United States or Western Sahara ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Hence," he said, after a pause, quite merrily and hopefully, "hence, I must succeed." He returned to the map and pointed his finger at it. "The Austrians are over there at Olmutz," he said, quickly. "Here, the Russian guards; there, the united corps of Kutusof and Buxhowden; farther on, the vanguard under Prince Bagration.
Count Ilya, again thrusting his way through the crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented to Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed in the hero's honor. Bagration, on seeing the salver, glanced around in dismay, as though seeking help.
The necessity for a speedy victory was being already felt. The Russian army had been cut in two by the rapid march of the French, Prince Bagration being isolated on the Dnieper, where Marshal Davout was already hemming him in, and soon after gained an important victory, at Mohilew, 23rd July, 1812.
"Your honor, the generals!" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov. Rostov, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line. One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov with their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the lights and shouts in the enemy's camp.
The smoke of the first shot had not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report. The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the cannonade behind him growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply.
Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to march for some days before he could reach Znaim.
The immediate result of the success of this rather doubtful artifice would have been the destruction of the corps of Kutusoff; but Murat in his turn was deceived by Bagration into belief in an armistice.
He went to balls and into ladies' society with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house that was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar! At the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.
Several of those present laughed. "How was it a gun was abandoned?" asked Bagration, frowning, not so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkov laughed loudest. Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present themselves to Tushin in all their horror.
Among them there were placed also, according to some unknown system, and for some unknown reason, firstly, Bagration tall and thin, and with a cluster of small flags and cannon beneath him, and the whole set in the narrowest of frames and, secondly, the Greek heroine, Bobelina, whose legs looked larger than do the whole bodies of the drawing-room dandies of the present day.
Word Of The Day