Redoubt in the Woods
Even before the French crossed the Danube to the Marchfeld at Aspern-Essling, they were beginning to set up gun emplacements on the island of Lobau. In fact, French guns settled the first engagement of the battle as, unlike in previous attempts, the French had had the foresight to bring up some artillery pieces to the bridgehead. By the Battle of Wagram, the island of Lobau had become a fortress of gun emplacements. My concern for the Battle of Aspern-Essling was the gun position set up by the Foot Artillery of the Guard whose fire turned back Rosenberg’s 5th Column as it advanced on the village of Essling. There was little evidence as to where this was actually situated. Due to the general lack of materials – the building of the bridges being the priority – and as Lobau was generously forested, it seemed that to improvise any sort of defence and create line of sight, the French engineers would have had to have cut down trees and presumably use tree trunks and tree stumps to create a redoubt, covering the front with sod and earth to absorb any return fire. Just how impressive this would have been is difficult to judge.
ABOVE The model before painting, with a Pendraken
Austrian 10mm figure for scale, made to house a 25mm
round base. The mounds of grout had to be removed to
accommodate a 25mm square base.
RIGHT The finished model with a Pendraken French Line
Foot Artillery gun (standing on a 3mm base). Perhaps with
more materials available, the French would have created a
wooden platform for the gun.
I created a simple defensive wall with cut-pieces
of twig on a 2mm MDF hexagonal base, caking the
wall with grout. I made it, originally, to house a
25mm round base. However, plans changed and
some lumps of grout had to be hacked away as the
redoubt had to accommodate a 25mm square base
instead. Not exactly made-to-measure but not the
end of the world either.
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