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THE AUSTRIAN DIRECTION.

burg; Hohenzollern and Rosenberg kept on towards Rottenberg, to reach the Laber; the reserve corps got to Altdorf and Ergolding; Hiller, from Moosburg, advanced on Mainburg and Au, sending a detachment towards Pfaffenhofen to connect with Jellachic, who was supposed to have advanced from Munich; and the party sent towards Sträubing reported Davout still there. The Austrian direction was on Kelheim and Neustadt one fatal to the French centre.

During the coming night the reports as to the Austrian. advance confirmed Napoleon in the idea that the archduke, assuming Davout to be still isolated at Ratisbon, proposed to fall on him; and at 4 A. M. he wrote to Lefebvre at Neustadt: "It seems that Archduke Charles with three army corps is moving between Landshut and Ratisbon." He also knew of the crossing at Moosburg and Freising and the occupation of Munich, and foresaw the probability of Davout's running across Charles, who was within a day's march of Ratisbon. In order to help him out, Lefebvre was instructed to be afoot at 2 A. M., to get his three divisions assembled by 9 A. M., and to operate on the enemy's left flank while he was thus heading north: "You will make the Bavarians understand what I expect of them these days." And Massena, who had to consume time in collecting his cantoned divisions, was told the situation, and was urged to the utmost speed to reach Pfaffenhofen: "The importance of your movement is such that it is possible that I may myself join your corps," Napoleon wrote. "Prince Charles with all his army debouched yesterday from Landshut on Ratisbon. He had three army corps, estimated at eighty thousand men." Davout, he said, was moving on Neustadt, and would operate with the Bavarians against Charles; and he ordered Massena to move up sharply on the latter's rear, or upon any columns coming from Freising and Moosburg: "Without doubt Davout, who has nearly

ORDERS SPEEDILY EXECUTED.

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sixty thousand men, can, if pushed to it, come out of this affair with honor, but I look upon the enemy as lost if Oudinot and your three divisions shall have debouched before day, and if on this important occasion you make my troops feel what it is necessary for them to do." In an autograph postscript he added: " Activity! Activity! Speed! I leave myself in your hands!"

“

The idea possessing the emperor's mind was that even if the archduke did throw his three corps against Davout on April 19, this marshal could hold his own he had done more at Auerstädt; and if only Massena could get to Pfaffenhofen, cross the Ilm and take the Austrian army in reverse, a certain victory could be snatched from the situation. "Everything leads us to believe that between the 18th, 19th and 20th all the affairs of Germany will be decided," he wrote Massena.

During the afternoon of the 18th headquarters came to Ingolstadt, with Vandamme and the Wurtembergers; and Lefebvre had got concentrated-Wrede at Siegenburg, whence he drove out an Austrian party, repaired the bridge and occupied Biburg; the crown prince and Deroy at Neustadt. Later, Vandamme moved on Vohburg to sustain them. Except Friant, who on the 18th was at Hemau, Davout had got together his forces in Ratisbon, and St. Hilaire, Gudin and Morand, with St. Sulpice's cuirassiers and Montbrun's dragoons, stood ready to start towards Ingolstadt on Friant's arrival. The marshal wrote Berthier, reciting the status: "The column from Landshut shall not prevent our passing." Massena had completed the concentration, and his head of column under Oudinot had already got to Aichach. What saved Napoleon was the speed with which his marshals executed his orders, added to the accurate direction he gave their march. Yet both Massena and Davout had been a day late,

172

AUSTRIANS ADVANCING.

owing to the dissemination of their divisions. The emperor's task for the 18th was to hold Abensberg, Siegenburg, and Neustadt, lest his centre be broken and Davout cut off. The Austrians were still marching

in this direction with nearly one hundred thousand men, while Napoleon could assemble there less than forty thousand; and if he could not maintain his centre, the campaign was inevitably lost. Had Charles divined the situation and pushed in with vigor, he might have driven even Napoleon into the Danube; but the but the archduke could not see and act as quickly as his great opponent. Moreover, Napoleon had no idea of a defensive attitude. He knew that unexpected blows, even if not heavy, would serve to gain him a day's time; and in one day more he could finish shifting the scenes.

