had to defend againt an Austrian army attempting the relief of Mantua, extended from Legnano on the Adige, below Verona, to Lonato, situated a few miles south of the southwestern extremity of the Lake of Garda. As the distance from right to left did not exceed forty miles, two marches were sufficient to assemble the troops on any point of the position, and the nature of the country throws great obstacles in the way of any attack directed against the line of defence. The Lake of Garda, thirty miles in length, and from three to ten in breadth, falls from the north, almost perpendicularly,

upon the left of the line, and breaks all direct approach from that quarter. To the eastward, and nearly parallel to the lake, runs the Adige, leaving only a mountainous isthmus, of from five to ten miles in breadth, between its waters and those of the lake, opposite the southern extremity of which the river issues from the mountains, and bending to the eastward, continues that course till it falls into the Adriatic; thus covering by its easterly course the right of the French position, even as its southern course helped to break any onset directed against the front and centre of that position.

Between Legnano and the Adriatic the country is so marshy and intersected by canals, rivers, and watercourses, as to be very nearly impassable for an army advancing in the face of an enemy; besides, by diverging so far to the left, an army marching from Germany to the relief of Mantua would naturally abandon its own basis of operation, expose itself to be attacked in the rear, and cut off from its proper line of communication. In like manner, an army advancing to the westward of the Lake of Garda would diverge too far to the right of its basis of operation, and expose itself to be cut off by seeing its left flank turned, though the country is

far more practicable in that direction. It was only from Legnano to Lonato, therefore, that the French were assailable, and posted behind the obstacles mentioned, they could move with the greatest facility along the whole of their field of operation, an advantage that far more than outweighed the numerical superiority of their adversaries. The French army was about 46,000 effective men; of these 10,000 or 11,000 remained under General Serruier to observe Mantua, leaving, by French accounts, 33,000 disposable for the approaching contest. Wurmser brought 46,000 men into the field, a force which Napoleon and his biographers have

augmented in the most shameful manner. In the Memoirs of Napoleon, vol. i. p. 8, and in Las Cases, vol. ii. page 152, the strength of the Austrians is stated at 100,000 men, including 15,000 in Mantua, leaving Napoleon, with his thirty odd thousand soldiers, to encounter 85,000 enemies in the field. In the third volume of the Memoirs, Wurmser's army is estimated at 80,000, including the effective garrison of Mantua, leaving the marshal a superiority of only 40,000 in the field; but in the fourth volume of the Memoirs, page 323, we again find the Austrians between 70,000 and 80,000 in the field, giving them a superiority of 40,000 or 50,000 over the French. And to a great extent these extravagancies have actually found their way into history.

The storm which, during the month of July, had been gathering in the Tyrol, now burst forth, and, like loosened avalanche from Alpine height, rolled down in fury on the plains of Lombardy. But its strength was soon broken, and the mass striking against the obstacles already mentioned was splintered into fragments at the very outset of its course. The right division of Wurmser's army, consisting of 15,000 men, commanded by General Quasdanowitch, advanced by the western shore of the Lake of Garda; the centre column, under the field-marshal himself, followed the mountain-road, over the isthmus between the lake and the Adige; while General Melas, with the left division, was on the left bank of the river. These

two divisions, forming together 31,000 men, were sufficiently near to lend each other support, but could only come into communication with the right division on the southern shores of the lake, that is, exactly on the front of the French position; an error which proved the source of all the disasters that followed. Whether the object of this separation was to avoid crowding the whole army on the roads leading over Monte Baldo, and through the valley of the Adige, or to cut off the retreat of the French to Milan-planning already how to augment the results of a victory before it had been achieved-it is impossible to say; though the danger of the arrange

ment must have been evident from the first.

