The Cemetery at Essling
Friedhof Essling or Essling cemetery was located on the north-eastern edge of Essling village and saw some of the first and last of the fighting in the village. It provided a strong position in what was a difficult to defend section of the village and much hard fighting took place there but it wasn’t well placed being out on its own and relatively small. Unsurprisingly, the cemetery is still there today. Looking at the actual location, it’s clear that it is slightly further east than most maps put it. Also, it lies on the east of the road running north-south – the present Schafflerhofstrasse – not on the west as most maps appear to place it. As a going concern, it didn’t take much research to discover a plan of the graveyard – after all, plots are still being offered for sale! From the plan, the Alter Teil or old part of the cemetery can be seen situated in the north-west corner of the present graveyard. My reading of the plan gave the old graveyard a size of roughly 45 x 45m – so smaller than some maps would have us believe. At my battlefield scale of 1:2,500, this gave a footprint of only 18 x 18mm – importantly, not enough to accommodate one of my infantry bases. For wargames purposes, my model would have to accommodate at least one base. So it would have to be slightly enlarged scale-wise but that shouldn’t create any tactical imbalance.
Cemetery outline.
Cemetery satellite
photo. © Google Inc.
Cemetery plan.
The map from Post 25 showing, presumably,
the location of Essling cemetery at the
eastern edge of the village.
The French took possession of
the graveyard but were forced
out on 21 May by the under-
sized Austrian infantry
regiment No. 55 and the third
battalion of IR9. The French
tried but failed to wrestle the
cemetery back and it was only
in French hands again with
the attack of the Young Guard
in the final stages of the battle
on 22 May shortly before the
French withdrawal.
POST 110
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