ALEXANDER OF RUSSIA.

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tertaining that contempt of the Russians which of late it has been fashionable for Englishmen to feel or affect. He knew that, though somewhat slow, they were staunch soldiers, men who could stand like stone walls or rocks, and who, when beaten, would rally and try again. Napoleon told his own soldiers that the Russian infantry was truly formidable. “This contest," said he, "is of great importance to the honour of the French foot. It is now to be finally decided whether the French infantry be the first or only the second in Europe." [Subsequently he learned to his cost, on the plain of Maida, in Portugal, Spain, on the field of Waterloo, and from every action in which they came in close contact with the French, that the first infantry in Europe was the British, a fact of which we no more doubt than we do that both the French and the Russian infantry are brave and good.] When it came to the trial, Napoleon's success resulted rather from his strategical skill and the mistakes of the Russian leaders, than to any decided superiority of his men over the Russian soldiers. If the French were the quicker, the Russians were the more steady and dogged of the two. He never gained a victory over the troops of the Czar without a long crisis and a tremendous loss, and many of the sanguinary affairs which he claimed as victories were in reality drawn battles. But such was not the great combat of Austerlitz, fought on the 2nd of December, 1805.

On the 13th of November the French had taken undisputed and quiet possession of Vienna, where they found in immense quantities the military stores, arms, clothing, and provisions, which ought to have been removed and preserved for the use of the two allied armies. From Vienna Napoleon pushed boldly forward into Moravia. The Allies retreated, for the sake of forming a readier junction with a fresh Russian division which had entered the province. Warlike populations were beginning to rise en masse all round the French, thousands of light infantry were expected from Bohemia and Croatia, and numerous squadrons of excellent horse from Hungary. It behoved the allied Emperors to avoid a general action; and this they would have done, but for the significant fact that their armies were already in a half-famished condition. They must try and fight their way to Vienna, Quitting, therefore, their strong positions and en

trenchments at Olmutz, behind which the French would not have ventured to attack them, the Russians and Austrians advanced upon Brunn. Napoleon, in his turn, beat a retreat, but he halted his columns on the plain of Austerlitz, which he had attentively surveyed, and found to be the best battle-field in those parts. Marshal Kutusoff, the real commander-in-chief of the allied army, began his movements for attack on the morning of the 1st of December. These were beautifully executed; but the practised eye of Napoleon saw that, in order to execute his plan of turning the right wing of the French, Kutusoff would extend his lines too much; that there were a great many raw recruits, particularly among the Austrians; and he is said to have exclaimed, “By to-morrow evening that army is mine!" He may have used the words, and to good purpose; but it is evident that he was not very sure of the fact. The day was spent in active preparation, for the greater part in disposing, in the most advantageous manner, the tremendous trains of artillery which the French had dragged with them. The night, for Napoleon avowedly was one of intense anxiety. He went from bivouac to bivouac-the weather being bitterly cold and stormy-conversing familiarly with the common soldiers, and uttering oracular, short, easily-retained sentences to keep up their courage. Worn out with fatigue, he snatched a half-hour's sleep by the side of one of the bivouac fires. On the morrow morning, the 2nd-it was the first anniversary of his imperial coronation-he was very early on horseback. Thick fogs and mists hung over the plain and the neighbouring heights on which stood the Allies: the sun could scarcely break through the vapours; but at last it appeared red and lurid like a globe dipped in blood. Napoleon now rode along the line shouting, "Soldiers, we must finish this campaign with a thunderbolt!" and the soldiers shouted, " Vive l'Empereur! vive le jour de sa fête."

The two opposing armies were nearly equal in numbers, each counting about 80,000 men.

The French writers who represent the Allies as being far more numerous, sin against truth, and are guilty of a suppression of truth in not stating that the Austrian position of the allied forces was in

a state of discouragement, and chiefly composed of raw levies, and that on the side of Napoleon there was an overwhelming weight of guns. Kutusoff and the Russians began the attack with great spirit; but Kutusoff committed the error which Napoleon had foreseen: confident of success, he extended his line too much. Yet, after all, that line was not so easily broken through: for the French to do that it took a concentrated attack by Marshals Soult, Lannes, and Murat with all the French cavalry. In time, when many a French saddle had been emptied, the Russian divisions were separated; the Austrian recruits fought loosely and without intelligence; and, after a terrible conflict on the part of the Imperial Russian Guards, the

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allied army was routed in detail. Its loss was tremendous: thousands were drowned in the frozen lakes in the rear of their position, the ice, though thick, not being sufficiently strong to bear their weight. Entire lines of Russian infantry were mowed down by the artillery of the enemy; but other lines sprang up to supply their places, and the best part of Kutusoff's army, after standing the brunt of the battle, retired in admirable order, covered by clouds of Cossacks, who, with their rapid, irregular charges, and long lances, repeatedly drove back Murat's regular horse.

By one or two o'clock in the afternoon the success of Napoleon was pretty well decided; but it was near midnight ere the Russians entirely left the field, and then they marched off with such a countenance that the French did not venture to follow them. In the course of the morning, once, if not twice, Marshal Soult was in the greatest danger; Kutusoff nearly succeeded in reuniting his divisions and closing up his line-and the fate of Napoleon seemed to hang by a thread. A charge made by the entire cavalry of his guard, and then a sustained fire of grape-shot on the solid Russian squares, turned the scale, and allowed him to hum his opera air, "Ah! comme il y viendra!" In the combat, the French placed a principal reliance on their artillery; the Russian infantry made a great use of the bayonet. Most of the French that were wounded were wounded by that weapon, and in the great majority of cases those wounds proved mortal. The total loss on this side exceeded 5,000 men and officers.

The battle of Austerlitz was the most brilliant victory achieved by Napoleon during the period of the Empire. Between the surrender of Mack and this great battle, he received intelligence of the annihilation of his fleets at Trafalgar. This clouded his triumph, and for a time depressed his spirits. He peevishly said, "I cannot be everywhere!" But, as several writers have observed, his presence at Trafalgar, in a ship of the line, would have been much more useless than that of Nelson on horseback in the campaign of the Danube, and in Moravia.

Before advancing on Vienna, the conqueror had said that it was time for the Emperor of Germany to recollect that all empires have