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Entered the army as a private 1787, adjutant-general 1794, general of brigade 1796, general of division 1799, marshal 1804, Duke of Elchingen 1805, Prince of Moskwa 1812, and commanded the rear-guard in the famous retreat from Russia. On the return from Elba he went over to Napoleon; was at Waterloo.
Napoleon had quitted Augsburg, and Marshal Soult had just effected the capitulation of Meiningen. The emperor ordered Ney to retake the positions of Elchingen. The piles of the bridge had not been burnt, and under the fire of the Austrians the platform was replaced, and the troops rushed forward to the attack on the village. The convent which crowned the height was taken at the bayonet's point.
On the contrary, at various places, at Wertenghen, Guntzburg, Memingen, and Elchingen, severe skirmishes occurred with different divisions of the Austrian army, in all of which the French had the advantage.
In Germany there were created three similar duchies Auerstädt for Davout, Elchingen for Ney, and Dantzic for Lefebvre. Berthier was made Prince of Neufchâtel. So much for the military officials. In civil life there were corresponding distinctions: Cambacérès, Duke of Parma; Maret, Duke of Bassano; Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza; Fouché, Duke of Otranto; Champagny, Duke of Cadore.
It was high time; for Ney, firmly established at Elchingen, was pushing on his vanguard towards the doomed city: Murat and Lannes were charged to support him on the north bank, while across the river Marmont, and further south Soult, cut off the retreat on Tyrol. At last the scales fell from Mack's eyes. Even now he protested against the mere mention of surrender. But again he was disappointed.
Other corps were at the same time directed by circuitous routes upon the flanks of the Austrian army, which was attacked at Memmingen by Soult, and was cut off to the north by Ney, who carried the bridge of Elchingen by storm.
The marshal was indignant and furious, but obeyed; but General Dupont had not accomplished his movement when he was assailed by a corps of 25,000 Austrians, commanded by the Archduke Ferdinand. The heroic resistance of the French troops enabled them to fall back upon Albech with 1500 prisoners. The enemy contented themselves with occupying the little town of Elchingen, and burning the bridge.
The brilliant action at Elchingen, and the great victory at Austerlitz, were hailed as a glorious presage of future successes, for which the high-sounding phrases of a bulletin were deemed but a poor requital.
The Communists caught red-handed in the streets of Paris in 1870 died with hardly less formality than was observed at the death-scene of the Prince of the Moskowa and Duke of Elchingen, and the truth then became plain. The Bourbons could not, dared not, attempt to carry out the sentence of the law with the forms of the law.
In the first place, on the extreme right, and issuing from Gallicia, on Drogiczin, Prince Schwartzenberg and 34,000 Austrians; on their left, coming from Warsaw, and marching on Bialystok and Grodno, the King of Westphalia, at the head of 79,200 Westphalians, Saxons, and Poles; by the side of them was the Viceroy of Italy, who had just effected the junction, near Marienpol and Pilony, of 79,500 Bavarians, Italians and French; next, the emperor, with 220,000 men, commanded by the King of Naples, the Prince of Eckmühl, the Dukes of Dantzic, Istria, Reggio, and Elchingen.
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