cracked, he gasped for breath, walked away a few paces and sat down at the

  edge of a ditch, his legs crossed, his head in his hands so as not to see anything any more. The soldiers carried Pouzet off to the ambulances and the marshal was left on his own. Cannon could be heard firing again.

  A small, three-pound roundshot ricocheted and struck Lannes in the knees. He winced, tried to stand up but lost his balance and collapsed onto the grass, swearing, 'Damn it all!' Marbot, who wasn't far away, had seen the accident and limped over as fast as his thigh wound allowed.

  'Marbot! Help me stand!'

  The aide-de-camp lifted up the marshal but he fell instantly, his shattered knee unable to take his weight. Marbot gave a shout and grenadiers and cuirassiers came running. They managed to carry the marshal away, holding him under the arms and the waist, his dislocated legs hanging limply beneath him. The wounded man didn't complain but the colour was draining from his face. The stray roundshot had hit his left kneecap and lacerated the right leg crossed underneath it. After a few metres his bearers had to stop, as gently as possible, since even the slightest jolt caused him terrible pain. Marbot went on ahead to look for a cart, a stretcher - anything he could find. He caught up with the grenadiers carrying General Pouzet's body. 'Give me his coat, quick! He doesn't need it any more!'

  But when he returned to the marshal with the blood-soaked coat, Lannes recognized it and refused in a voice that was still firm, 'That's my friend's coat! Give him back his coat! Drag me along anyhow, I don't care!'

  'Go and break off some branches, some leaves,' ordered Marbot, 'make a stretcher!'

  The men went to cut branches from a clump of trees with their sabres and they made a rudimentary stretcher. Then Marshal Lannes was carried in a little more comfort past the tileworks to the Guard's ambulance, where Dr Larrey was in charge, assisted by two of his eminent colleagues, Yvan and Berthet. They dressed the marshal's right thigh first, while he requested, 'Larrey, have a look at Marbot's wound as well . . .'

  'Yes, Your Excellency.'

  'This lad has hardly been attended to. I'm worried about him.'

  The three doctors examined Marshal Lannes's wounds and drew aside to decide on their diagnosis and treatment. 'You can barely feel his pulse.'

  'The right knee joint hasn't been damaged, mind you.' 'But the left is shattered to the bone . . .' 'And the artery is severed.'

  'Gentlemen,' said Larrey, 'it's my opinion that the left leg should be amputated.'

  'In this heat?' protested Yvan. 'That makes no sense!'

  'Alas!' added Berthet. 'Our esteemed colleague is right. Personally, I would recommend the amputation of both legs as a precautionary measure.'

  'You're both mad!'

  'Let's amputate'/

  'You're mad! I know the marshal, his constitution is strong enough to pull through without amputation!'

  'We know the marshal as well, my dear colleague. Have you seen his eyes?'

  'What's wrong with them?'

  'They're sad. He's losing his strength.'

  "Gentlemen/ Dr Larrey said decisively, 'I must remind you that I am in charge of this ambulance and the decision, therefore, rests with me. We will amputate the left leg.'

  When Edmond de Perigord reached the Old Guard's encampment between the small bridge and the tileworks, he tound General Dorsenne reviewing his grenadiers for the umpteenth time. He wanted them to be immaculate, their uniforms pristine. With his expert eve. he noticed specks ot dust on a sleeve, a stain on a white cross-strap, an impertectly waxed moustache, a pair ot sagging gaiters. At barracks, he was liable to lift up their waistcoats to check that their shirts were clean. As tar as he was concerned, one went to war as it one was going to a ball, elegantly, and he was equally obsessive about his own uniform. He devoted as much care to his appearance as if his entire life was spent gliding through salons tull ot mirrors. He was a handsome man. so women said, with his black curls, his pale complexion and his delicate features. The Court gossiped about him, each courtier knowing by heart the details ot his love attair with the alluring Mme d'Orsay, the wife of the celebrated dandy, about whom Fouche. the Minister of Police, used to tell salacious stories. Perigord, although the younger man, cut a fine figure as well and he had often run into Dorsenne at the theatre or at concerts at the Tuileries. Unlike most military men. both ot them wore silk stockings, buckled shoes and even those extravagant uniforms which caught the attention ot duchesses as if they were the most natural thing in the world. Both ot them had real courage, but they loved to make a show

  of it; their posturing was taken for disdain and they grated on people's nerves.

  'General of the Guard, sir,' said Perigord, 'His Majesty requests you to advance into line.'

  'Splendid!' answered Dorsenne, pulling on his gloves.

  'You will present a wall of troops to the enemy across the breadth of the slope, to the right of Marshal Bessieres's cuirassiers.'

  'Very good! Consider us there.'

  With a lithe movement, Dorsenne mounted the horse which had been led forward for him, shouted an abrupt order and the Imperial Guard moved off in step, the band and eagles leading, as if they were on parade at the Carrousel. Perigord watched them admiringly and then headed back to Staff Headquarters to report to Berthier.

  The appearance of the Guard's bearskins on the crest of the slope was enough to make the Austrian cannon hesitate for a moment, but then they resumed firing. General Dorsenne deployed his grenadiers in three ranks. He wheeled his horse to make sure that they were standing as near elbow to elbow as possible and, in so doing, had unconcernedly turned his back on the Archduke's cannon and infantry. Whenever a roundshot knocked over one of his men, with arms crossed, he ordered, 'Close up!' and the grenadiers, kicking r.he body of their fallen comrade out of the way, closed their ranks.

  This happened twenty times, perhaps even a hundred, and each time they closed ranks. When one of the standard bearers had his head blown off by roundshot, a showe
r of gold coins fell to the ground - the fellow having decided to hide his savings in his stock - but no one dared bend down

  to pick up a handful for fear of being reprimanded. His closest neighbours glanced longingly, all the same, at the ground where the coins gleamed. Roundshots continued to whistle through the air and wreak havoc amongst the Guard.

  'Close up!'

  Irritated at not being able to outflank the French, the Archduke ordered that the bombardment be stepped up. Formed up in a square under the hail of roundshot, the drummers played beside the motionless grenadiers presenting their arms. Dozens of them had already keeled over into the wheat, and the remainder kept on closing ranks.

  Dorsenne eventually found that his defensive wall of men was spread too thin and drew his soldiers back to a single line facing the enemy. One incident alone came close to undoing this display of heroism designed to cow the Austrians. A number of fusiliers and chasseurs a pied formerly under Lannes's command were fleeing headlong across the plain before Rosenberg's infantry. They held up their wounded as they ran, many having tossed aside their knapsacks so that they could escape quicker. Reaching the bastion of the Guard, these survivors came between the grenadiers and the Austrian batteries, so some of the 'grumblers' grabbed them by the neck or the sleeve to drag them out of the way. Reassured by this protection, they fell to their knees, maddened with terror, and rolled around on the ground foaming at the mouth like epileptics. Learning of the battalions' rout, Bessieres hurried forward with two of his staff captains to re-form any of the men who had held onto their muskets. 'Where are your officers?'

  'On the plain, dead!'

  'Let's go and find their bodies! Load your weapons! Form up!'

  'Close up!' Dorsenne continued to order a hundred metres away.