Note 2 — Front matter

Note by a French officer.—This disposition, of which the Austrian officer makes mention, and which is accurate, shews that the emperor had foreseen, that the enemy might manœuvre on the line of operation from Olmutz, along the March; in this case, the Russian army must pass at Shadish, whence it was farther distant than Marshal Soult, who had some infantry at Gaja, and detachments of cavalry, observing all the route, necessary to this movement.

Whenever the enemy's movement had been known, they would have been allowed to advance. The corps of Marshals Mortier and Davoust, would have been at Goeding, and the enemy would have had 30,000 men to contend with more than at Austerlitz.

In all the enemy's manœuvres upon Vienna, he moved upon the wings of the French army, which, by calling in all its detachments, concentrated itself, and opposed its whole force to that of the enemy.

It is more particularly in discussing, what it was possible for the enemy to have done, that we are convinced of the science, and deep calculation shewn by the emperor, in a country so new, and so little known. We see that all his dispositions, even those which appeared to be the most trivial, and to have had no other object in view than the subsistence of the troops, were the result of premeditated design, the chances of which had been already calculated.