Page 495 sur 3800

Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills,

with his hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men

as stragglers by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim

road at Hollabrunn a few hours ahead of the French who were

approaching Hollabrunn from Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport

had still to march for some days before he could reach Znaim.

Hence Bagration with his four thousand hungry, exhausted men

would have to detain for days the whole enemy army that came upon

him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible. But a freak of

fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick that

had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a

fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way.

Meeting Bagration's weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed

it to be Kutuzov's whole army.