left, now under Ney, with whom served Kellermann's
cavalry and the Young Guard, was to attack Wittgenstein's Russians on
the Pirna road. Thus, for once, Napoleon decided to attack both flanks
of the enemy. His motives in so doing have been much discussed by the
critics; Vandamme's movements, it may be suggested, contributed to the
French emperor's plan, which if carried out would open the Pirna road.
Still, the left attack may have had a purely tactical object, for in
that quarter was the main body of the Prussians and Russians, and
Napoleon's method was always to concentrate the fury of the attack on
the heaviest masses of the enemy, i.e. the best target for his own
artillery. A very heavy rainstorm during the night seriously affected
the movements of troops on the following day, but all to Napoleon's
advantage, for his more mobile artillery, reinforced by every horse
available in and about Dresden, was still able to move where the Allied
guns sank in mud. Further, if the cavalry had to walk, or at most trot,
through the fields the opposing infantry was almost always unable to
fire their muskets. "You cannot fire; surrender," said Murat to an
Austrian battalion in the battle. "Never," they replied; "you cannot
charge us." On the appearance of Murat's horse artillery, however, they
had to surrender at once. Under such conditions, Metzko, unsupported
either by Klenau or the main army beyond the ravine, was an easy victim.
Victor from Lubda drove in the advanced posts and assaulted the line of
villages Wolfnitz-Tultschen; Metzko had to retire to the higher ground
S.W. of the first line, and Murat, with an overwhelming cavalry force
from Cotta and Burgstadl, outflanked his left, broke up whole
battalions, and finally, with the assistance of the renewed frontal
attack of Victor's infantry, annihilated the division. The Austrian
corps of Gyulai arrived too late to save it. A few formed bodies escaped
across the ravine, but Metzko and three-fourths of his men were killed
or taken prisoners.

Meanwhile Ney on the other flank, with his left on the Pillnitz road and
his right on the Grosser Garten, had opened his attack. The Russians
offered a strenuous resistance, defending Seidnitz, Gross Dubritz and
Reick with their usual steadiness, and Ney was so far advanced that
several generals at the Allied headquarters suggested a counter-attack
of the centre by way of Strehlen, so as to cut off the French left from
Dresden. This plan