MARSHAL LOUIS N. DAVOUT AND THE ART OF COMMAND A ...

destroy him. On the eighteenth Charles ordered four corpsto move forward and intercept Davout whom he correctlyassumed would be moving south. Charles confirmed Davout'smovement when he intercepted a dispatch from Davout to~efebvre.'~ The Austrian V Corps had the mission to fixLefebvre at Abensberg and cover Charles' flank. 67,000Austrians were now heading directly for Davout's forceswhile Kollowrat and Bellegarde were moving south fromAmberg toward ~atisb0n.l' This put Davout in the positionhe feared most, caught between two wings of the Austrianarmy; a position he told Berthier five days earlier hewould be in if he left Ingolstadt for Ratisbon. The IronMarshal realized that once again he was on his own toextract himself from a perilous situation. .Davout spent the eighteenth gathering his forces on the southern bank of the Danube and conducting a reconnaissance of his routes south. This reconnaissance proved to be very valuable. Although the roads leading out of Ratisbon seemed perfectly good, Davout's reconnaissance proved otherwise. For the first three miles or so the roads were trafficable. However, they soon turned into a quagmire and resembled only cart paths through the woods. Only one road remained good as it went further south. That road paralleled the river and ran through the Saal defile. This piece of terrain was a critical area. One company could hold up an entire