retreat through the Black Forest which has made his name as splendid as any victory in the field could have done.  But this reverse, however alleviated by the honours of Moreau’s achievement, was attended with appearances of the most perilous kind.  The genius of Carnot had devised a great scheme of operations, of which one half was thus at once cut short.  He had meant Moreau and Jourdan, coalescing beyond the Rhine, to march upon the Tyrol; while Buonaparte should advance from the scene of his Italian conquests, join his brother generals on that frontier, and then march in union with them to dictate a peace before the gates of Vienna.  All hope of this junction of forces was now at an end for this campaign.  The French saw themselves compelled to resume the defensive on the western frontier of Germany; and the army of Italy had to await the overwhelming war which seemed ready to pour down upon Lombardy from the passes of the Tyrol.

Wurmser, when he fixed his headquarters at Trent, mustered in all 80,000; while Buonaparte had but 30,000, to hold a wide country, in which abhorrence of the French cause was now prevalent, to keep up the blockade of Mantua, and to oppose this fearful odds of numbers in the field.  He was now, moreover, to act on the defensive, while his adversary assumed the more inspiriting character of invader.  He awaited the result with calmness.

Wurmser might have learned from the successes of Buonaparte the advantages of compact movement; yet he was unwise enough to divide his great force into three separate columns, and to place one of these upon a line of march which entirely separated it from the support of the others.  He himself, with his centre, came down on the left bank of the Lago di Guarda, with Mantua before him as his mark:  his left wing, under Melas, was to descend the Adige, and drive the French from Verona; while the right wing, under Quasdonowich, were ordered to keep down the valley of the Chiese, in the direction of Brescia, and so to cut off the retreat of Buonaparte upon the Milanese;—­in other words, to interpose the waters of the Lago di Guarda between themselves and the march of their friends—­a blunder not likely to escape the eagle eye of Napoleon.

He immediately determined to march against Quasdonowich, and fight him where he could not be supported by the other two columns.  This could not be done without abandoning for the time the blockade of Mantua; but it was not for Buonaparte to hesitate about purchasing a great ultimate advantage by a present sacrifice, however disagreeable.  The guns were buried in the trenches during the night of the 31st July, and the French quitted the place with a precipitation which the advancing Austrians considered as the result of terror.