Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume III. Walter Scott
started next day for Strasburg, and on reaching that city issued the following proclamation to the army: —
"Soldiers! The war of the third coalition has begun. The Austrian army has passed the Inn, violated treaties, and has attacked and driven our ally from his capital. You yourselves have been compelled to advance by forced marches to the defence of our frontiers. Already you have passed the Rhine. We will not again make peace without a sufficient guarantee. Our policy shall no more give way to our generosity. Soldiers, your Emperor is in the midst of you. You are only the advanced guard of a great people. If it should be necessary, they will all rise at my voice to confound and dissolve this new league which has been formed by the hatred and the gold of England. But, soldiers, we shall have forced marches to make, fatigues and privations of every kind to endure. Whatever obstacles may be opposed to us, we will overcome them, and we shall take no rest until we have planted our eagles on the territory of our enemy."
128
Jomini, tom. ii., p. 108; Savary, tom. ii., p. 99.
129
Jomini, tom. ii., p. 112.
130
"Sir Walter Scott blames the violation of the territory of Bareuth; but, how little have these neutralities been respected by conquerors! Witness the invasion of Switzerland at the end of 1813, so fatal to France!" – Louis Buonaparte, p. 43.
131
"This intelligence reached Napoleon in a wretched bivouac, which was so wet, that it was necessary to seek a plank for him to keep his feet out of the water. He had just received this capitulation, when Prince Maurice Lichtenstein, whom Mack had sent with a flag of truce, was announced. He came to treat for the evacuation of Ulm: the army which occupied it demanded permission permission to return to Austria. The Emperor could not forbear smiling, and said, 'What reason have I to comply with this demand? in a week you will be in my power, without conditions?' Prince Maurice protested, that without the conditions which he demanded, the army should not leave the place. 'I shall not grant them,' rejoined the Emperor; 'there is the capitulation of Memmingen; carry it to Marshal Mack, and whatever may be your resolutions in Ulm, I will never grant him any other terms: besides, I am in no hurry; the longer he delays, the worse he will render his own situation, and that of you all. For the rest, I shall have the corps which took Memmingen here to-morrow, and we shall then see.'" – Savary, tom. ii., p. 96.
132
"Soldiers! But for the army which is now in front of you, we should this day have been in London; we should have avenged ourselves for six centuries of insults, and restored the freedom of the seas. But bear in mind to-morrow, that you are fighting against the allies of England; that you have to avenge yourselves on a perjured prince, whose own letters breathed nothing but peace, at the moment when he was marching his army against our ally! Soldiers! to-morrow will be a hundred times more celebrated than the day of Marengo. I have placed the enemy in the same position."
133
Jomini, tom. ii., p. 123.
134
For the terms of the capitulation of Ulm, see Annual Register, vol. xlvii., p. 662.
135
Jomini, tom. ii., p. 126.
136
"Marshal Mack paid the Emperor a visit at the abbey of Elchingen. He kept him a long time, and made him talk a great deal. It was on this interview that he learned all the circumstances which had preceded the resolution of the Austrian cabinet to make war upon him. He was made acquainted with all the springs which the Russians had set to work to decide it; and lastly, with the plans of the coalition." – Savary, tom. ii., p. 98.
137
"It must be owned, that Napoleon did not think himself justified in resting his sole dependence upon his excellent troops. He recollected the saying of Machiavel: that a prudent prince must be both a fox and a lion at the same time. After having well studied his new field of battle, (for it was the first time he made war in Germany) he told us, that we should soon see that the campaigns of Moreau were nothing in comparison with his. In fact, he acted admirably in order to derange Mack's plans, who permitted himself to be petrified in his position of Ulm. All the Emperor's spies were more easily purchased than may be conceived. Almost all the Austrian staff-officers were virtually gained over. I had intrusted Savary, who was employed in the management of the
138
"I intended to enrol them in regiments, and to make them labour under military discipline, at public works and monuments. They should have received whatever money they earned, and would thus have been secured against the misery of absolute idleness, and the disorders arising out of it. They would have been well fed and clothed, and would have wanted for nothing, without being a burden on the state. But my idea did not meet the approval of the Council of State, which, in this instance, was swayed by the mistaken philanthropy, that it would be unjust and cruel to compel men to labour." – Napoleon,
139
"The 19th October arrived. The drums beat – the bands played; the gates of Ulm opened; the Austrian army advanced in silence, filed off slowly, and went, corps by corps, to lay down its arms on a spot which had been prepared to receive them. The ceremony occupied the whole day. The Emperor was posted on a little hill in front of the centre of his army; a great fire had been lighted, and by this fire he received the Austrian generals, to the number of seventeen. They were all very dull: it was the Emperor who kept up the conversation." – Savary, tom. ii., p. 200.
140
It will be unnecessary again to mention this man's name, of which our readers are doubtless as much tired as we ourselves are. He was committed to a state prison, in a remote part of the Austrian dominions; and whether he died in captivity, or was set at liberty, we have not learned, nor are we anxious to know. – S. – On his return to Austria, Mack was arrested, and sent to the citadel of Brunn, in Moravia, whence he was transferred to the fortress of Josephstadt, in Bohemia. He was tried by a military commission and condemned to death, but the penalty was commuted by the Emperor for two years' imprisonment, and the loss of rank.
141
Tenth Official Bulletin of the Grand Army.
142
"This conversation was not lost upon all: none of them, however, made any reply." – Savary, tom. ii., p. 100.
143
From Elchingen, Oct. 21, Napoleon issued the following address to the army: – "Soldiers of the Grand Army! In a fortnight we have finished a campaign: we have expelled the troops of the house of Austria from Bavaria, and re-established our ally in the sovereignty of his estates. That army which, with equal ostentation and imprudence, had posted itself on our frontiers, is annihilated. Soldiers! you owe this success to your unbounded confidence in your Emperor; to your patience in supporting fatigues and privations of every description; and to your singular intrepidity. But we will not stop here. You are impatient to commence a second campaign. We are about to make the Russian army, which the gold of England has transported from the extremities of the universe, undergo the same fate. Here there are no generals in combating against whom I can have any glory to acquire. All my care shall be to obtain the victory with the least possible effusion of blood. My soldiers are my children."
144
Jomini, tom. ii., p. 133.
145
"The conduct of Prussia at this period was conformable to the wholesome policy which had so long connected this power with France. It is not for us, Frenchmen, to reproach her inaction at this important crisis, even while criticising her raising the shield before Jena. Until then Prussia had showed herself reasonable, in not allowing herself to be drawn into new coalitions." – Louis Buonaparte, p. 44.
146
"Napoleon was always on horseback whatever weather it might be, travelling in his carriage only when his army was two or three marches in advance. This was a calculation on his part, the point always entered into in his combinations, and to him distances were nothing: he traversed them with the swiftness of eagles." – Savary, tom. ii., p. 103.
147
Jomini, tom. ii., p. 133; Savary, tom. ii., p. 101. Fourteenth and Fifteenth Bulletins of the Grand Army.
148
Jomini,