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The French, conscious of their impending expulsion from Spain, were encumbered by enormous baggage-trains containing the fruits of five years' merciless spoliation "not of a province but of a kingdom," including treasures of art from Madrid and all the provincial capitals, with no less than 5,500,000 dollars in hard cash, besides two years' arrears of pay which Napoleon had sent to fill the military chest of Joseph's army.
It is a convoy composed of half a company of infantry, with a cannon which escorts baggage-trains through Kabardia from Vladikavkaz to Ekaterinograd. The first day I found the time hang on my hands dreadfully. Early next morning a vehicle drove into the courtyard... Aha! Maksim Maksimych!... We met like a couple of old friends.
In front and on flank they were hotly pressed. The opportunity of retreating to the succession of defensive points in the rear was quite lost sight of in the panic that invaded their ranks, and soon they were in precipitate retreat, their cavalry dispersed without making a charge, their infantry in the utmost disorder, their cannon and baggage-trains deserted and left to the enemy.
And as a great many of the surrounding Belgae and other Gauls, following Caesar, marched with him; some of these, as was afterwards learnt from the prisoners, having accurately observed, during those days, the army's method of marching, went by night to the Nervii, and informed them that a great number of baggage-trains passed between the several legions, and that there would be no difficulty, when the first legion had come into the camp, and the other legions were at a great distance, to attack that legion while under baggage, which being routed, and the baggage-train seized, it would come to pass that the other legions would not dare to stand their ground.
In two nights the artillery and the baggage-trains were thus passed along, and in a few days the fort itself was compelled to surrender. Melas, the Austrian commander, now awoke in consternation to a sense of his peril. Napoleon the dreaded Napoleon had, as by a miracle, crossed the Alps. He had cut off all his supplies, and was shutting the Austrians up from any possibility of retreat.
They were descended from the Cimbri and Teutones, who, when they were marching into our province and Italy, having deposited on this side the river Rhine such of their baggage-trains as they could not drive or convey with them, left 6000 of their men as a guard and defence for them.
This heavy rain, I fear, will delay the advance of the troops in the rear; for it will render the streams, especially Fishing Creek, impassable for the baggage-trains." "It does not usually rain as it does now for any great length of time?" suggested Major Lyon.
Along the strips of road were winding clumsy baggage-trains; the regiment of dragoons was trailing in advance; the gleam of the musket-barrels of the infantry was visible on all sides; and every puff of the breeze that blew over the bluff was freighted with the rumble of artillery-carriages and caissons.
All the skins, skulls, and alcoholic specimens, and all the baggage not absolutely necessary, were sent back down the Paraguay and to New York, in charge of Harper. The separate baggage-trains, under the charge of Captain Amilcar, were organized to go in one detachment.
On the other hand, notes and prefaces are sometimes a convenient method of adding to the weight of a book, and of magnifying, in appearance at least, the importance of a work; as a matter of tactics this is not dissimilar to that of the general who, to make his battle-front more imposing, puts everything, even his baggage-trains, in the line.
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