ion. Bluecher was not to be caught;
a sharp frost on the 3rd improved the roads; and his complete junction
with the northern army was facilitated by the surrender of Soissons on
that same afternoon. This fourth-rate fortress was ill-prepared to
withstand an attack; and, after a short bombardment by Winzingerode,
two allied officers made their way to the Governor, praised his
bravery, pointed out the uselessness of further resistance, and
offered to allow the garrison to march out with the honours of war and
rejoin the Emperor, where they could fight to more advantage. The
Governor, who bore the ill-starred name of Moreau, finally gave way,
and his troops, nearly all Poles, marched out at 4 p.m., furious at
his "treason"; for the distant thunder of Marmont's cannon was already
heard on the side of Oulchy. Rumour said that they were the Emperor's
cannon, but rumour lied. At dawn Napoleon's troops had begun to cross
the temporary bridge over the Marne, thirty-five miles away; but by
great exertions his outposts on that evening reached Rocourt, only
some twenty miles south of Soissons.[423]

The fact deserves notice: for it disposes of the strange statement of
Thiers that the surrender of Soissons was, next to Waterloo, the most
fatal event in the annals of France. The gifted historian, as also, to
some extent, M. Houssaye, assumed that, had Soissons held out, Bluecher
and Buelow could not have united their forces. But Buelow had not relied
solely on the bridge at Soissons for the union of the armies; on the
2nd he had thrown a bridge over the Aisne at Vailly, some distance
above that city, and another on the third near to its eastern
suburb.[424] It is clear, then, that the two armies, numbering in all
over 100,000 men, could have joined long before Napoleon, Marmont, and
Mortier were in a position to attack. Before the Emperor heard of the
surrender, he had marched to Fismes, and had detached Corbineau to
occupy Rheims, evidently with the aim of cutting Bluecher's
communications with Schwarzenberg, and opening up the way to Verdun
and Metz.

For that plan was now his dominant aim, while the repulse of Bluecher
was chiefly of importance because it would enable him to stretch a
hand eastwards to his beleaguered garrisons.[425] But Bluecher was not
to be thus disposed of. While withdrawing from Soissons to the natural
fortress of Laon, he heard that Napoleon had crossed the Aisne at
Berry-au-Bac, and was making for Craonne