Having thus detached very superior forces against the only two Russian armies which were opposed to him, Buonaparte himself, with the Guards, the army of Italy, the Bavarian army, and three divisions of Davoust's corps d'armée was at liberty to have marched forward upon Witepsk, occupying the interval between the corps of Murat, who pressed upon Alexander and De Tolly, and of Davoust, who was pursuing Bagration. By thus pressing on where there was no hostile force opposed to him, Napoleon might have penetrated between the two Russian armies, to each of whom a superior force was opposed, might have forced himself between them and occupied Witepsk, and threatened both St. Petersburgh and Moscow; or, if he decided for the latter capital, might have advanced as far as Smolensk. That Buonaparte, formed this plan of the campaign on the 10th of July at Wilna, we are assured by Ségur; but it was then too late for putting it in execution--yet another week was lost at Wilna.[121] All seem to have been sensible of an unusual slowness in Napoleon's motions on this important occasion; and Ségur attributes it to a premature decay of constitution,[122] of which, however, we see no traces in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814.[123] But the terrible disorder of an army, the sick and stragglers of which absolutely filled Lithuania, and that army one of such immense size, required considerable time to remodel and new-organise it; and this of itself, a misfortune inherent in the enterprise, is sufficient to account for the halt at Wilna. Meantime Bagration, in a precarious situation, defended himself with the greatest skill and gallantry. Being cut off from the direct road to Drissa, it was his object to retreat eastward to his rear, instead of moving northward by his right flank, and thus to make his way towards the Dwina, either through Ostrowno and Minsk, or by the town of Borizoff. When he gained the Dwina, Bagration trusted to form a junction with the grand army, from which he was now so fearfully separated. The actual strength of his army was, however, increased not only by the Hettman Platoff with his Cossacks, who, being advanced south-westward as far as Grodno, made in fact a part of Bagration's command, and assisted him materially in his retreat; but also by the division of General Dorokhoff, which, forming the extreme left of the grand Russian army, was cut off in the retreat upon Drissa by the advance of the French, and therefore had been placed also in communication with Bagration. So that, numerically, the prince might have under his command from 40 to 50,000 men.