body of the enemy Readily believing intelligence of what was so probable, he immediately turned back, and took post in front of Banos, placing 200 Spanish infantry, under Colonel Grant, in advance of Aldea Nueva. The enemy's chasseurs and voltigeurs advanced in considerable bodies under General Lorset; and Grant, after a resistance in which the Spaniards, both officers and men, demeaned themselves most gallantly, was compelled to fall back. The French then attempted to cut off Sir Robert Wilson's own legion, which was posted between Aldea Nueva and Banos: he had strengthened his position by every means which the time allowed, so that they could only advance gradually, and with a very severe loss from the commanding fire of musketry which was kept up upon them. At length part of the Merida battalion on the right gave way, and a road was thus left open by which the position might have been turned. Upon this Sir Robert Wilson ordered a retreat upon the heights above Banos, and from thence sent a detachment to secure the road of Monte Mayor, which turned the Puerto de Banos a league in the rear, and by which the French were directing a column. Don Carlos Marquis D'Espagne came up at this time with his battalion of light infantry, and took post in the most gallant manner along the heights commanding the road to Banos, and this enabled Sir Robert to detach a party to the mountain on the left, commanding the main road. On the Estremadura side the Puerto de Banos is not a pass of such strength as on the side of Castile. Sir Robert had no artillery, and the French were not less than treble the number of his troops; nevertheless he maintained his ground for nine hours. At six in the evening three columns of the enemy succeeded in gaining the height on the left; his post was now no longer tenable, and he retired along the mountains, leaving open the main road, along which a considerable column of cavalry immediately hastened. It came in sight of the battalion of Seville, which had been left at Bejar, with orders to follow on the morrow; but when Sir Robert was obliged to retire, and the action commenced, he ordered it to the pass, to watch the Monte Mayor road, and the heights on the rear of his left. As soon as the French cavalry came nigh, an officer and some dragoons rode on, and called out to the Spanish Commanders to surrender. They were answered by a volley so well directed, that it killed the whole party; the Spaniards then began to mount the heights; they were attacked and surrounded by two bodies, one of horse, the other of foot; but they succeeded in cutting their way through and

clearing themselves; and Ney, having forced the pass with a heavy loss, hastened on to Salamanca. His dispatches, detailing this affair, described the entire destruction of Sir Robert Wilson's legion; that 1200 were left dead upon the field, and the remainder pursued to Monte Mayor, and Alcazada, and that he had only desisted because he perceived piquets of cavalry on the plain beyond. Sir Robert had no succours so near, and Ney, whose presence was required elsewhere, was neither disposed by policy or inclination to follow such an enemy over the mountains, where he must have foregone the advantage of artillery, to which, even more than to his superiority, he owed the advantage he had gained. He stated his own loss at 35 killed and 150 wounded, a statement not very consistent with the admission that one regiment alone lost 40 horses. Several men dropped down dead in his ranks from heat and fatigue. Sir Robert Wilson's loss was not considerable, and after halting two days at Miranda de Castanos to rest and collect his men, he proceeded on his march.

(To be continued.)

BATTLE OF WAGRAM OR ASPERN.

In the 1st Volume of the Military Panorama, page 413, we have published a most authentic account of the Battle of Wagram or Aspern on the 5th and 6th of July, 1809, drawn up by an eye-witness, and edited by an Austrian Staff Officer. That paper has received very distinguished approbation, and must at all times be regarded as an important and valuable military document. The general interest excited by the events of the Campaign of 1809, is again awakened by the present position of affairs on the Continent; and with the view of giving a perfect detail of the principal occurrences of that year, the following account of the battle fought near Aspern on the Marchfield, on the 21st and 22d of May, between the Archduke Charles and the Emperor Napoleon, translated from the original German account, published officially under the sanction of the Emperor of Germany, is now offered to the public.

THE Emperor Napoleon having after some sanguinary engagements near Abensberg, Hausen, and Dinzlingen, in which the fortune of war favoured the Austrian arms so as to force the French garrison at Ratisbon to surrender, succeeded in cutting off the left

wing of the Austrian army and driving it back to Landshut, and afterwards in advancing by Eckmuhl with a superior corps of cavalry, taking the road of Eglofsheim, and forcing to retreat those Austrian corps, that were posted on the heights of Leike-point and Talmessing, the Archduke on the 23d of April crossed the Danube near Ratisbon, and joined the corps of Bellegarde, who had opened the campaign by several successful affairs in the Upper Palatinate, had reached Amberg, Neumarkt, and Hemau, and had by this time approached Stadt-am-Hof, in order to execute its immediate junction with the Archduke.

The Emperor Napoleon ordered the bombardment of Ratisbon, occupied by a few battalions who were to cover the passage of the Danube. On the 23d, in the evening, he became master of it, and immediately hastened along the right bank of the Danube to enter the Austrian States, in order, as he openly declared, to dictate peace at Vienna.

