Mounted since 4 a.m., Napoleon had summoned his senior officers to a conference held on horseback and canvassed their opinions. Lannes believed that there was nothing in front of the French positions except a rear guard of 600 to 800 men, while Bessieres said there was nothing for several miles. Berthier, as expected, agreed with Napoleon; only Mouton believed that Massena was right and that the Austrian army would soon attack. It was, in fact, forming in two lines on rising ground behind Gerasdorf, between the Bisamberg hill and the Russbach stream. At 9 a.m. the archduke ordered arms to be piled, and the men ate breakfast. At noon, with the sun blazing from a cloudless sky, the advance began.

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It resembled the outer edge of a huge fan, with Hiller and Heinrich von Bellegarde on the Austrian right, Hohenzollern in the center, Dedovich and Rosenberg on the left. Between Hohenzollern and Dedovich was the cavalry reserve, formed by more than 8,000 men in 72 squadrons. The total force of cavalry deployed comprised 54 squadrons of cuirassiers and dragoons and 93 squadrons of light cavalry and lancers, the infantry of 93 battalions, plus 17 battalions of grenadiers in their handsome peaked bearskins, with the ends of their moustaches waxed into horns. The artillery consisted of 18 batteries of brigade, 13 of position, and 11 of horsed, with a total of 288 guns.

The bands played Turkish music, and the men cheered and sang as they marched. Three of the five huge columns moved against Aspern; two more marched for Essling, supported by a mass of horse.

When General Molitor saw what was advancing on Aspern he immediately reinforced the garrison, which had previously consisted of a few companies of the 67th. His division of 12 battalions now braced itself to receive the 54 battalions and 43 squadrons of the Austrian right. At 3 p.m. the leading columns attacked-and the two days of carnage known as the Battle of Aspern-Essling began.

Meanwhile the Danube had continued to rise. An hour after the battle began, the Vienna bridge ruptured for the second time; thus Lannes' corps, Davout's corps, the Ist and 2nd heavy cavalry divisions and the artillery park were all unable to reach the left bank, where Massena and Lannes had only 27 battalions and 38 squadrons.

Austrian sources quote the strength of Charles' army as 75,000 men, but this figure implies a strength of 500 men per battalion and in earlier actions it had been at least double that. French historians prefer a total of 90,000 infantry and 12,000 to 15,000 horse, against which Massena and Lannes had barely 16,000 infantry and just over 6,000 cavalry at the beginning of the battle.

In the next four hours both Aspern and Essling were taken and retaken several times. Led by Bessieres, Espagne and Lasalle, the French cavalry charged repeatedly, now against the Austrian infantry, now against Prince John of Lichtenstein's cavalry, now against the enemy guns. In Aspern, said an Austrian account: 'The parties engaged each other in every street, every house and every barn; carts, ploughs and harrows had to be removed, during an interrupted fire, in order to get at the enemy; every wall was a hindrance to the attack, ers and a rampart for the defenders; the steeple, lofty trees, the garrets and the cellars had to be taken before either side could call itself master of the place, and yet the possession was ever of short duration, for no sooner had we taken a street or a house than the French gained another, forcing us to abandon the former. Many houses had been set on fire by the shells of both sides and lit up the whole country around:'

The Marchfeld was beginning to take on a hellish aspect. From the French side, Baron Louis-Francois Lejeune writes of thick black clouds of smoke through which the sun shone like a blood-red globe of fire, bathing the entire landscape in crimson. In Aspern the smoke was so dense that men almost suffocated in it, crossing bayonets with opponents they could not even see. By the time the Austrians had taken the churchyard, all Massena's horses had been killed. Sword in hand at the head of Molitor's grenadiers, Massena led them forward on foot and drove out the Austrians from the forward edge of the village, pursuing them for 12 or 14 yards beyond the houses, none of which had been loopholed.

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