Wiener Wars

I recently became aware of another layer in the history of Wiener World, this one populated with ghosts from Napoleon's armies and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  War seems to take on a new and special pointlessness when the bones of anonymous dead enemies lie atop each other for eternity and the battlegrounds are buried like the soldiers' bones, with the armies' routes unmarked and the killing grounds overgrown by towns, plowed fields, and patches of disorderly green.  On an uncharacteristically chilly, blustery July Sunday, Steve, a friend and student of military history, took me along on a tour of Wagram, a Napoleonic battlefield just east of Vienna. 

In spring of 1806, Austrian and French troops battled first at two small villages, Essling and Aspern.  They are sleepy little towns. Churches--some rebuilt on the sites of ones that were destroyed in the war--a stone granary, an observation tower, one-room "museums" open just a few hours one day a week, and a few markers are what recall the fighting at Essling and Aspern, and the later Battle of Wagram.  Busy streets with concrete curbs, the usual businesses from electrical supply stores to barber shops, traffic lights, parking lots...the scenes of heavy fighting are now as anonymous as the rank and file who fought there.  Battle illustrations and first-hand accounts of this fighting--Napoleon's first loss--show fierce close-in combat that resulted in thousands of casualties.  We stopped along the road by the granary, the size of a huge farmhouse, where hundreds if not thousands of Austrian soldiers died in an effort to seize it from French troops.  Hoping to examine the structure closely, we could get only as far as a fence along the road. Along the roadside I nearly stepped on a dead kit, a fox pup, that had recently been hit by car; its tail, the fur rich red and brown, was still glossy in the soft gray sunlight of this drizzly day.  It was still a beautiful creature, becoming part of the earth, with wet, overgrown grass for a tombstone.  Anonymous.

On nearby Lobau Island in the Danube, just opposite Vienna, Napoleon massed his troops and set up his headquarters.  Lobau, which now serves as a "nature colony," is marshy and overgrown--shrubbery, trees, vines, weeds--with a network of dirt paths.  Aside from the testimony of a few historical markers, there is no trace of the war or of the vast French encampment.  Vienna's nudists famously sunbathe on the shores of Lobau--there, over the rainbow, where troubles melt like lemon drops--but not on this gray day, with the wind blowing droplets that felt like wet ice on my face.

In July, Napoleon battled the Austrians at nearby Wagram and defeated them, with both sides suffering heavy losses.  The area is almost completely flat and agricultural, and artillery took a great toll on massed troops in the open fields.  More than 300,000 soldiers took part in the fighting.  At the small village church of Markgrafneusiedl--as charming as it is euphonious--the crypt is filled from floor to ceiling with the skulls and bones of the nameless fallen from both sides.  Just outside the town of Untersiebenbrunn we came across an area the size of a home garden plot, designated "French cemetery."  It is a small, overgrown area bounded on three sides by a plowed field and on the fourth by a drainage ditch; covered with brush, scrubby trees, and tall grass, it is not so much a cemetery as a burial pit that has almost wholly returned to nature, with a farmer's plow eager to encroach on it.  The lot is encircled by a small, weedy, gravel path, like an enchanted fairy ring, put there to keep history from disappearing utterly under the wet grass that grows over the lot and along the roadside.

Wiedersehen

This week we are losing our local mentors.  How different our lives have been because of them; how different our lives will be without them:

    Jim and Sue, our sponsors, who a year ago this week met us at the airport as we began life in Wiener World, are moving back to the States.  They gave us an enormous amount of practical advice about living here--understanding the public transportation system, using recycling, signing up for fitness training, getting our Internet operational, telling us who to call for housing issues, identifying good restaurants and specialty shops.  On the day we arrived, we found cat-care already set up in the apartment and a supply of groceries, for which they would take no reimbursement.  The next day they drove us shopping for electronics and other supplies and then took us to dinner; later they gave us orientation walks in the city.  Most Friday mornings in the past year, regardless of the weather, Jim and I explored the coffee houses and book stores of the inner city, along with oddities such as the globe museum, and historic churches.

    Farewell to Gaby, our friend and German teacher, who has just ended 38 years of work with the Embassy.  Besides conversational German, she taught us about Austrian culture and customs, she helped us get concert tickets, she directed us to a good dentist, she told us where to get watch batteries replaced, she told us where and how to order a turkey for the holidays, she identified places for daytrips, she advised us about vet care when Earl the Cat was dying....  She did everything that she knew to do to help us adjust to and enjoy living in Wiener World.

Filler

-- Boarding the 38 tram near downtown--a chubby, middle-aged dwarf, dressed all in red:  red sneakers, red jeans, red jacket, and red cap.  She sat and smiled and made faces at a toddler across from her, and then pulled down the cap brim--revealing a large "Chicago Bulls" logo--and fell asleep.

-- Crossing a large, busy intersection downtown, an old man with three Basset hounds on separate leashes.  The light changed but drivers waited patiently as the low-slung creatures finished ambling through the crosswalk, tails wagging, heads down, noses pausing, businesslike, to check out each pebble, cigarette butt, and bit of flattened chewing gum.  Finally, with a measure of exertion, they hoisted their bodies up over the curb, and traffic resumed its flow.