heard, instead of the gentle lament of pity, the sigh of sympathy, the
jeering laugh, the glad, victorious shout of the pitiless foe.

Then Austrian generals, eagerly encouraging their men by their own example
of bravery, pressed forward at the head of their troops. The Archduke
Charles, though ill and suffering, had himself lifted upon his horse, and,
in the enthusiasm of the struggle, so completely forgot his sickness that
he grasped the standard of a wavering battalion, dashed forward with it,
and thereby induced the soldiers to rush once more, with eager shouts of
joy, upon the foe.

More than ten times the village of Aspern was taken by the French, more
than ten times it was recaptured by the Austrians; every step forward was
marked by both sides with heaps of corpses, rivers of blood. Every foot of
ground, every position conquered, however small, was the scene of furious
strife. For the church in Aspern, the churchyard, single houses, nay, even
single trees, bore evidence of the furious assault of the enemies upon each
other; whole battalions went with exulting shouts to death.

On account of this intense animosity on both sides, this mutual desire for
battle thus stimulated to the highest pitch, the victory on the first day
remained undecided and the gathering darkness found the foes almost in the
same position which they had occupied at the beginning of the conflict. The
Austrians were still in dense masses on the shore of the Danube; the French
still occupied the island of Lobau, and their three bridges conveyed them
across to the left bank of the Danube to meet the enemy.

But the second day, after the most terrible butchery, the most desperate
struggle, was to see the victory determined.