The Spirit of Austria -- Preparations to Renew the Conflict --
The French Army on the Lobau -- Napoleon's New Tactics -- The
First Day of Wagram -- Napoleon's Use of Artillery -- The Second
Day of Wagram -- The Victory Dearly Bought -- A French Panic --
Napoleon's Dilemma.

Charles, having apparently determined to let his enemy cross
unmolested, and to fight the decisive battle on his own ground, had
advanced meantime to still another line of hamlets--Strebersdorf,
Gerasdorf, Deutsch-Wagram. On the morning of the twenty-first
Napoleon's army was partly across the main stream, some of his troops
being yet on the Lobau, some entirely over on the left bank, but a
large portion still on the right bank. His cavalry was again sent to
clear the Marchfeld of the Austrian light horse, who were coursing
from one vantage-point to another; and he himself, in order to survey
the country, advanced to the first slight rise beyond the low meadows
which border the river. Near where he stood was the comfortable hamlet
of Aspern, composed like the others round about of one-story stone
houses and high stone barns, some of which are of great size, with
walls many feet thick. The farmsteads and churchyards are inclosed
with ordinary masonry walls. At a short distance to the eastward lay
Essling, which, like Aspern, had a few hundred inhabitants, and
farther still, but easily visible, the somewhat larger village of
Enzersdorf. The plain, though not rolling, is yet not perfectly flat,
and small watercourses traverse it at frequent intervals, their
direction marked by the trees growing on their banks. The most
important of these, the Russbach, was some miles north of where he
stood. Turning to Massena, after scanning the ground, he said: "I
shall refuse on the left, and advancing on the right, turn in the
Austrian front to the left." That is, he would leave his own left on
the river, turn the Austrian left, and rolling up their line, inclose
them with their rear to the Danube. His success would be their
annihilation, for they had no means of crossing in retreat.

To men of less daring this would have seemed a mad plan. A careful
general would, without hesitation, have seized and strongly garrisoned
Aspern, Essling, and Enzersdorf, in order that his own line of retreat
might be secure, and sufficient room be assured in which to deploy.
Pelet, in his memoirs, declares that the Emperor's orders were "to
cross the rive