nz, he might have changed the course of history. Napoleon had not
yet arrived, and Berthier, who was but human, had proved unequal to
the execution of his commander's orders.

It had been the object of Napoleon to gather his army on a certain
definite, well-connected line, and thence use it as necessity
demanded. Instead of obeying the letter of his instructions, Berthier
had struggled to obey their spirit, and had failed. The command on the
left bank had been assigned to Davout; that of all the troops on the
other side had been given to Massena; the latter was to concentrate on
the Lech, the former at Ingolstadt. So far all was good; then Berthier
lost his head (the critics say he never could have learned strategy,
if he had had ten lives), and, swerving from the clear letter of
Napoleon's orders, he attempted a more rapid combination--not that
behind the Lech, but one directly at Ratisbon. Davout was to march
thither and remain there; the other divisions were successively to
join him. The result was that three days elapsed before any army was
gathered at all; the two portions, one at Ratisbon, the other at
Augsburg, being for that time widely separated, and each exposed to
the separate attack of an enemy without possibility of cooeperation by
the other half.

When the Archduke Charles learned the general situation of his enemy
he determined to do exactly this thing--that is, to attack and
overwhelm each portion of the French army separately. For this purpose
he crossed the Isar, and, turning to the right, marched directly on
Ratisbon to attack Davout's command with his superior force before
Massena's scattered divisions could reach the positions assigned to
them. But he was too late. The semaphore telegraph then in use had
flashed from station to station its signals of the declaration of war
and of the enemy's advance over the Inn, until the news reached
Napoleon in Paris on the twelfth. On the sixteenth, after four days'
almost unbroken travel, he reached Donauwoerth. The confusion into
which Berthier's orders had thrown his carefully arranged plans
infuriated him; but when he heard, as he descended from his
traveling-carriage, where the enemy was, he could not believe his
ears. When assured of the truth he seemed, as eye-witnesses declared,
to grow taller, his eyes began to sparkle, and with every indication
of delight he cried: "Then I have him! That's a lost army! In one
month we are in Vienna!" The enemy's firs