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Updated: May 13, 2025
Three army Corps, those of Davout, Ney and Poniatowski, launched an assault on the town from different directions. A murderous fire was poured down on them from the ramparts, and one even more deadly came from the batteries which the Russians had established on the opposite bank of the river.
Meanwhile he ordered his men to set up their bivouacs and to start preparing a meal. His generals complained to him in vain at this culpable inaction; Bernadotte would not budge, so that Marshal Davout, with no more than twenty-five thousand men, comprising the divisions of Friant, Morland and Gudin, faced almost eighty thousand Prussians animated by the presence of their king.
In spite of the precautions he had taken, the transports moved slowly and with difficulty, the staff officers dragging after them much useless baggage, and on reaching Thorn he ordered some important reductions. When pushing on towards Marienburg and Dantzig he was attended by Davout and Murat.
The task of defeating the Prussians was entrusted to his army in Saxony with which Davoût was expected to co-operate from Hamburg, retaken by the French on May 30. Austria, however, declared war on France the moment the armistice had elapsed, August 12, and the main army of the allies, principally composed of Austrians with large Prussian and Russian contingents, assembled in Bohemia.
The Tyrol at the same time rose in insurrection under the orders of a mountain innkeeper, Andrew Hofer; and the Bavarian garrisons were everywhere attacked by hunters and peasants. Like the Spanish, the Tyrolese claimed the independence of their country. The troops of the Emperor Napoleon already covered Germany; Davout being at Ratisbon, Lannes at Augsburg, and Massena at Ulm.
The young Prince daily gave proofs of sensibility and penetration; he was not yet beyond female care, but a private tutor, the Abbe Davout, gave him all the instruction suitable to his age; his memory was highly cultivated, and he recited verses with much grace and feeling. After the review Louis XVI. met with a child sweeping the street, who asked him for money.
But before he had decided what to do, Davout raised his head, pushed his spectacles back on his forehead, screwed up his eyes, and looked intently at him. "I know that man," he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently calculated to frighten Pierre. The chill that had been running down Pierre's back now seized his head as in a vise. "You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you..."
The Russian commander, Benningsen, seeing his left beaten and his rear menaced by the audacious Davout, resolved to crush him, and directed the greater part of his force against him. It was then that Napoleon, with the object of preventing this movement by creating a diversion against the enemy centre, ordered Augereau to attack, although he foresaw the difficulties of this operation.
Napoleon's generals Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that region of fire and sometimes even entered it repeatedly led into it huge masses of well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened in their former battles, instead of the news they expected of the enemy's flight, these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and terrified mobs.
The abbey of Kolotskoi and the neighboring villages were converted into provisional hospitals, under the direction of General Junot, commandant of the Westphalians. The emperor had advanced towards Mojaisk, and Murat followed with his decimated regiments. Napoleon refused Davout the command of the advanced guard.
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