At the same time, Davoust, proceeding from Osmiana, extended his force towards Minsk and Ygumen, behind the Russian general, and made himself master of the outlet of the defiles, in which the king of Westphalia was compelling Bagration to engage himself.
Between this general and his retreat was a river which takes its source in an infectious marsh; its uncertain, slow, and languid current, across a rotten soil, does not belie its origin; its muddy waters flow towards the south-east; its name possesses a fatal celebrity, for which it is indebted to our misfortunes.
The wooden bridges, and long causeways, which, in order to approach it, had been thrown over the adjacent marshes, abut upon a town named Borizof, situated on its left bank, on the Russian side. This bank is generally higher than the right; a remark applicable to all the rivers which in this country run in the direction of one pole to the other, their eastern bank commanding their western bank, as Asia does Europe.
This passage was important; Davoust anticipated Bagration there by taking possession of Minsk on the 8th of July, as well as the entire country from the Vilia to the Berezina; accordingly when the Russian prince and his army, summoned by Alexander, to the north, pushed forward their piquets, in the first instance upon Lida, and afterwards successively upon Olzania, Vieznowo, Troki, Bolzoï, and Sobsnicki, they came in contact with Davoust, and were forced to fall back upon their main body. They then bent their course a little more in the rear and to the right, and made a new attempt on Minsk, but there again they found Davoust. A scanty platoon of that marshal's vanguard was entering by one gate, when the advanced guard of Bagration presented itself at another; on which, the Russian retreated once more into his marshes, towards the south.
At this intelligence, observing Bagration and 40,000 Russians cut off from the army of Alexander, and enveloped by two rivers and two armies, Napoleon exclaimed, "I have them!" In fact, it only required three marches more to have hemmed in Bagration completely. But Napoleon, who since accused Davoust of suffering the escape of the left wing of the Russians by remaining four days in Minsk, and afterwards, with more justice, the king of Westphalia, had just then placed that monarch under the orders of the marshal. It was this change, which was made too late, and in the midst of an operation, which destroyed the unity of it.
This order arrived at the very moment when Bagration, repulsed from Minsk, had no other retreat open to him than a long and narrow causeway. It occurs on the marshes of Nieswig, Shlutz, Glusck, and Bobruisk. Davoust wrote to the king to push the Russians briskly into this defile, the outlet of which at Glusck he was about to occupy. Bagration would never have been able to get out of it. But the king, already irritated by the reproaches which the uncertainty and dilatoriness of his first operations had brought upon him, could not suffer a subject to be his commander; he quitted his army, without leaving any one to replace him, or without even communicating, if we are to credit Davoust, to any of his generals, the order which he had just received. He was permitted to retire into Westphalia without his guard; which he accordingly did.
Meanwhile Davoust vainly waited for Bagration at Glusck. That general, not being sufficiently pressed by the Westphalian army, had the option of making a new detour towards the south, to get to Bobruisk, and there cross the Berezina, and reach the Boristhenes near Bickof. There again, if the Westphalian army had had a commander, if that commander had pressed the Russian leader more closely, if he had replaced him at Bickof, when he came in collision with Davoust at Mohilef, it is certain that in that case Bagration, enclosed between the Westphalians, Davoust, the Boristhenes, and the Berezina, would have been compelled to conquer or to surrender We have seen that the Russian prince could not pass the Berezina but at Bobruisk, nor reach the Boristhenes, except in the direction of Novoï-Bikof, forty leagues to the south of Orcha, and sixty leagues from Witepsk, which it was his object to reach.
Finding himself driven so far out of his track, he hastened to regain it by reascending the Boristhenes, to Mohilef. But there again he found Davoust, who had anticipated him at Lida by passing the Berezina at the very point at which Charles XII. had formerly done so.
This marshal, however, had not expected to find the Russian prince on the road to Mohilef. He believed him to be already on the left bank of the Boristhenes. Their mutual surprise turned in the first instance to the advantage of Bagration, who cut off a whole regiment of his light cavalry. At that time Bagration had with him 35,000 men, Davoust 12,000. On the 23d of July, the latter chose an elevated ground, defended by a ravine, and flanked by two woods. The Russians had no means of extending themselves on this field of battle; they, nevertheless, accepted the challenge. Their numbers were there useless; they attacked like men sure of victory; they did not even think of profiting by the woods, in order to turn Davoust's right.
The Muscovites say that, in the middle of the contest they were seized with a panic at the idea of finding themselves in the presence of Napoleon; for each of the enemy's generals imagined him to be opposed to them, Bagration at Mohilef; and Barclay at Drissa. He was believed to be in all places at once: so greatly does renown magnify the man of genius! so strangely does it fill the world with its fame! and convert him into an omnipresent and supernatural being!