"Soldiers of the Grand Army - In a fortnight we have finished an entire campaign. What we proposed to do has been done. We have driven the Austrian troops from Bavaria, and restored our ally to the sovereignty of his dominions. That army, which, with equal presumption and imprudence, marched upon our frontiers, is annihilated. But what does this signify to England? She has gained her object. We are no longer at Boulogne, and her subsidy will be neither more nor less. Of a hundred thousand men who composed that army, sixty thousand are prisoners. They will replace our conscripts in the labours of agriculture. Two hundred pieces of cannon, the whole park of artillery, ninety flags, and all their generals are in our power. Fifteen thousand men only have escaped.
Soldiers! I announced to you the result of a great battle; but, thanks to the ill-devised schemes of the enemy, I was enabled to secure the wished-for result without incurring any danger, and, what is unexampled in the history of nations, that result has been gained at the sacrifice of scarcely fifteen hundred men killed and wounded.
Soldiers! this success is due to your unlimited confidence in your Emperor, to your patience in enduring fatigues and privations of every kind, and to your singular courage and intrepidity. But we will not stop here. You are impatient to commence another campaign! The Russian army, which English gold has brought from the extremities of the universe, shall experience the same fate as that which we have just defeated. In the conflict in which we are about to engage the honour of the French infantry is especially concerned. We shall now see another decision of the question which has already been determined in Switzerland and Holland; namely, whether the French infantry is the first or the second in Europe. Among the Russians there are no generals in contending against whom I can acquire any glory. All I wish is to obtain the victory with the least possible bloodshed. My soldiers are, my children."
(Correspondance de Napoleon Ier, XI 415-416 (No. 9405))
Having disposed of Mack's army, Napoleon turned to his next phase, the campaign against the Russian and remaining Austrian forces. Accordingly, his corps commanders received orders for a new concentration: Soult to Landesburg, Marmont on Munich, already occupied by Bernadotte; Lannes and Davout on Landshut and Freising, respectively. On the southern flank, Augereau's VII Corps advanced on Kempten.
Napoleon established his base at Augsburg, drove rapidly eastward, entered Munich on October 24, and directed his forces to concentrate on the Inn River line. By now, Kutusov had assumed command of the combined Russo-Austrian armies, totalling 50,000 men.
Kutusov accordingly withdrew behind the Inn on the 25th and 26th of October, burned the bridges and then withdrew to the next defensible line, the Enns River, 50 miles east of the Inn.
The French first encountered the Russians on October 31 near Lambach, where the Russian infantry fought a stubborn rear-action with Murat's cavalry before continuing their retreat. The weather, which had continued wet, now turned dry and cold. On November 4, Murat's patrols crossed the Enns, less than 100 miles in a direct line from Vienna ...
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The rear-guard action at Schöngrabern allowed Kutusov to acheive his aim of covering the retreat of the main body. He linked up with the former Viennese garrison at Pohlitz and on November 19th, joined Buxhowden's army 20 miles north-east of Brno. The allied armies, under the two emperors, then concentrated on Olmütz. Napoleon continued his northern advance, entering Brno on the morning of November 20th.
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