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Updated: May 2, 2025
The army was thus quartered on the banks of these two rivers, and in the interval between them; Poniatowski and his Poles at Mohilef; Davoust and the first corps at Orcha, Dubrowna, and Luibowiczi; Murat, Ney, the army of Italy and the guard, from Orcha and Dubrowna to Witepsk and Suraij.
I asked him how I was to account for his conduct while he was with Davoust, who had left Nuremberg to attack the Prussian army; and whether it was true that he had refused to march with that general, and afterwards to aid him when he attacked the Prussians on the Weimar road.
He also left in the hands of Davoust a written authority for the publication of his bulletins, many clauses of which were written long before the battles were fought that they were to describe. He gave to the same Marshal a plan of his campaign, which he had arranged for the defensive.
In less than a hundred yards we were halted again; and I heard an aide-de-camp telling General d'Auvergne that Davoust had suffered immensely on the right; that his division, although reinforced, had fallen back behind Reygern, and all now depended on the attack of Soult's columns.
He himself was in despair for having rejected the propositions of the English; had it not been for that, he would still be a great monarch, such as the Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia." Davoust abruptly cut him short. "The King of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria," said he to him, "are monarchs by the grace of God, of time, and the custom of nations.
The pupil and friend of Sharnhorst and Gneisenau, he had served on the Staff of Blücher in 1813, he had been Chief of the Staff to Wallmoden in his campaign against Davoust on the Lower Elbe, and also to the Third Prussian Army Corps in the campaign of 1815.
For Napoleon had eight monarchs serving with the eagles; generals innumerable, many of them immortal Davoust, the greatest strategist; Prince Eugene, the incomparable lieutenant; Ney, the fearless; four hundred thousand men. And they carried with them only twenty days' provision.
The Bavarians under Raglowich, who, probably owing to secret orders, had remained, during the battle, almost in a state of inactivity, withdrew in another direction and escaped. Davoust also again retired upon Hamburg, and his rearguard under Pecheux was attacked by Wallmoden, on the 16th of September, on the Gorde, and suffered a trifling loss.
Bernadotte advanced from Hanover, with the troops which had occupied that electorate, towards Wurtzburg, where the Bavarian army lay ready to join its strength to his; five divisions of the great force lately assembled on the coasts of Normandy, under the orders of Davoust, Ney, Soult, Marmont, and Vandamme, crossed the Rhine at different points, all to the northward of Mack's position; while a sixth, under Murat, passing at Kehl, manoeuvred in such a manner as to withdraw the Austrian's attention from these movements, and to strengthen him in his belief that Napoleon and all his army were coming against him through the Black Forest in his front.
Much against his will Davoust was therefore forced to content himself with the organisation of the forces being hastily raised, but he chafed in his position; and it is characteristic of him that Napoleon was eventually forced to send him the most formal orders before the surly Minister would carry out the Emperor's unlucky intention of giving a command to Bourmont, whom Davoust strongly and rightly suspected of treachery.
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