The Enquirer

COUP D'OEIL

Were it not for the happy resource which hope affords some times to man, if we may judge from the eagerness with which its slightest delusions are sought and snatched at, those who derive so much solace from the success of the lords of the knout could scarcely survive the suspense, or delay for news of a spring campaign in Russia.

An arrival from Greenock brings London advices to the 20th of March, Petersburg advices to the 17th of Feb.

The battle of Mohringen was fought on the 26th Dec. that place is about 12 miles west of Deppen on the river Passarge; in four days after the battle, the account was published in the 55th bulletin which is dated at Warsaw 29th Jan. and appeared in the Paris Moniteur of Feb. 11th, in the same Moniteur there are accounts dated Posen 22d January, and of Wurtzburg 5th Feb.

These dates will show the relative times in which advices reach to corresponding places.

Four days after the battle of Mohringen it is published at Warsaw--at Paris in 13 days after, that is 17 days in all.

We regret the difficulty of laying before our readers something like a map of the country--the direction of its principal rivers and positions of its roads, lakes, mountains and strong places, because without some idea of these and reference to them, he who supposes he possesses even a tolerably correct notion of the movements of armies or the result of battles, or the failure or success of stratagems of war--deceives himself.

It is by the possession and use of excellent maps and by some little attention to the principles of tactics and the modern art of war, that we are more frequently able to anticipate and to appreciate events, than others of our contemporaries; any man with a judicious mind and a determination to judge from the data with fidelity to the truth, may do as well as we do.

But no man, not even the ablest military man, without maps, can form an accurate or even a rational view of the movements of armies and the events of actions--we pretend to no more merit, than thus applying our judgment by the map and scale--to the narrations which all parties give of the affairs of war--let others endeavour to do the same as well as they can, they will improve in time, and certain American news papers will be something less despicable than their constant inaccuracy and ignorance, or worse, now makes them.

The advices now received contain the details given by both sides, and of which in the bulletins of the French to the 55th, we had before a general account. The bulletins now received are to the 62d inclusive, the 59th is from Eylau, 14th February; the 60th is of date the 17th Feb. from the same place; the 61st is from Landsberg 18th Feb. the 62d is dated at Liebstadt, 21st Feb. west of the Passarge, 50 miles S. W. of Konningberg, and 55 from Eylau; it is a different place.

The times and places from which the bulletins are dated, show the position of head quarters, on those dates; and so far as they go, determine the occupation of those places by the armies.

The Russian accounts which reach us in a state avowedly mutilated, are neither so regular in their progression, so precise in their narrations, nor so connected altogether.--However although there are defects of this kind, they are not such as to leave us without sufficient data to ascertain the positions of the Russians, as well as of the French armies, and thereby in a sufficient degree to form a tolerably accurate opinion of events.

The bulletins down to the 55th had put us not only in possession of the movements of both armies, from the attempt to surprise the French at Mohringen and along the line of the river Passarge. but by the heads of the rivers Sargeine and Drebentz; until the action of the 7th of Feb. at Prussian Eylau.

Of this action we have now very imperfect accounts, in abstracts or parts of official dispatches from the Baron Budberg, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, and his abstract statement of the Russian general Bennigsen's report.

Those who read the Russian accounts must keep in mind, that they retain the old style and that their date of the 26th Jan. corresponds with our 7th of Feb.

In the early part of this renewed campaign, we before observed that the Russians designed to cut off the French from the seaboard, by turning the French right, at the same time that they attempted to surprise the French advance guard under Bernadotte.--The issue of that effort, and the effect, was seen in the fact that the Russians had been forced successively back the full distance of 100 miles. The direction in which the Russians retreated showed that they considered Konigsberg as their point d'appui, because their retreat would have been very easy and their defence in a retreat more effectual by crossing the Alla river at Gutstadt or Heilsberg, than going north east to Eylau; as the country in the rear of Eylau, or between that place and Konigsberg, is not so susceptible of defence and much more favorable for well disciplined troops and an able general.

The account of Bennigsen himself corroborates the French bulletins No. 56, 57, and 58, and substantiates the narrations of the succeeding bulletins which have been received. The Russian account says, that "Bennigsen after falling back, for the purpose of taking a position better adapted for maneuvering his troops, pitched upon Prussian Eylau.--For four days successively, (3d, 4th, 5th, 6th Feb.) the rear guard had to withstand several vigorous attacks [made by the French,] and at three o'clock in the afternoon [of the 7th Feb.] the action became general, and the night came on without the enemy [the French] being able to gain ground. On the 8th in the morning, the French renewed the attack."

