Читать книгу The Works of Napoleon Bonaparte - Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - Страница 31

MAXIM XXVI.

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It is contrary to all true principle, to make corps, which have no communication with each other, act separately against a central force whose communications are cut off.

NOTE.

The Austrians lost the battle of Hohenlinden by neglecting this principle. The imperial army, under the orders of the archduke John, was divided into four columns, which had to march through an immense forest, previous to their junction in the plain of Anzing, where they intended to surprise the French. But these different corps, having no direct communication, found themselves compelled to engage separately with an enemy who had taken the precaution of concentrating his masses, and who could move them with facility in a country with which he had been long previously acquainted.

Thus the Austrian army, enclosed in the defiles of the forest with its whole train of artillery and baggage, was attacked in its flanks and rear, and the archduke John was only enabled to rally his dispersed and shattered divisions under cover of the night.

The trophies obtained by the French army on this day were immense. They consisted of eleven thousand prisoners, one hundred pieces of cannon, several stand of colors, and all the baggage of the enemy.

The battle of Hohenlinden decided the fate of the campaign of 1800, and Moreau’s brilliant and well-merited success placed him in the rank of the first general of the age.