United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Having obtained this first success, the Emperor, not being able to outflank the enemy wings because their superior numbers allowed them to present too long a front, decided to keep them occupied while he attempted to break through their centre. To this end, he sent Marshal Mortier to Wachau with two divisions of infantry, and Marshal Oudinot with the Young Guard.
While we waited thus, three fearful battles were going on at once: one against the Austrians and Russians at Wachau; another against the Prussians at Mockern on the road to Halle; and the third on the road to Lutzen, to defend the bridge of Lindenau, attacked by General Giulay.
No Puritan of bleak New England ever showed more resolute courage or greater will to defend the hard-won outpost of civilization than did the pious Moravian of the Wachau.
With him came the King and Queen of Saxony, who during the last days had resignedly moved along in the tail of this comet, which had blasted their once smiling realm. Outside the city they parted, the royal pair seeking shelter under its roofs, while the Emperor pressed on to Murat's headquarters near Wachau. There, too the news was doubtful.
On the 14th of October, the flower of the French cavalry, headed by the king of Naples, encountered Blucher's and Wittgenstein's cavalry at Wachau, not far from Leipzig. The contest was broken off, both sides being desirous of husbanding their strength, but terminated to the disadvantage of the French, notwithstanding their numerical superiority, besides proving the vicinity of the Prussians.
At Leipzig, on the 16th of October, Sébastiani, commanding the 2nd Cavalry Corps, having placed his three divisions between the villages of Wachau and Liebert-Wolkwitz, and indicated to each divisional general roughly the position he should occupy, Exelman found himself placed on undulating ground intersected, as a result, by small ridges and hollows.
These banners, presented to the minister of war by M. Lecouteux aide-de-camp to the Prince de Neuchatel, had preceded his Majesty's arrival in Paris by two days, and had already been presented to the Empress, to whom the Emperor had done homage in the following terms: "MADAME, AND MY VERY DEAR WIFE, "I send you twenty banners taken by my army at the battles of Wachau, Leipzig, and Hanau.
The Marshal who commanded the left wing which had been placed in position by the Emperor, seeing that by ten o'clock in the morning no enemy troops had appeared, sent, on his own authority, one of his army corps, commanded by General Souham, to Wachau, where there seemed to be an active engagement; but while this ill-considered movement was being carried out, the Prussian Marshal Blücher, who had been delayed, arrived with the Silesian army and captured the village of Möckern.
They had only indulged in a modest honeymoon trip, such as a man in humble circumstances, who had married a woman without any dowry, could treat himself to. They had taken the boat from Vienna, up the river, to a little village in Wachau, not far from their future home, and had spent a few days there.
There his lines stretched in convex front along undulating ground near Wachau and Liebertwolkwitz, about a league to the south and south-east of the town.
Word Of The Day