Meanwhile the allies were dissipating their strength.  A Russian corps, acting from Corfu as a base, and an English expedition from Malta, were jointly to attack St. Cyr in the south of Italy, raise the country at his rear and compel him to surrender.  This plan was left helplessly flapping in the air by a convention which Napoleon imposed on the Neapolitan ambassador.  On September 21st Talleyrand induced that envoy to guarantee the neutrality of the kingdom of Naples, all belligerents being excluded from its domains.  Consequently St. Cyr’s corps evacuated that land and brought a welcome reinforcement to Massena on the Mincio.  Equally skilful was Napoleon’s action as regards Hanover.  On that side also the allies planned a formidable expedition.  From the fortress of Stralsund in Swedish Pomerania, a force of Russians and Swedes, which Gustavus burned to command, was to march into Hanover, and, when strengthened by an Anglo-Hanoverian corps, drive the French from the Low Countries.  It is curious to contrast the cumbrous negotiations concerning this expedition—­the quarrels about the command, the anxiety at the outset lest Villeneuve should perhaps sail into the Baltic, the delays of the British War Office, the remonstrances of the Czar, and the efforts to avert the jealousy of Prussia—­with the serene indifference of Napoleon as to the whole affair.  He knew full well that the war would not be decided by diversions at the heel of Italy or on the banks of the Ems, but by the shock of great masses of men on the Danube.  He denuded Hanover of French troops, except at its southern fortress of Hameln, so that he could overwhelm the levies of Austria before the Russians came up.  In brief, while the Coalition sought, like a Briareus, to envelop him on all sides, he prepared to deal a blow at its heart.

As the first part of the campaign depended almost entirely on problems of time and space, it will be well to follow the chief movements of the hostile forces somewhat closely.  The Austrian plan aimed at forestalling the French in the occupation of Swabia; and its apparent success puffed up Mack with boundless confidence.  At Ulm he threw up extensive outworks to strengthen that obsolete fortress, extended his lines to Memmingen far on the south, and trusted that the Muscovites would come up long before the French eagles hovered above the sources of the Danube.  But at that time the Russian vanguard had not reached Linz in Upper Austria, and not before October 10th did it appear on the banks of the River Inn.[25]

Far from being the last to move, the French Emperor outstripped his enemies in the speed of his preparations.  Whereas the Austrians believed he would not be able to reach the Danube in force before November 10th, he intended to have 200,000 men in Germany by September 18th.  But he knew not at first the full extent of his good fortune:  it did not occur to him that the Austrians would cross the Inn:  all he asks Talleyrand, on August 23rd, is that such news