French Line Fusiliers.

Charles had not been as rapid as the conditions demanded, but according to his light he was wise. In the presence of Napoleon he could not afford to run risks. The 18th had seen the army advancing to a line drawn through Pfeffenhausen, to which Louis advanced, and Rottenburg, which Rosenberg and Hohenzollern reached, while Hiller got to Mainburg. His orders for the 19th were still to move in three columns in the general direction of Neustadt and Kelheim to keep the French wings apart; but when, partly by a captured dispatch of Lefebvre's to Davout, he learned the latter's continued presence in Ratisbon, and the arrival of the

ALTERNATE POSSIBILITIES.

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emperor, he felt anxious to join his Bohemian corps; and hoping at the same time to surround Davout, he changed his orders, and assembled the corps of Hohenzollern and Rosenberg, with Lichtenstein's reserve, at Rohr, leaving Louis advancing towards the Siegenburg region, and Hiller's flying wing at Mainburg, with Kienmayer's reserve corps coming up as a support to the left wing. Charles' purpose was to move upon Davout at Ratisbon; yet he imagined the French readier to meet him than they really were, and continued to advance with caution. If he meant to inflict the heaviest blow possible on Davout, he could best do so by first crushing the French centre and then turning on this marshal, or else by marching on Ratisbon through the defile by which Davout would be apt to approach Ingolstadt. This was a narrow stretch, between heavily wooded hills and the river, from Abach to Saal. Charles had men to spare, and the position at the mouth of the Saal defile could have been made for Davout a Caudine Forks; but like every one of that day, he feared to venture on a bold manœuvre with Napoleon in his front.

The emperor had impressed on Massena alternate possibilities of action: he would either have to head on Abensberg to join Davout, or to move off to the right towards Landshut to take the Austrians in reverse which course the events of At 3 A. M. Lefebvre

the 19th might call for was uncertain. was ordered to hold Siegenburg and Abensberg, and until Davout's arrival, to fend off an attack, which might at any moment come. Napoleon still assumed that the archduke must have advanced against Davout, and yet no sound of firing came during the forenoon to confirm this view; but hearing from Massena that Oudinot, leading the right wing van, had at Pfaffenhofen run across an Austrian body of some four thousand men, the situation was again confused, for he

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TO SUSTAIN THE LEFT.

did not know that it was only a large reconnoitring detachment from Hiller's flying wing, which had made a handsome fight to develop the force of the French. But the emperor's instinct was keen, and he wrote Massena at noon, April 19, from Ingolstadt:

"This is the true state of things. Prince Charles with all his army was this morning within a day of Ratisbon, and has his line of operations on Landshut. Davout last night and this morning evacuated Ratisbon to move on Neustadt and join the Bavarians. I expected an affair to-day, yet it is noon, and cannon has not yet been heard. You see that in this manœuvre I am refusing my left, wishing to advance my right, which you make up, and which from to-day is entering the game. This evening or to-morrow they will perhaps be fighting on the left. All this must get cleared up to-day, and minutes are precious. Hold Oudinot's corps ready, and place your four divisions around Pfaffenhofen in the three directions of Neustadt, Freising and Au, so that according to circumstances, one of these can march first and lead the others on the point to which the march may have to be made. Here everything is now a calculation of hours."

...

This action was taken in the effort not only to seize Charles' communications, but to bring these troops up where they would be within call of those on the Abens. Just before starting for the line of the Abens, where he expected the first development, the emperor again, in a postscript to a duplicate of the above order, changed the direction of the Au column to Neustadt, "so as to gain a march to sustain the left." This uncertainty as to whether he would draw in Massena to Davout, or throw him on the Austrian rear, together with the action he took, is in the highest degree interesting.

Friant's division having stolen a march on the Bohemian corps and arrived at Ratisbon during the night of April 1819, and Coutard's regiment been detailed to hold the bridge, with orders to retard until the last moment possible any Aus