“What is to be said of an Emperor,” remarks an eye-witness, “who dresses up in an outlandish disguise, rides off to his outposts, orders some one to bring him some water from the Niemen in a helmet, and tastes it with the air of a seer waiting for inspiration? It would have been better to keep these absurd tricks for the banks of the Nile, among the superstitious nations for whose behoof they were invented, rather than bring them over to Europe.” “Napoleon,” says Boutourline, “was preparing to crush the First Army of the West with his Guards, Davout’s, Oudinot’s, and Ney’s Army Corps, and Nansouty’s, Montbrun’s, and Grouchy’s cavalry—250,000 men in all—by a sudden attack on the centre before the Second Army could come to its support. The King of Westphalia, with the corps of Junot, Poniatowski, and Renier, and Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry, making a force of 80,000, was to execute the same manœuvre against the Second Army. The Viceroy of Italy, with an army of about the same strength, consisting of his own corps and that of St. Cyr, was to throw himself between the two Russian armies, and cut off all communication between them. On the left, Major Macdonald’s division, some 30,000 strong, was to enter Courland and threaten St. Petersburg and the Russian right. On the right, Schwarzenberg and the Austrians, also about 30,000 strong, were to hold Tormasof in check.” It was a well-conceived plan, and the movements of the French on Vilna were so swift and decisive that General Dokhturof’s corps and Dorokhof’s division were almost cut off. This brilliant beginning was, however, followed by a number of mistakes. The execution of the plan was marred by the slowness of the King of Westphalia (who soon afterwards threw up his command and returned home), and by the Emperor’s own irresolution. Napoleon appears to have lost sight of the fact that he should have taken the direct road from Vilna to Smolensk as his principal line of operations. If he had concentrated the whole weight of his army on this line he would have successfully outflanked Barclay on the left and Bagration on the right, and might then have fallen on either of them with the whole strength of his army, or, indeed, on both simultaneously. It was with the object of taking the Russians by surprise that Napoleon crossed the frontier without declaring war, and appeared at Vilna the day after the Emperor Alexander had left.