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Updated: June 12, 2025
That it was indispensable, therefore, to consummate this undertaking, to push it to the utmost, astonish the universe, beat down Alexander by his audacity, and carry off a prize which should be a compensation for so many losses. Thus it was, that the same danger which perhaps ought to have recalled him to the Niemen, or kept him stationary on the Düna, urged him towards Moscow!
This was in the direction of Beszenkowiczi, Prince Eugene had there encountered Doctorof, who commanded Barclay's rear-guard. In following his leader from Polotsk to Witepsk, he cleared his way on the left bank of the Düna to Beszenkowiczi, the bridge of which he burnt as he retired.
The latter reminded him of his own words, when he had declared to him, at Wilna, that "he would not cross the Düna, for to proceed farther this year, would be hurrying to infallible destruction." Sebastiani, like the others, laid great stress on the state of the army.
Nine wheelmen accompany me some distance out of Budapest on Monday morning, and Mr. Philipovitz and two other members continue with Igali and me to Duna Pentele, some seventy-five miles distant; this is our first sleeping-place, the captain making his guest until our separation and departure in different directions next morning.
He had abandoned it to Russian beggars and plunderers to march against Kutusoff, to throw himself on the left wing of that general, to drive him back, and then to proceed quietly to the banks of the Düna, where he should take up his winter-quarters."
Irritated at the intelligence, he sent orders to the Duke of Belluno immediately to drive Wittgenstein behind the Düna, as the safety of the army depended upon it. He did not conceal from the marshal that he had arrived at Smolensk with an army harassed to death and his cavalry entirely dismounted.
The intrepidity and reputation of the defeated general, his report, the boldness of the attack, the hope, nay the urgent necessity, of a decisive engagement, all led the emperor to believe, that their numbers alone had carried the day, that the Russian army was between the Düna and the Dnieper, and that it was marching against the centre of his cantonments: this was actually the fact.
In fact, Napoleon not having been able to anticipate the Russians in the possession of Witepsk, was determined to force them from that position; but the latter, after having entered by the right bank of the Düna, had passed through that city, and were now come to meet him, in order to defend the long defiles which protect it. On the 25th of July, Murat proceeded towards Ostrowno with his cavalry.
There is everything in fire-arms in his cabinet, from an English double-barrelled shot-gun to a tiny air-pistol for shooting flies on the walls of his sitting-room; he has swords, oars, gymnastic paraphernalia in fact, everything but boxing gloves. Arriving at Duna Pentele early in the evening, before supper we swim for an hour in the waters of the Danube.
Nothing but his baggage was taken; and Napoleon laid the blame of his escape on Prince Eugene, although he had himself prescribed to him every one of his movements. But the army of Italy, the Bavarian army, the 1st corps and the guard, very soon occupied and surrounded Wilna. Eighty leagues in front of Wilna, the Düna and the Boristhenes separate Lithuania from old Russia.
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