ORDERS TO DAVOUT.

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The French spies in Vienna reported with regularity the passage of troops from every part of the empire through the capital towards the army in Bohemia or Bavaria, and everything that could be gathered pointed to the 15th or 20th of April as the opening of hostilities. On March 23 the chargé d'affaires notified the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris that the Austrian armies of the North, of Italy, of Galicia, the militia and the reserve would number five hundred and ninety thousand men; so that, however erroneous the figures, the emperor could estimate after a fashion what he had to meet.

French Marine.

From the moment he reached Paris, Napoleon began his measures to meet the oncoming storm. On ordering the bulk of the Grand Army to the Peninsula the previous year, he had left Davout and the Army of Occupation in control of Germany and Poland; large forces were at Hanover, Magdeburg, Stettin and near Bayreuth, and headquarters at Erfurt was the centre of military and political activity. His first orders were for Davout to leave good garrisons in the fortified cities, and with forty-five thousand men to rendezvous at Bamberg, leaving the Polish divisions of twenty thousand under Poniatowski at Warsaw, and the sixteen thousand Saxons in Dresden. Oudinot, with his grenadiers, who had been in the Frankfort region, was ordered to Augsburg; the cavalry reserve, from its various stations all through the Rhine and

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THE ARMY OF THE NORTH.

Main country, was set on the march to the Danube; Lannes turned over his Saragossa work to Junot and came north; Massena, actually on the road with thirty thousand men via Lyon towards Spain, was brought to the right-about, to reorganize his corps in Strasburg with part of the troops he had and two divisions already in Germany, and then to advance on Ulm; the Guard was withdrawn from Spain and headed for the Danube; and thirty thousand men of the Confederation of the Rhine were mobilized. Bernadotte had some time before been sent to Dresden to command the Saxons, look after the Hanseatic towns and raise an army among the allies. As secrecy had presided over the Army of Reserve in the Marengo campaign, so now a great flourish was made over this Army of the North, mainly to impose on Hanover and north Germany, for this year the English had gone to more extensive preparations than ever before. Bernadotte's public orders, spread abroad in every direction, were to hold the Prussians and the English in check; his private instructions were to be ready to start along the Bohemian frontiers for the Danube with two Saxon divisions, and to leave the allies to protect their own territory. In the effort to efface the recollection of previous faultfinding, as at Jena, and to get from Bernadotte his best efforts, on April 19 Napoleon wrote him: "My Cousin, I have received all your letters. The war that I am to maintain is in concert with Russia. You have entered for something into this combination. Here, then, is a proof of my esteem, and of how much I make of you in the destination which I have given you." And fearing an invasion of Saxony, on April 5 he recommended Bernadotte, "in case war was suddenly declared, to have the royal family retire on Leipsic and Erfurt, or even into France, if agreeable to the king, to leave the garrison at Dresden, and to direct himself with all the disposable

VIGOROUS CONCENTRATION.

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Saxon troops towards the French army, to join it on the Danube."

The itineraries of the various regiments of the Army of the Rhine (Davout's force) moving to Bamberg were ordered with the utmost accuracy, as were the day's marches of every part of the army. As an example, the 11th Hussars was to move March 13 to Naumburg, Camburg and Jena, the 14th to Rudolstadt, the 15th to Gräfenthal, the 16th to Neustadt, the 17th to Stafelstein, the 18th to Bamberg, the 19th to Forschheim, the 20th to Erlangen. The 30th of the line with its artillery was to march the 12th to Kalbe, the 13th to Connern, the 14th to Halle, the 15th to Merseburg, the 16th to Naumburg, the 17th to Jena, the 18th to Rudolstadt, the 19th to Gräfenthal, the 20th to Coburg, the 21st to Bamberg, to be followed by the 6th of the line, and that by the 65th of the line, each doing the same day's marches, and stopping at each of the same places one day later than its leader. These marches were drawn up with care, and each body held to accomplish them. As the troops arrived at their destinations they were cantoned and fed, under orders issued in each corps.

By the vigorous concentration above ordered, the emperor could, by the end of March, count on sixty thousand men in Bamberg, thirty thousand men in Ulm and twenty thousand at Augsburg, while Lefebvre, in command of the Bavarian army, would have thirty thousand more along the Isar, and the Guard would be fast coming along. He was based on both Rhine and Main, with numberless roads leading to Würzburg, Mainz or Strasburg, while Charles' communications were the roads running up the Danube, and through Bohemia and the mountains.

During the last half of February many reports ran in showing Austria's purpose to force war; and from Paris, March 23, the emperor wrote Berthier: "My Cousin, a French officer has been arrested at Braunau, and the dispatches of which he was bearer were taken away from him by main force by the Austrians, although sealed by the arms of France. Write to

The Rhine-Enns Country.

BERTHIER IN CHARGE.

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Davout, Massena and Oudinot to try to have arrested some Austrian couriers. Recommend them to make these expeditions very secretly, to accelerate the march of the troops without fatiguing them. . . and to be ready to move to the Danube."

Anxious not to appear the aggressor by heading his armies too early, Napoleon, in an Order from Paris of March 28,and especial heed is to be paid to this, - placed Berthier, Chief of Staff, in charge of operations, and indicated to him the general plan he was to pursue, until he himself should reach the front. "Should the Austrians attack before April 10, the army is to concentrate behind the Lech, the right occupying Augsburg, and the left the right" (bank) "of the Danube towards Ingolstadt and Donauwörth. Donauwörth is to be the most central point of the army. Therefore recommend, if the case should arrive, that the biscuit of Ingolstadt and Munich be sent behind the Lech. Establish hospitals at Ulm, at Augsburg, which is to be always guarded, and at Donauwörth." This was the key-note which the emperor sounded time and again. "Should the Austrians attack before April 10". later made the 15th "the army is to concentrate behind the Lech." By the word "attack,” of course, he did not mean tactical onset: before this could be met the army must be assembled and ready. What he meant was such a strategic advance by the enemy as to seek touch with the French, and deliver battle when met. In other words, he meant an advance with hostile intent into Bavaria, across the Inn and towards the Isar, or on Ratisbon from Bohemia. This underlying idea of the opening of the campaign could not be made clearer.

Two days later, March 30, detailed "Instructions for the Major-General" as to the preliminary manœuvres were dictated to Berthier before he left Paris, and no doubt these were