Note 437 — SECTION VII: CHAPTER III

Napoleon, furious at the escape of the Asturians, administered a fiery rebuke to the Marshal. ‘He had left one of his own divisions, exposed by Lefebvre’s imprudence, to run the risk of annihilation. He had never gone to the front himself to look at Acevedo, but had allowed the reconnoitring to be done by an incapable subordinate. His guess that Villatte had been victorious and did not need help was absurd; why should the dying down of the fire mean that the French were successful rather than beaten? The first principles of the art of war prescribe that a general should march toward the cannon, when he knows that his colleagues are engaged’ (Nap. Corresp., 14,445).