Did he fear the peace-loving tendencies of the King, or the treachery of Haugwitz?  It is difficult to see good faith in every detail of the treaty.  Apart from the strange assumption that England would subsidize Prussia and also give up Hanover, the manner in which the armed mediation was to be offered left several loopholes for escape.  After the surrender of Ulm, speedy and vigorous action was needed to restore the balance; yet a month’s delay was bargained for.  Then, too, Haugwitz, who was charged with this most important mission, deferred his departure for ten days on the plea that Prussia’s forces could not be ready before the middle of December.  Such was the statement of the leisurely Duke of Brunswick; but it can scarcely be reconciled with Frederick William’s threat, a month earlier, of immediate war against the Russians if they entered his lands.  Yet now that monarch approved of the delay.  Haugwitz therefore did not set out till November 14th, and by that time Napoleon was master of Vienna, and the allies were falling back into Moravia.

We now turn to the scene of war.  For the first time in modern history the Hapsburg capital had fallen into the hands of a foreign foe.  Napoleon now installed himself at the stately palace of Schoenbrunn, while Francis was fleeing to Olmuetz and the Archdukes Charles and John were struggling in the defiles of the Alps to disengage themselves from the vanguard of Massena.  The march of the French on Vienna, and thence northwards to Bruenn, led to only one incident of general interest, namely, the filching away from the Austrians of the bridge over the Danube to the north of Vienna.  As it nears the city, that great river spreads out into several channels, the largest being on the north.  The wooden bridge further up the river having been burnt by the Russian rearguard, there remained only the bridge or bridges, opposite the city, on the possession of which Napoleon set much store.  He therefore charged Murat and Lannes to secure them if possible.

Murat was smarting under the Emperor’s displeasure for a rash advance on Vienna which had wellnigh cost the existence of Mortier’s corps on the other bank.  Indeed, only by the most resolute bravery did the remnant of that corps hew its way through overwhelming numbers.  Murat, who should have kept closely in touch with Mortier by a flotilla of boats, was eager to retrieve his fault, and, with Lannes, Bertrand, and an officer of engineers, he now approached the first part of the bridge as if for a parley during an informal armistice which had just been discussed but not concluded.  The French Marshals had disposed the grenadiers of General Oudinot, a body of men as renowned as their leader for fighting qualities, behind some thickets that spread along the southern bank and partly screened the approach.  The plank barricade at the southern end was now thrown down, and the four Frenchmen advanced.  An Austrian mounted sentinel fired his carbine and galloped away to the main bridge; thereupon the four men advanced, called to the officer there in command as if for a parley, and stopped him in the act of firing the gunpowder stored beneath the bridge, with the assurance that an armistice was, or was about to be, concluded.