Battle of Aspern-Essling

The battle of Aspern-Essling, fought on 21st-22nd May 1809 on the north bank of the Danube near Vienna, was the first major defeat Napoleon commanded in person. After the fall of Vienna he threw pontoon bridges across the flooded river and pushed part of his army onto the Marchfeld plain, where Archduke Charles attacked with the main Austrian army of more than one hundred thousand. Fierce fighting raged around the river villages of Aspern and Essling while Austrian batteries enfiladed the fragile bridges; a floating obstacle tore the crossings apart, and fresh French troops could not feed over. The French lost about twenty-three thousand men, among them Marshal Lannes, mortally wounded by a cannonball, and were pressed back onto the island of Lobau. Charles held the field; six weeks later the two armies would meet again at Wagram. Napoleon left the field telling his officers that he had tried fate twice in two days and found it heavier against him than usual.