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Updated: May 2, 2025
Napoleon, having, by good fortune, been informed by telegraph of the passage of the Inn twenty-four hours after its occurrence, came with the speed of lightning to Abensberg, just as Davoust was on the point of being surrounded and his army cut in two or scattered by a mass of one hundred and eighty thousand enemies.
He obtained, without first serving in a subordinate rank, the command-in-chief of the grenadiers of the Consular Guard; and from that time commenced the deadly hatred which Davoust bore towards me.
He was, indeed, hurried off by Davoust; because he had mounted the Orange cockade and wished to take his Dutch troops away with him. After consigning the command to General Gerard, Davoust quitted Hamburg, and arrived at Paris on the 18th of June. I have left Napoleon at Fontainebleau. The period of his departure for Elba was near at hand: it was fixed for the 17th of April.
It was also between Donauwerth and Ratisbon that Davoust, by a bold manoeuvre, gained and merited the title of Prince of Eckmuhl.
On the 14th at Jena he smashed Hohenlohe's Prussian army, the contending hosts being about equal strength; on the same day Davoust at Auerstadt with 27,000 men routed Brunswick's command over 50,000 strong. On the 25th of October Napoleon entered Berlin, the war virtually over and all Prussia at his feet with the exception of a few fortresses, the last of which fell on the 8th of November.
The 9th of May was a fatal day to the people of Hamburg; for it was then that Davoust, having formed his junction with Vandamme, appeared at the head of a corps of 40,000 men destined to reinforce Napoleon's Grand Army. Hamburg could not hold out against the considerable French force now assembled in its neighbourhood.
In any case it was fortunate for France and for the Allies that a man of his character ruled the army after Napoleon abdicated; there would otherwise have been wild work round Paris, as it was only with the greatest difficulty and by the force of his authority and example that Davoust succeeded in getting the army to withdraw from the capital, and to gradually adopt the white cockade.
At last he hears that Davoust, the leader whose devotion and methodical persistence merit his complete trust, has bridged the River Dnieper below the city, and has built ovens for supplying the host with bread. And having now drawn up troops and supplies from the rear, he pushes on to end the campaign.
Troops, to the number of 50,000 at Boulogne under Soult, 30,000 at Etaples, and as many at Bruges, commanded by Ney and Davoust respectively, were organized anew, and by constant drill and exposure to the elements formed the tough nucleus of the future Grand Army, before which the choicest troops of Czar and Kaiser were to be scattered in headlong rout.
While Davoust was probably enjoying the dangerous pleasure of having humbled his enemy, the emperor proceeded to Dantzic, and Berthier, stung by resentment, followed him there. From that time, the zeal, the glory of Davoust, the exertions he had made for this new expedition, all that ought to have availed him, began to be looked upon unfavourably.
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