ecome symptomatic of Napoleon’s late career was his defeat at Aspern-Essling. Loraine Petre explains that “For the defeat of Essling the Emperor had himself to blame. He had certainly been careless in his preparations for the crossing [of the Danube river], once more as a result of his unbounded pride and his contempt of his enemy…” Aspern-Essling was the first of Napoleon’s major defeats, and it came as a direct result of his arrogance and short-sightedness as Napoleon knew the crossing was a risk and yet took the decision without sufficient preparation, this as the Emperor’s first defeat helped the allies of the coalition “to present his best victories as lucky accidents” according to Colonel John Elting. This could illustrate that his soldiers followed him blindly into battle which worked effectively until the Russia campaign. Previously, like at the battle of Austerlitz for example, “column commanders had only learned of the details after midnight. Under such circumstances, confusion was inevitable” according to Goetz. This confusion in combination with Napoleon’s inability “to grasp the fact that Alexander would not, could not negociate” (Clausewitz) helps to illustrate Napoleon’s unreliability as a leader and also his underestimation of opposition as he had assumed that by invading Russia they would be foolish enough to confront him on open ground and fight one or two “good battles.” Consequently Napoleon had not prepared to play cat and mouse with the Cossack and Le Grande Armée was decimated by starvation and the early winter. The Emperor may not have been able to see the early winter coming however, it was this “unbounded pride” that Petre refers to that prevented Napoleon from withdrawing from Moscow earlier. Napoleon had failed to grasp that “The tsar knew well that he would be deposed and assassinated if he tried to do so[negociate].”(Clausewitz) There is much validity to this argument as we know that Napoleon remained in Moscow for a period of eigh>