Then, too, by a strange fatuity, their move into Bavaria was to be made with a force of only 59,000 men, while their chief masses, some 92,000 strong, were launched into Italy against the strongholds on the Mincio.  To guard the flanks of these armies, Austria had 34,000 men in Tyrol; but, apart from raw recruits, there were fewer than 20,000 soldiers in the rest of that vast empire.  In fact, the success of the autumn campaign was known to depend on the help of the Russians, who were expected to reach the banks of the Inn before the 20th of October, while it was thought that the French could not possibly reach the Danube till twenty days later.[22] It was intended, however, to act most vigorously in Italy, and to wage a defensive campaign on the Danube.

Such was the plan concocted at Vienna, mainly under the influence of the Archduke Charles, who took the command of the army in Italy, while that of the Danube was assigned to the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, the new Quarter-Master-General.  This soldier had hitherto enjoyed a great reputation in Austria, probably because he was the only general who had suffered no great defeat.  Amidst the disasters of 1797 he seemed the only man able to retrieve the past, and to be shut out from command by Thugut’s insane jealousy of his “transcendent abilities."[23] Brave he certainly was:  but his mind was always swayed by preconceived notions; he belonged to the school of “manoeuvre strategists,” of whom the Duke of Brunswick was the leader; and he now began the campaign of 1805 with the fixed purpose of holding a commanding military position.  Such a position the Emperor Francis and Mack had discovered in the weak fortress of Ulm and the line of the River Iller.  Towards these points of vantage the Austrians now began to move.

The first thing was to gain over the Elector of Bavaria.  The Court of Vienna, seeking to persuade or compel that prince to join the Coalition, made overtures (September 3rd to 6th) with which he dallied for a day or two until an opportunity came of escaping to the fortress of Wuerzburg.  Mack thereupon crossed the River Inn and sought, but in vain, to cut off the Bavarian troops from that stronghold.  Accordingly, the Austrian leader marched on to Ulm, where he arrived in the middle of September; and, not satisfied with holding this advanced position, he pushed on his outposts to the chief defiles of the Black Forest, while other regiments held the valley of the River Iller and strengthened the fortress of Memmingen.  Doubtless this would have been good strategy, had his forces been equal in numbers to those of Napoleon.  At that time the Black Forest was the only physical barrier between France and Southern Germany; the Rhine was then practically a French river; and, only by holding the passes of that range could the Austrians hope to screen Swabia from invasion on the side of Alsace.

[Illustration:  BATTLE OF ULM.]