Napoleon's army, the allied chain of command was poor. The Russian
commander Kutusov was instructed by the Czar to take orders from the
Austrian Emperor Francis but not from any other Austrian general. Even
within the Austrian army the chain of command was unclear as the
Emperor Francis left it vague whether General Mack or Archduke
Ferdinand should have the final say.
Meanwhile everything about Napoleon's plans worked like clockwork.
His strategy was to wheel south and envelop Mack's army, after which he
would turn and deal with the Russians. Massena would hold the ring in
Italy, and there would be smaller armies in Naples and Boulogne to deal
with any allied descents there. But the showpiece of the campaign was to
be the lightning advance on the Danube. It should be emphasized that
nothing like this had ever before been attempted in the history of warfare.
The great French captain of the seventeenth century, the vicomte de
Turenne, had an axiom that great strategic movements could be
attempted with a maximum of so,ooo men only, and Marlborough's
famous dash to the Danube in 1704 involved no more than 40,000. The
originality of Napoleon's conception was to attempt the war of movement
with large numbers. It was to solve this conundrum that he divided his
army of z w,ooo into seven independent corps.
The left wing of the Grand Army moved out from Hanover and
Utrecht to the rendezvous at Wi.irttemberg, while the centre and right,
from the Channel ports, converged on Mannheim and Strasbourg on the
middle Rhine. The vast host made for splendid viewing, presenting a
panorama of different units and a riot of corresponding colour. There
were lancers in red shapkas and white plumes eighteen inches long;
chasseurs in kolbachs with plumes of green and scarlet; hussars in shakos
and plumes; dragoons in tigerskin turbans; cuirassiers in steel helmets
with copper crests and horsehair manes; carabiniers in dazzling white
with classically styled helmets. The grenadiers of the Old Guard were
especially impressive in their long blue coats and massive bearskins with
powdered coifs and gold earrings. The Grand Army was a gallimauffry of
fringes, buttons, epaulettes, braids, stripes, leather and fur trimmings, all
in a kaleidoscope of colours - scarlet, purple, yellow, blue, gold and
silver.
The entire Army then crossed the river and, while Murat's cavalry
feinted towards the Black Forest to bamboozle Mack, the seven army
corps swept through Germany, for a final rendezvous on the Danube,
aimed at cutting the Austrian communications. Each corps was routed
along a separate line of march, thus avoiding congestion and pressure on
fo od supplies. As always in the Napoleonic system, the corps were within
marcin
(Marcin)
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