river. They’ve beaten us once. They’ll be thinking they can do it again.’
‘Then they’re wrong,’ Napoleon replied, and jerked his thumb at Massйna. ‘We’ve fought ’em before. Trust me, the Austrians can be beaten, and they will be beaten.’
The sergeant still seemed doubtful. ‘Well, I hope you’re right. God knows we need to beat them and end this war. Let’s hope this time we can have a real peace at the end of it all. Perhaps we’ll live to see the day when the Emperor has finally had his fill of war. All I want is peace, and the chance to go home to my family.’
‘Peace, and the chance to go home?’ Napoleon shrugged. ‘I’m sure that’s what the Emperor wants as much as the next Frenchman. The question is, will the other nations let us have peace?’
‘No chance,’ the sergeant replied bitterly. ‘War is all that kings, tsars and emperors understand. They love the uniforms, and pushing tokens round on maps, and all the time it’s the lot of common people to die. I thought the Revolution was supposed to put an end to all of that. We got rid of the King, and the aristos. Now look at us. Dukes, princes and barons as far as the eye can see, and Napoleon sitting on top of it all with his crown. What’s changed, tell me that?’
The first sergeant laughed.‘Ignore him. Pierre’s just an old-fashioned Jacobin. He’s always grumbling. I wonder . . .’ He looked eagerly at Massйna and Napoleon. ‘You must have seen him. What’s he like?’
‘The Emperor?’ Massйna puffed his cheeks at the awkward situation. ‘Well, he’s just a man, like any of us here. He may be Emperor when he’s in the palace in Paris, but here, in the field? Here, he’s a soldier. He takes his risks with the rest of us.’
‘And what about you?’ asked the sergeant called Pierre, staring directly at Napoleon. ‘What do you think?’
Napoleon stared back at him for a moment, tempted to reveal his identity, but at the same time loath to break the illusion that they were all comrades. He set down his cup and stood up, punching Massйna lightly on the shoulder. ‘I think it’s time we got back to our battalion. It’s going to be a busy night.’
Massйna handed back his cup and stood up. ‘Good luck to you all.’
‘And you,’ the first man nodded back.
‘What do you think?’ Napoleon asked quietly, as he and Massйna strode off.
Massйna glanced at him. ‘Sire?’
‘Don’t be a fool, Massйna. I’m talking about what those men said. Are they right? Have I betrayed the Revolution and simply created a new form of tyranny?’
‘You are talking about politics, sire, and I am a soldier. It’s not my field.’
‘You are evading the issue.’ Napoleon laughed softly. ‘When a man fears to speak the truth then he does indeed live in a tyranny. It seems that the sergeant was right.’
‘King or emperor, what difference does it make?’ Massйna responded. ‘The fact is, France is at war and it is the duty of every soldier to fight for his country. When the fighting begins there is no place for questioning the cause of it.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘Besides, what use have I for peace? It would do me out of a fine living.’
Napoleon looked at him and shook his head. ‘Marshal Massйna, you have a brutally practical way of looking at life. Even so, I must admit I had hoped that a little idealism burned in your heart.’
Massйna shrugged. ‘I’ll leave idealism to the philosophers, sire. As long as there’s fighting, fucking and fortunes to be made, I am your man.’
‘And what if I make peace? What of your allegiance to me then?’
‘Sire, that sergeant was right about one thing. While you are Emperor there cannot be peace in Europe, whether you will it or not. And that suits me perfectly.’
They returned their borrowed jackets when they reached headquarters and made their way into the map room. Berthier was leaning across the table with a pair of dividers as he calculated the march timetables for the remaining columns still moving forward to join the army. He straightened up and bowed his head as the Emperor and Massйna entered.
‘Everything proceeding to plan?’ asked Napoleon.
‘Yes, sire. The entire army should be over the river by the second day. One hundred and eighty thousand men, less the garrison to cover the bridges.’
‘What’s the latest intelligence on Archduke Charles?’
‘According to the reports from the cavalry corps, the Austrians have something in the order of one hundred and fifty thousand men concentrated against us. Of course, we are still unsure of the precise location of Archduke John’s army. He began his withdrawal from Italy two weeks ago, and might be close enough to intervene.’
‘What’s his strength?’
‘No more than fifteen thousand, sire.’
‘Then he is of little consequence to us,’ Napoleon decided. He clicked his fingers. ‘Massйna, the map.’
Massйna took out the diagram of the river crossings and unfolded it beside the larger-scale map that Berthier had been working on. Napoleon tapped his finger on the pencilled markings on the eastern side of Lobau island. ‘This is where we cross. Have the map copied and sent to the commander of the engineers. He is to have the pontoon bridges ready to move into position at nightfall.’
‘Yes, sire.’
Napoleon studied the map in silence for a moment before he nodded with satisfaction. All the pieces were in place. Archduke Charles had concentrated his army around the French troops in the Mьhlau salient. It appeared that he had taken the bait and was waiting to meet the French attack over the same ground as where they had attempted to force a crossing just over a month earlier. Instead, Napoleon would strike two miles to the east, towards the village of Wittau. In overwhelming strength the French would pour across the Danube and immediately wheel round to take the Austrians in the flank and rear and crush them. Napoleon looked up at Marshal Massйna and smiled.
‘We have the enemy precisely where we want them. Tonight, you will have the honour of leading the army across the Danube and on to victory.’
Chapter 9
The storm broke just after night fell over the Danube. Lightning illuminated the landscape in brilliant flashes of dazzling white which caught thousands of men, horses, guns and silvery streaks of rain in a frozen tableau for an instant before plunging the world back into darkness. Then, as the men marched forward through the mud towards the pontoon bridges, the thunder crackled and boomed like a vast cannonade in the heavens.
‘It could hardly be better,’ Napoleon commented to Berthier as they sat on their horses, watching the first columns of Massйna’s corps move forward to the river bank, ready to cross over the moment the bridges were swung into place. Napoleon gestured towards the western side of the island, nearly two miles away. ‘This storm, and the diversionary attack from Mьhlau, will provide perfect cover for Massйna’s assault.’
Berthier nodded, and reached for his pocket watch. He waited a moment, and then read the time as lightning flashed overhead.
‘Just gone nine o’clock, sire. Less than ten minutes to go now.’
They waited in the darkness while the rain hissed down, pattering off the flat tops of the soldiers’ shakos and soaking through their greatcoats and the uniform jackets beneath. Around them, the trees that lined the river bank swayed in the gusts of wind that sounded like the sea as it swept through the leafy boughs. Every time the lightning burst across the landscape the soldiers looked like statues, Napoleon mused as he hunched his neck down into his collar to try to keep the water from trickling down his neck. Then, at the appointed time, there was a deep roar from the west that echoed across the island as the guns massed opposite Mьhlau blasted the Austrian lines. At the same time General Legrand would be launching his diversionary attack, engaging the enemy outposts as aggressively as he could to draw Archduke Charles’s attention away from his left flank.
As soon as the cannonade began, the five hundred grenadiers of Massйna’s assault force rushed the small boats they had been issued down the bank and into the river, before clambering aboard and paddling across the current as swiftly as possible. No shots were fired from the Austrian sentries, who were either sheltering from the storm or distracted by the furious sounds of battle away to the west. In the darkness, Napoleon could just make out the boats surging across the river, the men landing and then heading cautiously up the far bank, muskets at the ready.
As soon as the assault force was across, the first of the pontoon bridges was towed into position. Behind it
