He directed the construction of a pontoon bridge to cross to the eastern side where he occupied the villages of Aspern and Essling (today part of Vienna).

[citation needed] The narration picks up the action in Vienna on May 16, 1809 and introduces colonel Louis-François Lejeune, a professional soldier and officer of the General Staff; he and Napoleon are the pivotal characters of the novel.

"[1] The book describes Napoleon's preparations for the battle, his hasty and ultimately disastrous decision to build a pontoon bridge across the raging Danube, and his often tense relationship with his subordinates, among them André Masséna, Pierre Daru, Jean-Baptiste Bessières, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Jean Boudet, Jean-Baptiste Marbot, and the fatally wounded Jean Lannes.

Lejeune’s friend is Henry Beyle, later known as Stendhal, who, afflicted with syphilis, remains in Vienna as an observer; they both have a common love interest in Anna Krauss, an Austrian woman.

[citation needed] The novel is based on a concept by Honoré de Balzac, who in the 1830s made notes and preparations for a novel to be titled La Bataille, in which he intended to describe the Battle of Aspern-Essling.

[2] Upon visiting the battlefield in 1835, Balzac wrote to his future wife that he wanted to depict the battle with "all the horrors and all the beauties" so that the reader felt himself to be present in it.

There is some critique that the viewpoint was strictly from the French side—although it could be argued that not knowing the other side is a realistic presentation of the fog of war—and that the love affair was "weak".