The Austrian army had taken a position near Cham, behind the river Regen, which was watched by some of the enemy's divisions, while the Emperor Napoleon called all his disposable troops in forced marches from the North of Germany to the Danube, and considerably reinforced his army with the troops of Wurtemberg, Hessia, Baden, and some time after, with those of Saxony.

Near Kirn and Nittenau, some affairs had happened between the out-posts, which, however, had no influence upon the armies. However easy it would have been for the Archduke to continue his offensive operations on the left bank of the Danube without any material resistance, and however gratifying it might have been to relieve provinces which were groaning beneath the pressure of foreign dominion; the preservation of his native land did not permit him to suffer the enemy to riot with impunity in the entrails of the monarchy, to give up the rich sources of its independence, and expose the welfare of the subject to the devastations of foreign conquerors.

These motives induced the Archduke to conduct his army to Bohemia, by the way of Klentsch and Neumark, to occupy the Bohemian forest with light troops, and part of the militia, and to direct his march towards Budweis, where he arrived on the 3d of May, hoping to join near Lintz, his left wing which had been separated from him, and which was under the command of Lieutenant-Gene. ral Baron Hiller.

But the latter had been so closely pressed by the united force of the French armies, that, after several spirited engagements, and even after a brilliant affair, in which he had the advantage, near Neumarkt, and in which the troops achieved all that was possible, against the disproportionate superiority of the enemy, he indeed was able to reach Lintz, but was incapable of crossing the Danube, and obliged to content himself with destroying the communication with the left bank, and taking up a position behind the Traun near Ebersberg. This was the occasion of an extremely murderous engagement, during which the enemy, in storming the bridge, lost near 4000 men.-Ebersbeg was set on fire, and Lieutenant-General Hiller continued his retreat till he got so much the start as to pass the Danube near Stain, without being disturbed by the enemy, and to wait the approach of the Archduke, who, after having in vain attempted the junction of the army near Lintz, had marched from Budweis to Zwettel; still hoping, by a quick passage of the Danube, to arrest the enemy's progress towards the metropolis.

Meanwhile, a corps of Wurtembergers had advanced from Passau along both the shores of the Danube, had occupied Lintz and the bank opposite to it; had restored the bridge and signalized itself by destroying the defenceless villages and castles which could not be protected by the small advanced-guard proceeding by the side of the main army.

The enemy, by marching through the valley of the Danube in the straightest line, had got so much a-head, that all hopes of coming up with him in front of Vienna vanished; still, however, if that city had been able to hold out for five days, it might have been relieved; and the Archduke resolved on venturing the utmost to rescue that good city, which by the excellent disposition of its citizens, the faithful attachment to its Sovereign, and its noble devotion, has raised to itself an eternal monument in the annals of Austria. All his plans were now directed towards gaining the bridges across the Danube near Vienna, and endeavouring to save the Imperial Residence by a combat under its very walls.

Vienna, formerly an important fortress, was in vain besieged by the Turks, and would even now, from the solidity of its ramparts, the strong profiles of its works, and the extensive system of its mines, be capable of making a protracted existence, had not, for upwards of a century back, the luxury of a large metropolis, the wants of ease, the conflux of all the magnates in the empire, and the pomp

of a splendid court, totally effaced every consideration of military defence. Palaces adorn the rampart, the casemates and ditches were converted into workshops of tradesmen, plantations mark the counterscarps of the fortress, and avenues of trees traverse the glacis, uniting the most beautiful suburbs in the world to the Corps de la Place.

Although under such circumstances no obstinate resistance of the capital was to be expected; yet, from the unexampled loyalty of the inhabitants, it was confidently hoped that Vienna might for a few days serve as a tete-de-pont to cover the passage of the river; whence all preparations amounted to no more than to secure the place against a coup-de-main; and for this reason the Archduke had some time before directed Field-Marshal Hiller to send part of his corps along the right bank towards the capital, in the event of his (the Archduke's) passage to the left shore.

Field Marshal Hiller now received orders to burn the bridge near Stain, in his rear, to leave a small corps of observation near Krems, to hasten by forced marches with the bulk of his army to the environs of Vienna, and as circumstances would permit, by occupying the small islands, to keep up the communication with the city and the debouché across the bridges.

The army of the Archduke now advanced without interruption by Neupolla, Horn, and Weikendorf upon the Stockerau; and in order to overawe such enterprizes as the enemy might project from the environs of Lintz, part of the corps of the General of Artillery, Count Kollowrath, which till then had remained near Pilsen, with a view to secure the north and west frontier of Bohemia, was ordered to march to Budweirs.

Napoleon had used so much expedition on his march to Vienna, that on the 9th of May his advanced troops appeared on the glacis of the fortress, whence they were driven by the cannon shot. From three to four thousand regular troops, as many armed citizens, and some battalions of country militia defended the city; ordnance of various calibre were placed upon the ramparts: the suburbs were abandoned on account of their great extent; and the numerous islands and low bushy ground behind the town were occupied by some light troops of the corps of Hiller, as well as by militia.

The corps itself was posted on what is termed " the Point," on the left shore of the river, waiting the arrival of the army, which was advancing in baste.