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404 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period IV. 



Two days after, on the 29 th May, General Tchernicheff, 

 who was lying near Magdeburg, hearing that the West- 

 phalian general, Ochs, was at Halbertstadt, with a 

 convoy of artillery, decided to surprise him. He set out 

 on the 29 th, with a strong force of hussars and Cossacks, 

 and moving rapidly all afternoon and night, arrived at 

 five in the morning within reach of the enemy, after 

 having marched fifty miles. General Ochs was com- 

 pletely surprised, and at once routed with the loss of all 

 his guns, and the capture or destruction of his whole 

 force of 1,200 men.' 



From Halbertstadt Tchernicheff recrossed the Elbe, 

 and took up a position at Bernberg, while he arranged a 

 combined movement with Woronzoff to surprise General 

 Arrighi, who was at Leipzig, with 5,000 men and consi- 

 derable magazines. Tchernicheff, by a forced march of 

 thirty-one miles in one day, joined Woronzoflf, and, when 

 united, they attacked Arrighi, who was quite unprepared 

 to receive the onset. Just as the victory was about 

 being completed, the action was stayed by the news of 

 the armistice that had been arranged between Napoleon 

 and the allied commanders. 



On the renewal of the war, Tchernicheff again proved 

 the great value of a partisan corps of cavalry if well 

 handled. Having taken a prominent part in driving 

 Oudinot into Magdeburg, with heavy losses, after the 

 battle of Grossbeeren, he boldly c^ried his operations 

 far in the French rear, and with the most signal success 

 into the very heart of Westphalia.^ At the head of 

 3,000 horsemen and four light guns, this dashing officer 

 crossed the Elbe at Dessau, and marching with lightning 

 rapidity ,*oross Germany, reached Cassel, the capital of 

 West^^/'ij, on the 30th September. His bold advance 

 and fiixU demeanour created great consternation among 

 the French authorities. Jerome Bonaparte, the King of 

 Westphalia, was obliged to fly from his capital without 

 firing a shot, and the gallant cavalry partisan entered at 

 the head of his Cossacks, amid the applause of the 

 people, and proclaimed the dissolution of the kingdom 



* Alison, iv. 81, 



2 Ibid. iv. 159. 



ii' 