The French had commenced their march in advance on the first of Feb. On the 2d, Murat & Soult were at Allenstein; Davoust at Willenberg; Augereau and Ney followed the route of Murat and Soult, and were at Allenstein on the 3d; and the Russians found themselves here outflanked, and made a precipitate retreat, by the Passarge on the great road of Liebstadt; and these are the days of retreat adverted to by Bennigsen; on the 4th and 5th the pursuit was continued by fresh corps, those in advance on the 3d, halting on the fourth; and those in the rear advancing, and so on in succession.

It was on the 6th that the affair of the plateau took place: and on that night it was that both armies lay on their arms. On the morning of the 7th, the French cavalry under Murat began the action; he was opposed by 12 lines of Russian cavalry; and the action appeared to have been decided by the cuirassiers and dragoons of the gallant d'Hautpoul well known as a distinguished officer in the army of the Rhine and Moselle, and under Moreau, in the army of Suabia. It was on this day too, that the heavy fall of snow took place during the action. On the following morning, says the 58th bulletin, the Russians were pursued across the Frischling river, and they retreated across the Pregel.

The French took 15,000 prisoners, and buried 7000 Russians on the field.

General Bennigsen's account is, that on the 7th at night, he remained on the field of battle; but this no doubt was true on the 7th for both armies lay on their arms on the night of the 7th, on the field; but the battle being renewed and not closed till 6 in the evening of the 8th, gives the matter a very different aspect.

The 59th bulletin dated at Eylau, states that the Russians were behind the Pregel river; and Murat had his head quarters at Wittenberg, 8 miles S. of Konigsberg; on the 17th Feb. the date of the 60th bulletin, which when the French were at Eylau states that the Russians would have been attacked beyond the Pregel, had not a sudden thaw broken up the ice; they determined to enter into cantonments; and on the 19th the French entered into winter quarters the left wing being stationed in the district of Elbing, Liebstadt, and Osterode.

Some of the wise ones who consider maps of no utility and who contemn every enquiry that mars their wishes, consider the name of Elbing as an incident of great importance; not knowing that there is a lake of the name of Elbing 45 miles south of Eylau, which gives name to a district, in which district are the towns of Allenstein, Bertingen, Willenberg, Blackendorff Kleberg Gutstadt, (the former magazine of the Russians) and a number of other important places, stretching along the banks of the Alla, which has its source in the Elbing lake. The city of Elbing at the mouth of the Nogat river (the eastern branch of the Vistula) is 55 miles N. W. of this Elbing lake: and the same distance west of Eylau.

After the flight of the Russians, on the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th Feb. and the actions of the 6th, 7th and 8th, the evidence of facts is stronger than the equivocal date of the Russian general's dispatches. For as late as the 17th Feb. the French head quarters were at Eylau.--Murat had his head quarters at Wittenberg (not Wurtemberg) near the Pregel, that is five miles south of that river; the Russians were on the north of that river; and no part of the Pregel is within less than twenty two miles of Eylau.

The route of the Russians was across the Frischling river, which rises in the lakes of Donenow ten miles east of Eylau. this river is small, and falls into the Alla river at Preussisch Eylau about 18 miles east by north of Eylau, in the country of Friedland; the route for the Pregel is along the Alla, where a passage was certain by the bridges of Paterwalten on the Alla, B. M. doich, Wehlau, and Tappiau on the Pregel.

Subsequent advices prove that the Russians had halted on the Pregel, and that it formed their front line of defence; the mouth of the Alla is 40 miles east of Konigsberg.

The river Pregel is admirably situated as a defensive position and line for the Russians-as it has its source in the same lakes from which the Pisch river runs south to Grodno; nearly north of Grodno 70 miles two rivers join to form the Pregel, which pursues its course, directly north; about 27 miles, and opposite the town of Georgenburg on the north side, boldly launches off nearly west, passing by Konigsberg. which is situated on two islands one about 6 miles long: and a smaller island.

From this direction of the river it is obviously in the nature of a line of circumvallation to the French, and a frontier line which keeps open the communication of the Russians with Konigsberg and Grodno on their flanks, and Wilna in their rear.

Grodno is 115 miles S. by W. of Konigsberg. The Russians have magazines at St. Nicholas, Johannisburg, and Claus three places of strength between 50 and 40 miles north of Grodno; and east of Allenstein about the same distance.

The 62d bulletin completes the details of a division of each army, of which we had before no accounts: Essen’s Russian division formed a separate Russian corps which had been stationed at St. Nicholas, &c. above mentioned, their movements appear to have been apart of the general attack, which commenced at Mohrungen; and they seem to have been intended to enter Poland, and move towards Warsaw had the main army been successful.

The Russian plan was certainly masterly in its design, and superior generals and discipline alone could overcome it and convert it into a most disastrous defeat.

Aurora.