the lofty mountains which tower above the valley of the Adige.  Assuredly the Imperialists were not nearly strong enough to run any risks.  The official Austrian returns show that the total force assembled in Tyrol for the invasion of Italy amounted to 46,937 men, not to the 60,000 as pictured by the imagination of Thiers and other French historians.  As Bonaparte had in Lombardy-Venetia fully 45,000 men (including 10,000 now engaged in the siege of Mantua), scattered along a front of fifty miles from Milan to Brescia and Legnago, the incursion of Wuermser’s force, if the French were held to their separate positions by diversions against their flanks, must have proved decisive.  But the fault was committed of so far dividing the Austrians that nowhere could they deal a crushing blow.  Quosdanovich with 17,600 men was to take the western side of Lake Garda, seize the French magazines at Brescia, and cut their communications with Milan and France:  the main body under Wuermser, 24,300 strong, was meanwhile to march in two columns on either bank of the Adige, drive the French from Rivoli and push on towards Mantua:  and yet a third division, led by Davidovich from the district of Friuli on the east, received orders to march on Vicenza and Legnago, in order to distract the French from that side, and possibly relieve Mantua if the other two onsets failed.

Faulty as these dispositions were, they yet seriously disconcerted Bonaparte.  He was at Montechiaro, a village situated on the road between Brescia and Mantua, when, on July 29th, he heard that the white-coats had driven in Massena’s vanguard above Rivoli on the Adige, were menacing other positions near Verona and Legnago, and were advancing on Brescia.  As soon as the full extent of the peril was manifest, he sent off ten despatches to his generals, ordering a concentration of troops—­these, of course, fighting so as to delay the pursuit—­towards the southern end of Lake Garda.  This wise step probably saved his isolated forces from disaster.  It was at that point that the Austrians proposed to unite their two chief columns and crush the French detachments.  But, by drawing in the divisions of Massena and Augereau towards the Mincio, Bonaparte speedily assembled a formidable array, and held the central position between the eastern and western divisions of the Imperialists.  He gave up the important defensive line of the Adige, it is true; but by promptly rallying on the Mincio, he occupied a base that was defended on the north by the small fortress of Peschiera and the waters of Lake Garda.  Holding the bridges over the Mincio, he could strike at his assailants wherever they should attack; above all, he still covered the siege of Mantua.  Such were his dispositions on July 29th and 30th.  On the latter day he heard of the loss of Brescia, and the consequent cutting of his communications with Milan.  Thereupon he promptly ordered Serurier, who was besieging Mantua, to make a last vigorous effort to take that fortress, but also to assure his retreat westwards if fortune failed him.  Later in the day he ordered him forthwith to send away his siege-train, throwing into the lake or burying whatever he could not save from the advancing Imperialists.