Especially at first when, at the head of their magnificent regiments, they
marched eastward through the conquered lands, from city to city, from
castle to castle, like masters of the world, when in Dresden they met their
comrades in war and their friends, and when they saw how all the crowned
heads of Europe bowed before their Emperor, then the Grand Army was in its
glory.
As we know from history the Grand Army had contingents from twenty
nationalities: Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Austrians, Swiss, Spaniards,
Portuguese, Poles, Illyrians, etc., and numbered over half a million men,
with 100 thousand horses, 1,000 cannon.
According to Bleibtreu (Die grosse Armee, Stuttgart, 1908), and Kielland
(Rings um Napoleon, Leipzig, 1907) the Grand Army was made up as follows:
_First Corps_--Davout, six divisions of the best troops under the command
of Morand, Friant, Gudin. In this corps were, besides French, Badensian,
Dutch, and Polish regiments. Davout commanded also 17 thousand Prussian
soldiers under General Grawert. Among the generals were Compans and Pajol,
the engineer Haxo, and the handsome General Friederich 67,000
_Second Corps_--Oudinot with the divisions of Generals Merle, Legrand,
Maison, Lannes' and Massena's veterans 40,000
_Third Corps_--Ney with two divisions of veterans of Lannes; to this corps
belonged the Wuerttembergians who had served under Ney before 49,000
_Fourth Corps_--Prince Eugene with Junot as second commander, and the
Generals Grouchy, Broussier, the two brothers Delzon.
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