Napoleon watches as the Russians implement their misbegotten battle plan, quite unaware Napoleon is so nearby. Napoleon awaits the perfect moment to attack.
Napoleon watches as the Russians implement their misbegotten battle plan, quite unaware Napoleon is so nearby. Napoleon awaits the perfect moment to attack.
Book 3, Chapter 14
Napoleon watches as the Russians implement their misbegotten battle plan, quite unaware Napoleon is so nearby. Napoleon awaits the perfect moment to attack.
Summary:
Napoleon watches as the Russians implement their misbegotten battle plan, quite unaware Napoleon is so nearby. Napoleon awaits the perfect moment to attack.
Early in the morning the Russian troops, with Austrian guides, began to move. The monotonous tramp of thousands of feet resounded. The Russian columns moved forward, unable to see in the dense fog either the place they were leaving or that to which they were going. These troop movements were delayed and confused. Why have we stopped?, they asked, as groups of Russian soldiers blocked one another’s progress. The commander’s dissatisfaction with this muddle soon spread to the men, and all this disorder was blamed on the stupid Germans. They thought Napoleon was six miles away, but he was nearby and watching their confusion, waiting for the right moment to fall on the exposed Russian flank. Scattered shooting became more frequent. Then, when the moment was right, Napoleon signaled for his troops to fall upon the Russian flank.
quote from the chapter:
(Napoleon) gazed silently at the hills which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face-which in those days was still thin-moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack and regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into the mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night, by the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not begin the engagement.
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