Massena, with his division, occupied the valley of the Adige, and the isthmus between that river and the lake his advanced posts were in front of Rivoli, on the road leading over Monte Baldo. Here he was attacked on the morning of the 29th July, and though it could not be intended that a single division should oppose the advance of the main body of the Austrian army, he made serious resistance, and was driven back to Piovani, having lost several pieces of artillery and a considerable number of men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. On the western shore of the lake the Austrians were also successful; and while Wurmser was forcing back Massena, General Quasdanowitch was driving the French from Salo and Brescia, inflicting some loss upon them at both places. At Salo an entire French battalion was cut off, and forced to take refuge in an old castle near the town; but such was the gallant spirit by which the Republican troops were then animated, that, though destitute of provisions, they defended their post for eight-and-forty hours against the vastly superior force by which they were assailed. A single battalion, however, could not arrest an army, and every thing seemed to prosper for the Austrians.

And here we come upon one of these circumstances in Napoleon's history which his followers have been so anxious to keep out of sight, and which, but for his subsequent quarrel with General Augereau,would never, perhaps, have been very generally known. The advantages gained by the Austrians on the 29th were of no decisive nature; their armies had not effected a junction; they had struck no serious blow against the French divisions, which they had attacked, and had carried no position of the slightest importance; the French had lost some time, and nothing more; and yet we find that Napoleon was so dispirited by the state of affairs, so broken down and destitute of all power of acting and deciding, that at a council of war, held at Roverbello on the 30th, he could come to no resolution, and spoke only of retiring across the Po. It was on the urgent remonstrance of Auge

reau, that the resolution of marching against the enemy was adopted. The upholders of Buonaparte have, of course, denied the accuracy of this statement, declaring that the commander-in-chief was only desirous of trying the resolution of his generals; but the conduct ascribed to him tallies so much with his behaviour on other occasions, that we cannot possibly doubt its accuracy, especially as the excuse offered by his friends is a puerility unfit to impose even upon children.

The necessary materials for a very clear and intelligible account of the series of actions, known under the general name of the battle of Castiglione, of which we have now to give a brief view, are unfortunately still wanting the French statements are as destitute of truth as of consistency; and the Austrian confidential reports, which throw so much light on other parts of the campaign, are extremely deficient regarding this particular act of the drama. We shall, therefore, state only what may now be considered as fairly authenticated, without attempting to reconcile some apparent contradictions.

There being no possibility of covering the siege of Mantua against both the Austrian corps advancing to its relief; and the time necessary for saving the battering train haying been lost by indecision, no alternative remained but to leave things as they were, and to march against the enemy's columns that were threatening the communication with Milan: it was the nearest, and was probably known to be the weakest also. Parks, stores, guns, and works, were abandoned with the utmost precipitation; and on the evening of the 30th the whole army crossed the Mincio, and, leaving behind only two rear-guards under General Pigeon and Valette, moved on to confront General Quasdanowitch. He was soon found, for on the 31st the advanced corps of the two armies encountered at Lonato. Fortune at first smiled upon the Austrians, but the augmenting number of the Republicans having soon convinced Quasdanowitch that he had the whole French army to deal with, he fell back to Gavardo. While this combat was in progress in the centre, General Souret was despatched to

Salo, to relieve General Guyeux; who, with his brave battalion, still defended himself in the old castle at the entrance of that town: here also the French were successful, and having liberated their countrymen, they fell back on the main body of their army. The fruits of these victories, though not great, were risked by a most unaccountable march. Taking with him two divisions of his army, Napoleon set out late at night on the 31st for Brescia, where he arrived at eight o'clock on the following morning. Having dispersed the few Austrian picquets who were found in the place, he returned to Monte Chiaro on the 2d of August; the inactivity of his adversaries saved him from the consequences of this false movement.

