Jean Lannes was the French marshal who died from wounds received at the Battle of Aspern-Essling. He was struck by a cannonball on 22 May 1809 during Napoleon’s campaign against Austria.
The injury shattered one of Lannes’s legs and severely damaged the other. Napoleon’s chief surgeon, Dominique Jean Larrey, amputated the leg, but Lannes died from his wounds on 31 May 1809. Napoleon reportedly mourned him as both an outstanding commander and a close personal friend.
Aspern-Essling, fought near Vienna on 21–22 May 1809, was a major setback for Napoleon and the first major battle he lost as head of state. Lannes had commanded French forces in the fighting and was one of the few marshals trusted with independent operations.
A common mix-up is to confuse Lannes’s death with battlefield deaths of other senior French commanders. Joachim Murat, Michel Ney and Louis-Nicolas Davout all survived the battle; Lannes was the marshal whose fatal wounds made Aspern-Essling one of Napoleon’s most painful personal defeats.