that the moves of Soult, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, and Ney round his rear were merely desperate efforts to cut back a way to Alsace.  He therefore held fast to his lines, made only feeble efforts to clear the northern road, and despatched reinforcements to Memmingen.  The next day brought other news; that Memmingen had been invested by Soult; that Ney by a brilliant dash across the Danube at Elchingen had routed an Austrian division there, and was threatening Ulm from the north-east; and that the other French columns were advancing from the south-east.  Yet Mack, still viewing these facts in the twilight of his own fancies, pictured them as the efforts of despair, not as the drawing in of the hunter’s toils.

He was now almost alone in his reading of events.  The Archduke Ferdinand, though nominally in supreme command, had hitherto deferred to Mack’s age and experience, as the Emperor Francis enjoined.  But he now urged the need of instantly marching away to the north with all available forces.  Still Mack clung to his notion that it was the French who were in sore straits; and he forbade the evacuation of Ulm; whereupon the Archduke, with Schwarzenberg, Kollowrath, Gyulai, and all whose instincts or rank prompted and enabled them to defy the madman’s authority, assembled 1,500 horsemen and rode off by the northern road.  It was high time; for Ney, firmly established at Elchingen, was pushing on his vanguard towards the doomed city:  Murat and Lannes were charged to support him on the north bank, while across the river Marmont, and further south Soult, cut off the retreat on Tyrol.

At last the scales fell from Mack’s eyes.  Even now he protested against the mere mention of surrender.  But again he was disappointed.  Ney stormed the Michaelsberg north of Ulm, a position on which the Austrians had counted; and on October 17th the hapless commander agreed to terms of capitulation, whereby his troops were to march out and lay down their arms in six days’ time, if an Austro-Russian army able to raise the siege did not come on the scene.  These conditions were afterwards altered by the captor, who, wheedling his captive with a few bland words, persuaded him to surrender on the 20th on condition that Ney and his corps remained before Ulm until the 25th.  This was Mack’s last offence against his country and his profession; his assent to this wily compromise at once set free the other French corps for offensive operations; and that too when every day was precious to Austria, Russia, and Prussia.

On October 20th the French Emperor, with a brilliant staff, backed by the solid wall of his Guard and flanked by eight columns of his troops, received the homage of the vanquished.  First came their commander, who, bowed down by grief, handed his sword to the victor with the words, “Here is the unfortunate Mack.”  Then there filed out to the foot of the Michaelsberg 20,000 foot and 3,000 horse, who laid down their arms before the Emperor, some with defiant rage, the most