RUSSIAN-GERMAN WAR. 



49 



tier, made another diplomatic attempt, and sent 

 count Lauriston, who had formerly been ambas- 

 sador at Petersburgh, to the emperor Alexander; 

 but their views were too much at variance, and 

 Napoleon said, in his usual tone, " The conquered 

 assume the style of the conqueror ; fate overcomes 

 them; let their destiny be 'fulfilled." June 24, his 

 main forces passed the Niemen, while the rest 

 crossed the Vistula farther down. As the passage 

 took place near the influx of the Wilna,* and this 

 river, which flowed on their left flank, was also 

 crossed, the Russians were surrounded as far as the 

 Dwina, entirely separated from the second western 

 army, and compelled either to risk a decisive bat- 

 tle with divided forces, or to make a speedy retreat. 

 They chose the latter, and sacrificed their great 

 magazines, which were to have given subsistence to 

 their right wing. Wilna, which had been Alexan- 

 der's head-quarters, now became the head-quarters 

 of Napoleon, who here organized (an important 

 secondary object of this war) the restoration of 

 Poland. Napoleon made a considerable stay in 

 Wilna, partly for that purpose, partly for the sake 

 of obtaining information of the operations of the 

 right wing under Poniatowski, Schwartzenberg, and 

 Regnier, over whom the king of Westphalia was 

 commander-in-chief. He had received orders to 

 keep the second western army still separate from 

 the first, from which it had been divided by the 

 march to Wilna, and to prevent any junction far- 

 ther in the rear. These orders marshal Davoust, 

 who joined on the left the flank of the king of 

 Westphalia, executed so fully, that the corps of 

 general Doctoroff was separated from the forces of 



* The first Russian western army was stationed along: the 

 Nil-men as tar as Grodno, and comprised six corps of infantry 

 and two of cavalry. The second western army was in the vici- 

 nity of Slonim, consisting of four battalions of infantry and one 

 ot i avalry. The communication between them was kept up by 

 the hotman Platoff, with 10,000 Cossacks, at Bialystock. The 

 army of Volhynia, under Tormassott', at Lutzk, was composed 

 of two divisions of infantry, and one of cavalry, containing 

 together about 20,000 men. In Courland, Riga was protected by 

 general Essen with about 10,000 men. One reserve was formed 

 bv general MQoradowitsch in Novgorod, another by general 

 (krtel in Smolensk. There were, moreover, 16,000 men under 

 Steinheil, in Finland, which, subsequently, with the 25th divi- 

 sion of infantry from Petersburg, reinforced the corps of Witt- 

 genstein. In September, KutusolFs army of 85,000 men, which 

 had been till then employed against the Turks, first united 

 itself with the forces of Tonnassoff. Soon after the invasion 

 commenced, militia companies were formed hi Moscow, Peters- 

 burg, and other places, for supplying the army. Some of these 

 companies fought nt Borodino, and several divisions of them 

 accompanied tin- army in Germany, in 1813. The Russian plan 

 of the campaign was, by retreating, to avoid a decisive battle, 

 until the enemy should be remote from all his resources, and 

 weakened by marches through a desolate region, and the Rus- 

 sian army should be so considerably strengthened by the acces- 

 sion of all the forces that might be, meanwhile, raised, as to 

 have a decided superiority. The bodies of troops detached on 

 t'ii> two wings, were to prevent the enemy from spreading out 

 liis forces, and to co-operate in his destruction, if he should be 

 defeated. Calculation was also made of the possible arrival of 

 the Moldavian army after the conclusion of peace with the 

 Porte. Particular circumstances, however, gave rise to many 

 errors in the execution of this plan. Napoleon's scheme, on 

 the contrary, was, to use every effort to compel the Russians 

 to battle, to destroy them after the defeat, and, pressing for- 

 ward with haste to the capital, to proffer peace. Collateral 

 corp-< were, meanwhile, to cover his line of communication with 

 Germany, weaken the resources, of the enemy, and lead them 

 to take- (UN steps. But the French commander, long accus- 

 tomed to MII - committed the mistake of attempting to carry 



on the war in Hu^ia, as in Lombardy, without magazines : he 

 overlooked the fact that he ruled the conquered country only 

 in a comparatively small extent, and must, therefore, leave the 

 enemy in po-.-"--ion of bis resources: he entirely mistook the 

 Character of Us enemy. He. nevertheless, made good use of the 

 chief error of the Russians tin- wide interval between the two 

 western armies -by crossing the Niemen at Kowno, and ad- 

 vancing with rapidity to Wilna. Murat hereupon pursued the 

 western army, which retired to the entrenched camp at Drissa. 

