On the evening of July 4, 1809, the crossings [of the Danube River] began.
Napoleon had now amassed 130,800 infantry, 23.300 cavalry and no fewer than 544 guns manned by 10,000 artillerymen, three times his force at Aspern-Essling. Captain Blaze recalled that ‘all the languages of Europe were spoken’ on Lobau Island – ‘Italian, Polish, Arab, Portuguese, Spanish, and every kind of German’.
Through intense planning and preparation, Napoleon got this enormous polyglot force – roughly the same number as attacked Normandy on D-Day – across one of Europe’s largest rivers into enemy territory on a single night, with all its horses, cannon, wagons, supplies and ammunition, and without losing a single man. It was an astonishing logistical achievement. As soon as his men reached the far bank they crossed over the Marchfield to face Archduke Charles’s army numbering 113,800 infantry, 14,600 cavalry and 414 guns.
The battle [of Wagram] they were about to fight was the largest in European history up to that point.
Source:
Roberts, Andrew. "Wagram." Napoleon: A Life. New York: Penguin, 2014. 518. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Esdaile, ‘Recent Writing’ p. 21.
Gill, Thunder on the Danube III p. 223.
Further Reading:
Archduke Charles of Austria, Duke of Teschen / Karl Ludwig Johann Josef Lorenz of Austria
The Great Army of Napoleon was a thing like no other thing before.
My own home province, the Grand Duchy of Baden, had its greatest moment in world history by providing the rearguard for Napoleon's retreat from Russia.