During these operations, Wurmser, who seems to have advanced very slowly, reached Mantua, which he entered on the 1st of August. Finding the siege raised, the artillery abandoned, and every thing left in a manner indicating a confused and hasty retreat on the part of the enemy, the field-marshal concluded that the victory was already achieved, and that its fruits only had to be gathered in. He, therefore, contented himself with sending some troops of the garrison to pursue General Serruier's division, which had taken the direction of Borgoforte, while General Liptay, with one of the corps of the liberating army, was despatched across the Mincio, to fall upon any of the enemy's troops which might still be found in that direction. It was only on the evening of the 2d of August that Wurmser received the tidings of the check experienced by Quasdanowitch-a delay easily accounted for, since the French army now interposed between the two Austrian divisions. But even yet there might have been hope, had there been energy and activity. General Liptay had crossed the Mincio on the 1st; on the 2d he fell in with the French rear-guards under Generals Pigeon and Valette; the first effected its retreat in some sort of order, but the second was completely routed and dispersed at Castiglione, the fugitives carrying the alarm even to Monte Chiaro, where Napoleon had just arrived after his march to Brescia. The French had hitherto

had been so much in his favour, that there could be no object in mystifying their progress, had he possessed the power of describing them in an intelligible manner. Where the ideas are clear, it is not likely that the writing will be obscure.

But Fortune's scales still remained balanced, notwithstanding the success we have described; though a victory was evidently leaning towards the side of the French. Quasdanowitch's corps might now be considered as fairly disposed of; and even the main army under Wurmser was no longer intact, since Liptay's division had been repulsed from Castiglione. The fate of battle was, however, to be tried anew, and both parties employed the 4th of August to collect all their strength for the approaching combat.

During the interval an additional piece of good fortune befell the French. The three Austrian battalions separated from their main body on the previous day, had attempted to retire by the road to Salo. Finding it, as we have related, occupied by the troops of General Guyeux, they returned, and endeavoured to make their way along the southern shores of the lake, in hopes of falling in with some of Wurmser's division. Strangely enough they reached Lonato without hinderance; and not knowing how matters stood, summoned the French to surrender. Napoleon himself was in the place with a brigade of Massena's division, which was in the immediate vicinity; he treated this summons as an insult offered to the commander-in-chief of an army in the midst of his troops, and ordered the Austrians instantly to lay down their arms or to take the consequences. From the fragments of three dispersed battalions, ignorant of their situation, little could be expected; they complied, and surrendered to the number of about 1000 men; they had three pieces of artillery with them. The story of 4000 men having been captured by Napoleon, attended only by his staff and a small escort - of the deception practised upon the Austrian officer, who was led blindfolded into an open village, as if carrying a summons to a besieged fortress, belongs to the class of idle fictions only calculated to amuse unreflecting credulity.

The great error of the Austrians here was to summon the French; their only chance would have been a sudden onset before the astonished enemy could re-collect themselves, and observe the small number of the assailants, for confusion always magnifies the foe. Such an attempt succeeded at Dego, and might, perhaps, have succeeded here, though the chances were infinitely less promising; but military history is full of instances shewing how readily Fortune smiles on those who trust boldly and blindly to her favour.

The final action between the main armies was fought on the 5th, near Castiglione. Wurmser brought, as we now know, less than 20,000 men into the field; Napoleon, who was joined by Serruier's division during the combat, had about 30,000 men. The Austrians had thrown up some fieldredoubts to cover their left flank, and the capture of these works seems to have been attended with a heavy loss to the French; on other points, the battle does not appear to have been very obstinately contested. Serruier's division having, by a rapid march, evaded the corps of General Messaros, appeared so unexpectedly in the rear of the Austrians, that Marshal Wurmser himself was, for a moment, in danger of being taken: his second line was obliged to make front against this new enemy who was, indeed, arrested in his progress. But the flank movement was evidently a signal for the rest of the French army to press on, and the Austrians, considering themselves unable to sustain a combined and renewed onset, retired in good order, and without being pursued. They had lost, besides twenty pieces of artillery, 3000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Wurmser, having revictualled Mantua, and augmented the garrison to 15,000 men, retired gradually into the Tyrol; he had lost, in all, 16,400 men and 71 pieces of artillery during the expedition. The French confess to have lost 7000 men. In the Memoirs of Napoleon, vol. i. p. 8, the Austrian loss is stated at 40,000 men.

The boundless admiration and astonishment excited in Europe by the termination of this second act of the Italian drama, caused the world to overlook the most essential feature of