For this reason it was that Napoleon separated his forces into five armies.  While Schwartzenberg, advancing from Gallicia with his 30,000 Austrians, (whose numbers he had orders to exaggerate,) would keep Tormasof in check, and draw the attention of Bagration towards the south; while the King of Westphalia, with his 80,000 men, would employ that general in front, towards Grodno, without pressing him too vehemently at first; and while the Viceroy of Italy, in the direction of Pilony, would be in readiness to interpose between the same Bagration and Barclay; in fine, while at the extreme left, Macdonald, debouching from Tilsit, would invade the north of Lithuania, and fall on the right of Wittgenstein; Napoleon himself, with his 200,000 men, was to precipitate himself on Kowno, on Wilna, and on his rival, and destroy him at the first shock.

Should the Emperor of Russia give way, he would press him hard, and throw him back upon Drissa, and as far as the commencement of his line of operations; then, all at once, propelling his detachments to the right, he would surround Bagration, and the whole of the corps of the Russian left, which, by this rapid irruption, would be separated from their right.

I will shortly sketch a brief and rapid summary of the history of our two wings, being anxious to return to the centre, and to be enabled uninterruptedly to exhibit the great scenes which were enacted there.  Macdonald commanded the left wing; his invasion, supported by the Baltic, overcame the right wing of the Russians; it threatened Revel first, next Riga, and even Petersburgh.  He soon reached Riga.  The war became stationary under its walls; although of little importance, it was conducted by Macdonald with prudence, science, and glory, even in his retreat, to which he was neither compelled by the winter nor by the enemy, but solely by Napoleon’s orders.

With regard to his right wing, the emperor had counted on the support of Turkey, which failed him.  He had inferred that the Russian army of Volhynia would follow the general movement of Alexander’s retreat; but, on the contrary, Tormasof advanced upon our rear.  The French army was thus uncovered, and menaced with being turned on those vast plains.  Nature not supplying it in that quarter with any support, as she did on the left wing, it was necessarily compelled to rely entirely on itself.  Forty thousand Saxons, Austrians, and Poles, remained there in observation.

Tormasof was beaten; but another army, rendered available by the treaty of Bucharest, arrived and formed a junction with the remnant of the first.  From that moment, the war upon that point became defensive.  It was carried on feebly, as was to be expected, notwithstanding some Polish troops and a French general were left with the Austrian army.  That general had been long and strenuously cried up for ability, although he had met with reverses, and his reputation was not undeserved.