: A Detailed Account of the Battle of Austerlitz by Stutterheim Karl Von Napoleon I Emperor Of The French Contributor Pine Coffin John Translator - Austerlitz Battle of Czech Republic 1805

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ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article.

THE CADMEAN MADNESS.

The peculiar proficiencies of great epochs are as astonishing as the exploits of individual frenzy. The era of the Greek rhapsodists, when a body of matchless epical literature was handed down by memory from generation to generation, and a recitation of the whole "Odyssey" was not too much for a dinner-party,--the era of Periclean culture, when the Athenian populace was wont to pass whole days in the theatre, attending with unfaltering intellectual keenness and aesthetic delight to three or four long dramas, either of which would exhaust a modern audience,--the wild and vast systems of imaginary abstractions, which the Neo-Platonists, as also the German transcendentalists, so strangely devised and became enamored of,--the grotesque views of men and things, the funny universe altogether, which made up both the popular and the learned thought of the Middle Ages,--the Buddhistic Orient, with its subtile metaphysical illusions, its unreal astronomical heavens, its habits of repose and its tornadoes of passion,--such are instances of great diversities of character, which would be hardly accountable to each other on the supposition of mutual sanity. They suggest a difference of ideas, moods, habits, and capacities, which in contemporaries and associates would amply justify either party that happened to be the majority in turning all the rest into insane asylums. It is the demoniac element, the raving of some particular demon, that creates greatness either in men or nations. Power is maniacal. A mysterious fury, a heavenly inspiration, an incomprehensible and irresistible impulse, goads humanity on to achievements. Every age, every person, and every art obeys the wand of the enchanter. History moves by indirections. The first historic tendency is likely to be slightly askew; there follows then an historic triumph, then an historic eccentricity, then an historic folly, then an explosion; and then the series begins again. In the grade of folly, hard upon an explosion, lies modern literature.

The largest library in the world, the Biblioth?que Imp?riale of Paris, contains very nearly one million of books, the collected fruits of all time. Consider an average book in that collection: how much human labor does it stand for? How much capital was invested originally in its production, and how much tribute of time and toil does it receive per annum? Regarding books as intellectual estate, how much does it cost mankind to procure and keep up an average specimen? What quantity of human resources has been originally and consecutively sunk in the Parisian library? How much of human time, which is but a span, and of human emotion and thought, which are sacred and not to be carelessly thrown away, lie latent therein?

The estimate must be highly speculative. Some books have cost a lifetime and a heartbreak; others have been written at leisure in a week, and without an emotion. Some are born from the martyrdom of a thinker to fire the genius of a populace; others are the coruscations of joy, and have a smile for their immortal heir. Some have made but the slightest momentary ripple in human affairs; others, first gathering eddies about themselves, have swept forward in grand currents, engrossing for centuries whole departments of human energy. Thousands publish and are forgotten before they die. Spinoza published after his death and is not yet understood.

We will begin with the destined bibliomacher at the time of his assumption of short clothes. The alphabet is his first professional torture, and that only ushers him upon the gigantic task of learning to read and write his own language. Experience shows that this miracle of memory and associative reason may be in the main accomplished by the time he is eight years old. Thus far in his progress towards book-making he has simply got his fingers hold of the pen. He has next to run the gauntlet of the languages, sciences, and arts, to pass through the epoch of the scholar, with satchel under his arm, with pale cheek, an eremite and ascetic in the religion of Cadmus. At length, at about twenty years of age, he leaves the university, not a master, but a bachelor of liberal studies. But thus far heto Moravia, being composed of the corps under Prince Murat, Marshals Soult, Lannes, and Bernadotte. The last of these was then opposed to the Archduke Ferdinand, and was advancing upon Iglau. Marshal Davoust, after having followed M. de Merveldt into Styria, moved from Vienna upon Presbourgh. The corps of Marmont marched upon Carinthia, and then upon Styria; in the first instance, to open the communication between the grand army and that of Italy; and afterwards, to oppose the junction of the Archduke Charles with the army under M. de Koutousoff; but the movements of this prince were so well calculated, and his force so well concentrated, that he did not allow time for the French to establish themselves at Gratz. Marshal Ney, after the passage of the Inn, took his direction on the Tyrol, by Scharnitz.

At the time of the junction of the two Russian armies near Wischau, they had only opposed to them, the corps of Prince Murat, part of which formed the advanced guard, those of Marshals Soult and Lannes, the imperial guards, under Marshal Bessi?res, and a corps of grenadiers, drawn from these different troops, forming a reserve of 15,000 men, under General Duroc. This army, when near Brunn, was composed of eight divisions, each of which was about 7000 strong. The Russian army was so much fatigued with the continual marches it had been making, whether to fall back on the support, or the support to get forward in time, that it was decided at Wischau to take up the position of Olmutz, to give some days rest to the troops.

The Austrian general Weyrother, had been sent into Galicia, for the purpose of conducting the army of Buxhoevden through the hereditary states. He was an officer of reputation, who did not want for talent, and who had inspired the Russians with confidence. As soon as the two armies became united, he filled the situation of Quarter-master general. The court of Vienna had previously selected General Schmidt for this important trust; but that officer, a man of superior merit, and who, with a talent for the profoundest calculation, possessed that tranquil wisdom, which gives reason and deliberation in counsel; after having shewn himself, at Crems, to be worthy of the confidence that was placed in him, lost his life there, and was thus snatched from the hopes of his sovereign, and of his brother soldiers. His loss was the more sensibly felt, and the more regretted, because his successor, neither possessed his calmness, his prudence, or his firmness. The army marched, the 21st of November, from Wischau, and arrived the next day but one, in the position in front of Olmutz, whither we will follow it, for the purpose of detailing the operations.

M. de Koutousoff had also sent some Austrian partisans, on his right flank, who marched upon Tribau and Zwittau, whither the Archduke Ferdinand, who was at Czaslau, had sent some parties of light troops, to keep up the chain of communication.

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