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Hence Bagration with his four thousand hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army that came upon him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible. But a freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way.
Napoleon's proclamation was as follows: Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct your battalions.
Before the two masses of the enemy could reach Bruenn, and in spite of the clever manoeuvre of Kutuzoff, who succeeded before Hollabrunn in concealing from Murat and Lannes the great bulk of his army, the French were, on the 19th of November, in possession of the capital of Moravia. Napoleon entered it next day. The Emperor Alexander joined the Emperor of Austria at Olmuetz.
They were told that "the enemy were the same Russian battalions they had already beaten at Hollabrunn, and on whose flying traces they had been marching ever since." "They will endeavor," said the proclamation, "to turn our right, but in doing so they must open their flank to us: need I say what will be the result?
The town of Hollabrunn, taken and re-taken several times, set on fire by the mortars, filled with the dead and dying, remained finally in French possession. The Russians retired in the direction of Brno; our troops followed them and took possession of this town without a fight, although it was fortified and dominated by the well-known citadel of Spielberg.
He told me that some thirty troopers had just arrived, and that a courier from Vienna had met more than a hundred between Znaim and Brunn, and many more this side of Hollabrunn, which meant that within forty-eight hours the regiment would have made up most of its deficiency.
Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to march for some days before he could reach Znaim.
His proclamation to the troops announced all the plan of the battle. "Soldiers," said he, "the Russian army presents itself before you to avenge the Austrian army of Ulm. These are the same battalions which you have beaten at Hollabrunn, and that you have constantly pursued to this place.
The noise of the preparations in the camps had reassured Napoleon as to the direction the enemy would take. On the previous evening, whilst listening to the learned lecture of Weirother, Prince Bagration, formerly the heroic defender of the positions of Hollabrunn, had uttered under his long moustache, "The battle is lost!"
The truce lasted for thirty-six hours; and while Murat was inhaling the incense which the crafty Russian lavished on him, Koutousoff's army made a detour and concealing its movement behind a screen of low hills, escaped from danger, and went on to take up, beyond Hollabrunn, a strong position which opened the road to Moravia and assured his retreat and his junction with the second Russian army which was encamped between Znaim and Brno.
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