On his right, the king of Westphalia was to drive Bagration on Davoust, who would cut off his communication with Alexander, make him surrender, and get possession of the course of the Boristhenes; on his left, Murat, Oudinot, and Ney, already before Drissa, were directed to keep Barclay and his emperor in their front; he himself with the elite of his army, the army of Italy, the Bavarian army, and three divisions detached from Davoust, was to march upon Witepsk between Davoust and Murat, ready to join one or the other of them; in this manner penetrating and interposing between the two hostile armies, forcing himself between them and beyond them; finally, keeping them separate, not only by that central position, but by the uncertainty which it would create in Alexander as to which of his two capitals it would be requisite for him to defend.  Circumstances would decide the rest.

Such was Napoleon’s plan on the 10th of July at Wilna; it was written in this form on that very day under his dictation, and corrected by his own hand, for one of his chiefs, the individual who was most concerned in its execution.  Immediately, the movement, which was already begun, became general.

CHAP.  VI.

The king of Westphalia then went along the Niemen at Grodno, with a view to repass it at Bielitza, to overpower the right of Bagration, put it to the rout, and pursue it.

This Saxon, Westphalian, and Polish army had in front of it a general and a country both difficult to conquer.  It fell to its lot to invade the elevated plain of Lithuania:  there are the sources of the rivers which empty their waters into the Black and Baltic seas.  But the soil there is slow in determining their inclination and their current, so that the waters stagnate and overflow the country to a great extent.  Some narrow causeways had been thrown over those woody and marshy plains; they formed there long defiles, which Bagration was easily enabled to defend against the king of Westphalia.  The latter attacked him carelessly; his advanced guard only three times encountered the enemy, at Nowogrodeck, at Myr, and at Romanof.  The first rencontre was entirely to the advantage of the Russians; in the two others, Latour-Maubourg remained master of a sanguinary and contested field of battle.

At the same time, Davoust, proceeding from Osmiana, extended his force towards Minsk and Ygumen, behind the Russian general, and made himself master of the outlet of the defiles, in which the king of Westphalia was compelling Bagration to engage himself.

Between this general and his retreat was a river which takes its source in an infectious marsh; its uncertain, slow, and languid current, across a rotten soil, does not belie its origin; its muddy waters flow towards the south-east; its name possesses a fatal celebrity, for which it is indebted to our misfortunes.

The wooden bridges, and long causeways, which, in order to approach it, had been thrown over the adjacent marshes, abut upon a town named Borizof, situated on its left bank, on the Russian side.  This bank is generally higher than the right; a remark applicable to all the rivers which in this country run in the direction of one pole to the other, their eastern bank commanding their western bank, as Asia does Europe.