General Ott, notwithstanding this success, had been very ill-employed in lingering before Genoa while Napoleon was so rapidly advancing; and Melas, utterly perplexed between Suchet on the one side and the Consul on the other, had in fact lain still, and done nothing.  Buonaparte, between the 1st and 4th of June, crossed the Ticino with his whole army.  Murat carried Turbigo on the 5th, the very day that Genoa fell; and on the 2nd, the Chief Consul himself once more entered Milan, where he was received with enthusiasm.  Lannes, after various conflicts, occupied Pavia.  Chapon and Thureau threatened Turin by two different routes; and Melas, at last roused to a sense of his imminent danger, abandoned the open country of Piedmont, took up his headquarters at Alessandria, and began to draw together his widely separated columns, and concentrate them for the inevitable battle which must decide the fate of Italy.

Buonaparte, meanwhile, was ignorant of the fall of Genoa.  He supposed, therefore, that the army of Ott was still at a wide distance from that of the Austrian commander-in-chief, and meditated to pass the Po suddenly, and either attack Ott and relieve Genoa, ere Melas knew that he was in that neighbourhood, or, if he should find this more practicable, force Melas himself to accept battle unsupported by Ott.  Lannes and the van, accordingly, pushed on as far as Montebello, where, to their surprise, they found the Austrians in strength.  Early in the morning of the 9th of June, Lannes was attacked by a force which he had much difficulty in resisting.  The Austrians were greatly superior in cavalry, and the ground was favourable for that arm.  But at length Victor’s division came up, and, after a severe struggle, turned the tide.  The battle was a most obstinate one.  The fields being covered with very tall crops of rye, the hostile battalions were often almost within bayonet’s length ere they were aware of each other’s presence; and the same circumstances prevented the generals, on either side, from displaying much science in their manoeuvres.  It was a conflict of man against man, and determined at a dear cost of blood.  The field was strewn with dead, and the retiring Austrians left 5000 prisoners in the hands of Lannes—­who, in memory of this day of slaughter, was created afterwards Duke of Montebello.  It was from the prisoners taken here that the Consul learned the fate of Genoa.  He immediately concluded that Melas had concentrated his army; and, having sent messengers to Suchet, urging him to cross the mountains by the Col di Cadibona, and march on the Scrivia (which would place him in the rear of the enemy), halted his whole line upon the strong position of Stradella.