The disposition of the French army when the campaign commenced was as follows:—­The left wing, commanded by Macdonald, and amounting to 30,000 men, had orders to march through Courland, with the view of, if possible, outflanking the Russian right, and gaining possession of the sea coast, in the direction of Riga.  The right wing, composed almost wholly of the Austrians, 30,000 in number, and commanded by Schwartzenberg, were stationed, as has been already mentioned, on the Volhynian frontier.  Between these moved the various corps forming the grand central army, under the general superintendence of Napoleon himself, viz. those of Davoust, Ney, the King of Westphalia, the Viceroy of Italy, Poniatowski, Junot and Victor; and in numbers not falling below 250,000.  The communication of the centre and left was maintained by the corps of Oudinot, and that of the centre and the extreme right by the corps of Regnier, who had with him the Saxon auxiliaries and the Polish legion of Dombrowski.  The chief command of the whole cavalry of the host was assigned to Murat, King of Naples; but he was in person at the headquarters of the Emperor, having immediately under his order three divisions of horse, those of Grouchy, Montbrun, and Nansouty.  Augereau with his division was to remain in the north of Germany, to overawe Berlin and protect the communications with France.

A glance at the map will show that Napoleon’s base of operations extended over full one hundred leagues; and that the heads of his various columns were so distributed, that the Russians could not guess whether St. Petersburg or Moscow formed the main object of his march.

The Russian main army, under Barclay de Tolly himself, had its headquarters at Wilna; and consisted, at the opening of the campaign, of 120,000.  Considerably to the left lay “the second army,” as it was called, of 80,000, under Bagrathion; with whom were Platoff and 12,000 of his Cossacks; while, at the extreme of that wing, “the army of Volhynia,” 20,000 strong, commanded by Tormazoff, watched Schwartzenberg.  On the right of Barclay de Tolly was Witgenstein with 30,000, and between these again and the sea, the corps of Essen, not more than 10,000 strong.  Behind the whole line two armies of reserve were rapidly forming at Novgorod and Smolensko; each, probably, of about 20,000 men.  The Russians actually on the field at the opening of the campaign were, then, as nearly as can be computed, in number 260,000; while Napoleon was prepared to cross the Niemen at the head of at least 470,000 men.

On the Russian side the plan of the campaign had been settled ere now; it was entirely defensive.  Taught by the events of the former war in Poland, and of that which had already fixed the reputation of Wellington in the Peninsula, the Czar was resolved, from the beginning, to draw Buonaparte if possible into the heart of his own country ere he gave him battle.  The various divisions of the Russian force had orders to fall