assena, Davout, and Marmont following
with the van of Napoleon's army. Several skirmishes took place between
portions of the Austrian rear and various corps of the French van, in
which the latter were decidedly checked. Marmont was obliged to assume
the defensive under the walls of Znaim. The Austrian losses at the
battle of Wagram were computed at twenty-four thousand, including
seven hundred and fifty-three officers. Those of the French were
certainly not less, if we include seven thousand who were taken
prisoners. They lost, moreover, twelve standards and eleven guns.

In the early hours of July sixth, Charles had despatched an adjutant
to Presburg with orders to the Archduke John to march at once and
attack the enemy's rear. The story at first accepted was that the
messenger found the bridges over the river March destroyed, and
arrived six hours too late for his errand to be successful. There
were, however, many at the time who attributed criminal negligence to
John, among them his own brother, the commander-in-chief. For a time,
by means of court intrigue and persistent misrepresentation, the blame
was put, not on John, but on Charles, but eventually the former was
found guilty and banished to Styria. Had the latter's plan succeeded,
Napoleon would have had a different task--a task so difficult that the
issue of the battle might well have been doubtful, if not disastrous.
As it was, the victory was dearly bought, and the Austrians were not
demoralized.

On the other hand, in the very hour of victory the French, who had
halted to take breath, were thrown into a panic by the appearance of a
few Austrian pickets from the Archduke John's army, then coming up,
and thousands of the victorious soldiers fled in wild demoralization
toward the Danube. John, whose appearance but a short time earlier
would have turned his brother's defeat into victory, drew back his
thirteen thousand men in good order to guard Hungary. As Napoleon
himself had been in a dangerous condition of over-confidence before
Aspern, so now his soldiery were clearly in the same plight.
Self-conceit had made them unreliable. Bernadotte's corps had
displayed something very much like cowardice and mutiny at the last.
The army still fought in the main like the perfect machine it was, but
the individual men had lost their stern virtue. They believed that
victory, plunder, and self-indulgence were the fair compensations of
their toils. Ungirt and freed from t