sena, who had collected his army and was coming from Augsburg, was
ordered to turn, either left toward Abensberg, in order to join
Davout, or right toward Landshut, to attack Charles's rear, as
circumstances should determine. Lefebvre was now commanded to assume
the defensive and await events at Abensberg. Throughout the morning of
the nineteenth Davout and Charles continued their march, drawing ever
closer to each other. At eleven the French van and the Austrian left
collided. The latter made a firm stand, but were driven in with great
slaughter.

A considerable force which had been sent to strike Davout on the flank
at Abensberg was also defeated by Lefebvre. Before evening the entire
French army was united and in hand. Davout was on the left toward the
river Laber, Lefebvre, with the Bavarians and several French
divisions, was in the center beyond the river Aben, while Massena had
reached a point beyond Moosburg. Within sixty hours Napoleon had
conceived and completed three separate strategic movements: the
withdrawal of the whole army toward Ingolstadt, the advance of his
right to strengthen the incoming left, and the rearrangement of his
entire line with the right on his enemy's base of operations.

"In war you see your own troubles; those of the enemy you cannot see.
You must show confidence," wrote the French emperor about this time to
Eugene. How true it was of his own course! On the morning of the
twenty-first he declared that the enemy was in full retreat. This was
over-confidence on his part, and not true; but it might as well have
been. As a result of the preceding day's skirmishing and
countermarching the Austrian army was almost cut in two; one division,
the right, under Charles, was pressing on to Ratisbon, while the
other, under Hiller, was marching aimlessly behind in a general
northwesterly direction, and the whole straggling line was not less
than twenty miles in length. Lannes, the sturdiest, most
rough-and-ready of all the marshals, had arrived from Spain the night
before. His presence increased the army's confidence that they would
win, and next day he commanded a division formed from the corps of
Morand, Gudin, and Nansouty. Davout received orders to hold the enemy
in front; Massena was to spread out along their rear from Moosburg
down the Isar, ready to harass either flank or rear with half his
strength, and to send the rest, under Oudinot, to Abensberg.

On the morning of the twentieth the Em