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The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles off on the line of Kutzov’s retreat. If he reached Znaim before the French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the Russians from Krems to Znaim.
The night he received the news, Kutzov sent Bagratin’s vanguard, four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagratin was to make this march without resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as possible. Kutzov himself with all his transport took the road to Znaim.
Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers by the way, Bagratin came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrnn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrnn from Vienna. Kutzov with his transport had still to march for some days before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagratin with his four thousand hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army that came upon him at Hollabrnn, which was clearly impossible. But a freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutzov in a similar way. Meeting Bagratin’s weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be Kutzov’s whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and with this object offered a three days’ truce on condition that both armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared that negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he therefore offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count Nostitz, the Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed Murat’s emissary and retired, leaving Bagratin’s division exposed. Another emissary rode to the Russian line to announce the peace negotiations and to offer the Russian army the three days’ truce. Bagratin replied that he was not authorized either to accept or refuse a truce and sent his adjutant to Kutzov to report the offer he had received.
A truce was Kutzov’s sole chance of gaining time, giving Bagratin’s exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and heavy convoys (whose movements were concealed from the French) advance if but one stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and a quite unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news he immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely to agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and meanwhile Kutzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim road. Bagratin’s exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone covered this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to remain stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.
Kutzov’s expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were in no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass, and also that Murat’s mistake would very soon be discovered, proved correct. As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schnbrunn, sixteen miles from Hollabrnn) received Murat’s dispatch with the proposal of a truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following letter to Murat:
Schnbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,
at eight o’clock in the morning
To PRINCE MURAT,
I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break the armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.
If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.
The Russian Emperor’s aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are nothing when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians let themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.
NAPOLEON
Bonaparte’s adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim escape, and Bagratin’s four thousand men merrily lighted campfires, dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store for him.
Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who had persisted in his request to Kutzov, arrived at Grunth and reported himself to Bagratin. Bonaparte’s adjutant had not yet reached Murat’s detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagratin’s detachment no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They talked of peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked of a battle but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement. Bagratin, knowing Bolknski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant, received him with distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to him that there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and giving him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join the rearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, “which is also very important.”
“However, there will hardly be an engagement today,” said Bagratin as if to reassure Prince Andrew.
“If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a medal he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he wishes to stay with me, let him... he’ll be of use here if he’s a brave officer,” thought Bagratin. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince’s permission to ride round the position to see the disposition of the forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent to execute an order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking French though he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.
