ature opening of the campaign was certain to make Austria
pivotal in European politics once again. Her preparations were not
well advanced, but her strength was growing daily, while that of her
rivals was sure to diminish until in the end the coalition would be
powerless without her. This Napoleon saw, and he arranged his strategy
to checkmate what he now felt to be a hostile neutrality. Believing
that the enemy would meet him half way, his first plan showed all the
marks of greatness which characterized the similar one he had so
successfully executed at Jena. Its central idea was a mass formation
with Eugene to break through the enemy's line, then by a wheel toward
the south to annihilate their left, and finally to present himself
victorious before Austria. If successful he might dictate his own
terms. But the enemy did not advance; it was perhaps well for the
Emperor of the French that they did not. An eye-witness declared that
on what was supposed to be the very eve of battle there was little
real discipline outside the sphere of the commander's personal
observation, that the officers had no confidence in their men and the
men but little in their officers, that the superiors were absorbed in
securing some measure of physical comfort, that the inferiors were
listless and disobedient. The forward movement was successful, and the
union with Eugene was effected on April twenty-eighth. Two whole days
elapsed, however, before the enemy was found, and it was May first
when the French van drove in the Russian outposts from Luetzen, ever
famous as the scene of Wallenstein's overthrow by Gustavus Adolphus a
hundred and eighty-one years earlier. The Russian center was
concentrated between the Elster and the Pleisse; Napoleon's line was
more extended, overlapping his enemy's, both right and left. In a
preliminary skirmish at the pass of Rippach, Bessieres, rashly
exposing himself at the head of the cavalry of the guard, was killed.
His loss in such a crisis was like the ruin of a great cohort on the
eve of a close battle. Marmont, forgiven for his failure in Spain, was
near; but close to Napoleon as he was, even he could not replace the
gallant, trusted cavalry leader who for nearly seventeen years had
scarcely quitted his Emperor's side.

Owing probably to the inadequate scouting force of Napoleon, the
battle of Luetzen was in the nature of a surprise. Wittgenstein had
detached five thousand men as if to cover Leipsic, toward w