The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-07-12

to sit down behind the walls of Vienna while he waited until he could call to his aid the troops that were then en- gagged in operations in both Germany and Italy, for that delay might give Charles an opportunity to assemble a still greater army. He determined, therefore, with characteristic prompt ness and daring, to bridge one of the broadest and swftest rivers in the world while it was yet swollen with the melted snow of the Alps, pass over it in the face of the enemy. and. with his back to that flood, give battle to forces superior to his own And if il is hazard ous to advance, it is disastrous to re- treat across river under fire.
 The mountainous banks of the upper Danube, rising almost sheer 300 and 1000 feet on either side, often shut 1t in a narrow bed But these cliff like walls give way as the river approaches Vienna and it's pent up waters burst upon and spread over great plain, the Marchfield. forming there remarkable tangle Of islands
 Seizing upon those islands as stepping stones, Napoleon. with his customary rapdity, threw bridges of boats from island to island a few miles below the city. and in hardly more than week after his capture of Vienna. he began to march his army across to the north ern banks< 1500 foot bridge led to the first island, while second bridge to a great island named Lobau was 800 feet in length. From Lobau to the mainland on the farther side there was con structed third bridge 800 feet long. By that series of pontoons the French passed out upon the marchfield.
 Although within sight of the Byzan- tine domes and towers of the great city of Vienna which has grown fx-< fA ff1nF than 2,O000O0 the historic plain re- mains today, with the exception or a street car line, the same simple, quiet country side that it was when the battle of the empires burst upon it and broke it's stiffness in the first decade of the noneteenth century The wide, open field lying in front of the desolate wooded island of Lobau is even now dedicated to military use but not to d combat of foot and horse, as in 1909. The big. ungainly hangar of the Austrian army rises in the meadow, and out of its barn-like door such chariots of war sail into the air as would have struck Ma poleon dumb with amazement. True, he himself dreamed momentariy of battles in the sky. and carried bal loon on his Egyptian expedition, but he did not try to make any practical use of it.
 Essling- Aspern
 Beyond that "Flusfeld" by the Dan- ube,, ard a mile or more from Lobau two little stone villages dot the plain the one on the right being Ess''ng and the one on the left Aspern. Napoleon ordered hs advancing forces to seize those hamiets and convert their stone cottages and stone walls into forts.
 The Archduke Charles stood on the crown of the Bisamherg, which lifts itself like a grandstand at the upper end of the Marchfield, when he saw his audacious antagonist thus cast the farnt'et at his feet. and he eagerly ac- cepted the bold challenge cf an arm, divided by a river. Only s0.0oo French had crcssed when Charles descended the plain in five columns and hurled s0.y : Austrians r"on the'r left and right wings at Aspern and Fssling.
 Napoleon stood in the brickyard a Fssiins while Marshal Iannes beat of the storm of Nattle wbi"h besat tha' town ard six tirnes ? the af -nrnoe As perm was tossed ba K and forth Ike g ball. When night fell the French and S