For this reason it was that Napoleon separated his forces into five armies. While Schwartzenberg, advancing from Gallicia with his 30,000 Austrians, (whose numbers he had orders to exaggerate,) would keep Tormasof in check, and draw the attention of Bagration towards the south; while the King of Westphalia, with his 80,000 men, would employ that general in front, towards Grodno, without pressing him too vehemently at first; and while the Viceroy of Italy, in the direction of Pilony, would be in readiness to interpose between the same Bagration and Barclay; in fine, while at the extreme left, Macdonald, debouching from Tilsit, would invade the north of Lithuania, and fall on the right of Wittgenstein; Napoleon himself, with his 200,000 men, was to precipitate himself on Kowno, on Wilna, and on his rival, and destroy him at the first shock.
Should the Emperor of Russia give way, he would press him hard, and throw him back upon Drissa, and as far as the commencement of his line of operations; then, all at once, propelling his detachments to the right, he would surround Bagration, and the whole of the corps of the Russian left, which, by this rapid irruption, would be separated from their right.
I will shortly sketch a brief and rapid summary of the history of our two wings, being anxious to return to the centre, and to be enabled uninterruptedly to exhibit the great scenes which were enacted there. Macdonald commanded the left wing; his invasion, supported by the Baltic, overcame the right wing of the Russians; it threatened Revel first, next Riga, and even Petersburgh. He soon reached Riga. The war became stationary under its walls; although of little importance, it was conducted by Macdonald with prudence, science, and glory, even in his retreat, to which he was neither compelled by the winter nor by the enemy, but solely by Napoleon's orders.
With regard to his right wing, the emperor had counted on the support of Turkey, which failed him. He had inferred that the Russian army of Volhynia would follow the general movement of Alexander's retreat; but, on the contrary, Tormasof advanced upon our rear. The French army was thus uncovered, and menaced with being turned on those vast plains. Nature not supplying it in that quarter with any support, as she did on the left wing, it was necessarily compelled to rely entirely on itself. Forty thousand Saxons, Austrians, and Poles, remained there in observation.
Tormasof was beaten; but another army, rendered available by the treaty of Bucharest, arrived and formed a junction with the remnant of the first. From that moment, the war upon that point became defensive. It was carried on feebly, as was to be expected, notwithstanding some Polish troops and a French general were left with the Austrian army. That general had been long and strenuously cried up for ability, although he had met with reverses, and his reputation was not undeserved.
No decisive advantage was gained on either side. But the position of this corps, almost entirely Austrian, became more and more important, as the grand army retreated upon it. It will be seen whether Schwartzenberg deceived its confidence,—whether he left us to be surrounded on the Berezina,—and whether it be true, that he seemed on that occasion to aspire to no other character than that of an armed witness to the great dispute.
CHAP. II.
Between these two wings, the grand army marched to the Niemen, in three separate masses. The king of Westphalia, with 80,000 men, moved upon Grodno; the viceroy of Italy, with 75,000 men, upon Pilony; Napoleon, with 220,000 men, upon Nogaraiski, a farm situated three leagues beyond Kowno. The 23d of June, before daylight, the imperial column reached the Niemen, but without seeing it. The borders of the great Prussian forest of Pilwisky, and the hills which line the river, concealed the great army, which was about to cross it.
Napoleon, who had travelled in a carriage as far as that, mounted his horse at two o'clock in the morning. He reconnoitred the Russian river, without disguising himself, as has been falsely asserted, but under cover of the night crossing this frontier, which five months afterwards he was only enabled to repass under cover of the same obscurity. When he came up to the bank, his horse suddenly stumbled, and threw him on the sand. A voice exclaimed, "This is a bad omen; a Roman would recoil!" It is not known whether it was himself, or one of his retinue, who pronounced these words.