 Macdonald drove general Essen back towards Mittaw, and 

 Oudinot Wittgenstein to Wilkomirz. Two divisions under 

 Kamensky were separated from the second western army, and 

 joined the corps in Volhynia. 



Bagration, as well as from the western army of 

 Barclay de Tolly, and almost surrounded, when a 

 rain of thirty-six hours made the roads impass- 

 able, and the sudden change to cold from intoler- 

 able heat, killed, by thousands, the horses of 

 the French, exhausted by wants of all kinds, so 

 that Doctoroff escaped with moderate loss. The 

 caution, boldness and courage of prince Bagra- 

 tion, with the want of military penetration on 

 the part of the king of Westphalia, likewise frus- 

 trated the plans against him. He even succeeded 

 in surprising, on his retreat, the Poles in Romanoff, 

 and destroying a corps of 6000 men, and in station- 

 ing in Volhynia general Tormassoff, who not only 

 perpetually confronted the extreme right wing of 

 the French, but, by a bold attack on its flank, took 

 prisoners a whole brigade of Saxons, in Kobryn, 

 July 27. At Mohilew, he finally succeeded in 

 throwing himself, with all his forces-, on marshal 

 Davoust, who defended himself with ability, but 

 would not have escaped without the greatest loss, 

 had not Bragration been every minute in fear of an 

 attack from the king of Westphalia on his flank. 

 When the news of these events had reached Wilna, 

 Napoleon hastened to his troops, which already 

 stood on the Dwina, where they were watching the 

 Russians in their large entrenched camp, and had 

 suffered considerable loss from their sallies. A 

 bridge of boats gave the Russians the advantage of 

 stationing their main forces on which ever bank of 

 the Dwina they pleased. The camp was extremely 

 strong, both by nature and art, since the eminences 

 of the right bank commanded the left. Napoleon, 

 however, ordered a detachment to go round the camp 

 by the road to Poloczk ; and as the previous conse- 

 quences of his judicious division of the Russian line 

 had not yet been repaired, that is, the two Russian 

 western armies had not yet formed a junction, the Rus- 

 sians had no alternative but to let half their forces be 

 destroyed, or to leave their camp and hasten to the 

 Dnieper, where Bragation hoped to join them. 

 Prince Wittgenstein alone maintained his situation, 

 in order to cover the road to Petersburg, and to 

 prevent the investing of Riga. The main army of 

 the French, with the exception of three corps under 

 Reggio, Macdonald, and St Cyr, which blockaded 

 Riga, and endeavoured to take possession of the 

 road to Petersburg (which gave rise to a number of 

 bloody indecisive battles), now went, part across the 

 Dwina, part along the river as far as the heights of 

 Wolgonsk, in pursuit of the Russian army, whose 

 rear-guard frequently fought considerable battles 

 with the pursuers, and, from the 25th to the 27 ih 

 July, contested every foot of ground at and behind 

 Ostrowno. But. marshal Davoust, pressing forward 

 between the armies of Bagration and Barclay de 

 Tolly, and thus keeping them apart, finally com- 

 pelled them to quit the field and retire to Smo- 

 lensk. Heat, and wants of all kinds, had mean- 

 while operated so detrimentally on the French army, 

 that it was obliged to halt at this point for ten 

 days, during which the two Russian armies finally 

 formed a junction under the walls of Smolensk. 

 They immediately began to act on the offensive.* 

 With 12,000 cavalry they attacked general Sebas- 

 tian! (August 8), and drove him back, with loss, a 

 mile and a half. On the 17th, the main body put 



* According to Russian accounts, the first army alone wa= in 

 the battle ot Smolensk, as the second, immediate); after tin- 

 junction, had proceeded by rapid marches to Do^orobusch, and 

 covered in its rear the road to Moscow. After the battle, tba 

 two armies again united, notwithstanding the exertions of the 



