Napoleon, usually the most active in following up a victory, did not actively pursue the Austrians after the battle of Wagram for the all-sufficient reason that his troops were worn-out with fatigue. If you want to know and see and _feel_ what a battle-field is like, glance through the sombre pages of Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus” until you come to his description of that of Wagram. Here is the passage, and it is one of the most vivid in literature: “The greensward,” says the philosopher, “is torn-up and trampled-down; man’s fond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge-row, and pleasant dwellings, blown-away with gunpowder; and the kind seedfield lies a desolate, hideous place of Skulls.” There were two days of hard fighting at Znaym on the 10th and 11th July, in which Masséna and Marmont took part, Napoleon not coming up until the morning of the second day. On the 12th an armistice was arranged.
Brief notice must be taken of the course of the war in other parts of Europe. The formidable Walcheren Expedition, so called because of its disembarkation on the island of that name, was undertaken by Great Britain as a diversion against the French. The idea had been mooted and shelved three years before, to be revived when Austria pressed the British Government to send troops to Northern Germany in the hope of fostering insurrection there. The Duke of Portland’s government, prompted by Lord Castlereagh, thought that Antwerp would be a more desirable objective. Instead of the troops pushing on immediately to that city, Flushing must needs be first besieged and bombarded. This detour lost much precious time, which was used to good advantage by Bernadotte and King Louis in placing the city in a state of defence.
The commanders of the English naval and military forces--Sir Richard Strachan and Lord Chatham respectively--now engaged in unseemly wrangling as to further movements, while meantime many of the soldiers fell victims to malarial fever. Eventually the army sailed for home, after an immense expenditure of blood and treasure, thousands of men dying and the cost amounting to many millions of pounds sterling. The expedition was for long the talk of the British people, the affair being epitomised in a witty couplet which aptly summed up the situation:--