The administration of the hospitals was still very bad, even at Vitebsk; and elsewhere no doubt it was much worse. Matters were not improved by the fact that Surgeon-General Larrey and General Mathieu Dumas, the chief of the military administration, were on bad terms with each other. Some changes were at this time made in the commands. Napoleon’s old, but not very capable or energetic, friend, Junot, was appointed to the command of the 8th Corps. Marchand was given the Württemberg division of Ney’s corps. It had been commanded at the outset by the Crown Prince Wilhelm, but, partly owing to disgust at the disorder, and the fashion in which he and his men were slandered to save the faces of the French, partly owing to illness, he had returned to Vilna, leaving the command to Lieutenant-General Scheler. Marchand declined to take the direct control out of the hands of the latter, and the two worked well together. Otherwise, being an old comrade and subordinate, Marchand was probably welcome to Ney. The Marquis d’Alorna, one of the few Portuguese officers who had preferred to serve Napoleon willingly, was appointed Military Governor of Mohilev. General Charpentier was placed in charge of Vitebsk, and Gomès Freyre, another Portuguese, of Glubokoïe. The two brigades of Bavarian light cavalry belonging to the 6th Corps were combined into a division, under General Graf von Preising, and transferred to the 4th Corps, which now had 36 squadrons. Napoleon, of course, did not intend the halt to be more than temporary. At the outset of the campaign he had told Metternich that he did not intend to go farther than Smolensk in 1812, but, having established himself there, purposed to organise Lithuania and consolidate his rule in the former Polish provinces before attempting to conquer Russia Proper. This statement he repeated to others--notably to Jomini--and it can hardly be considered as a mere blind. Up to the present he had failed to strike a heavy blow at the opposing Russian army The extent of country which he occupied was by no means an advantage, since it was too poor to support his huge forces, and merely lengthened his already long line of communications. But now, at last, a battle might reasonably be expected. Barclay and Bagration had united their forces, and it was scarcely within the bounds of probability that Smolensk, a home of the ancient Rurikovich line, long contended for with hated Poland, one of the sacred cities of Russia, would be abandoned without fighting. The halt had for its primary object the putting of the army into good condition preparatory to a fresh and energetic advance.