The French commander now led his columns westward against the Sardinians, who had fallen back on their fortified camp at Ceva, in the upper valley of the Tanaro.  There they beat off one attack of the French.  A check in front of a strongly intrenched position was serious.  It might have led to a French disaster, had the Austrians been able to bring aid to their allies.  Bonaparte even summoned a council of war to deliberate on the situation.  As a rule, a council of war gives timid advice.  This one strongly advised a second attack on the camp—­a striking proof of the ardour which then nerved the republican generals.  Not yet were they condottieri carving out fortunes by their swords:  not yet were they the pampered minions of an autocrat, intent primarily on guarding the estates which his favour had bestowed.  Timidity was rather the mark of their opponents.  When the assault on the intrenchments of Ceva was about to be renewed, the Sardinian forces were discerned filing away westwards.  Their general indulged the fond hope of holding the French at bay at several strong natural positions on his march.  He was bitterly to rue his error.  The French divisions of Serurier and Dommartin closed in on him, drove him from Mondovi, and away towards Turin.

Bonaparte had now completely succeeded.  Using to the full the advantage of his central position between the widely scattered detachments of his foes, he had struck vigorously at their natural point of junction, Montenotte, and by three subsequent successes—­for the evacuation of Ceva can scarcely be called a French victory—­had forced them further and further apart until Turin was almost within his power.

It now remained to push these military triumphs to their natural conclusion, and impose terms of peace on the House of Savoy, which was secretly desirous of peace.  The Directors had ordered Bonaparte that he should seek to detach Sardinia from the Austrian alliance by holding out the prospect of a valuable compensation for the loss of Savoy and Nice in the fertile Milanese.[42] The prospect of this rich prize would, the Directors surmised, dissolve the Austro-Sardinian alliance, as soon as the allies had felt the full vigour of the French arms.  Not that Bonaparte himself was to conduct these negotiations.  He was to forward to the Directory all offers of submission.  Nay, he was not empowered to grant on his own responsibility even an armistice.  He was merely to push the foe hard, and feed his needy soldiers on the conquered territory.  He was to be solely a general, never a negotiator.