Other chiefs, by other routes, followed the same direction.  Oudinot had passed the Vilia beyond Kowno, and already in Samogitia, to the north of Wilna, at Deweltowo, and at Vilkomir, had fallen in with the enemy, whom he drove before him towards Duenabourg.  In this manner he marched on, to the left of Ney and the King of Naples, whose right was flanked by Nansouty.  From the 15th of July, the river Duena, from Disna to Duenabourg, had been approached by Murat, Montbrun, Sebastiani, and Nansouty, by Oudinot and Ney, and by three divisions of the 1st corps, placed under the orders of the Count de Lobau.

It was Oudinot who presented himself before Duenabourg:  he made an attempt on that town, which the Russians had vainly attempted to fortify.  This too eccentric march of Oudinot displeased Napoleon.  The river separated the two armies.  Oudinot re-ascended it in order to put himself in communication with Murat; and Wittgenstein, in order to form a junction with Barclay.  Duenabourg remained without assailants and without defenders.

On his march, Wittgenstein had a view, from the right bank, of Druia, and a vanguard of French cavalry, which occupied that town with too negligent a security.  Encouraged by the approach of night, he made one of his corps pass the river, and on the 15th, in the morning, the advanced posts of one of our brigades were surprised, sabred, and carried off.  After this, Wittgenstein recalled his people to the right bank, and pursued his way with his prisoners, among whom was a French general.  This coup-de-main gave Napoleon reason to hope for a battle:  believing that Barclay was resuming the offensive, he suspended, for a short time, his march upon Witepsk, in order to concentrate his troops and direct them according to circumstances.  This hope, however, was of short duration.

During these events, Davoust, at Osmiana, to the south of Wilna, had got sight of some scouts of Bagration, who was already anxiously seeking an outlet towards the north.  Up to that time, short of a victory, the plan of the campaign adopted at Paris had completely succeeded.  Aware that the enemy was extended over too long a defensive line, Napoleon had broken it by briskly attacking it in one direction, and by so doing had thrown it back and pursued its largest mass upon the Duena; while Bagration, whom he had not brought into contact till five days later, was still upon the Niemen.  During an interval of several days, and over a front of eighty leagues, the manoeuvre was the same as that which Frederic the Second had often employed upon a line of two leagues, and during an interval of some few hours.

Already Doctorof, and several scattered divisions of each of these two separated masses had only escaped by favour of the extent of the country, of chance, and of the usual causes of that ignorance, which always exists during war, as to what passes close at hand in the ranks of an enemy.