1. IMMENSE was the addition which the vigour and popularity of Napoleon, and the termination of the imbecile government of the Directory, made to the effective forces of France at this period. They were disposed, previous to the commencement of hostilities, in the following manner;-The Army of Italy, which occupied the crest of the Alps from the neighbourhood of Genoa to Mont Cenis, was thirty-six,thousand strong, of which twenty-eight thousand were assembled in Liguria, from the Trebbia to the Col de Tende, to guard the passes of the Apennines and protect Genoa from the Imperial forces, which were grouped in the plain round the walls of Alessandria. These troops, however, were for the most part in the most miserable condition. Their spirits were depressed by a campaign of unprecedented disaster, their clothing was worn out, their feet bare, their artillery broken down, their cavalry dismounted, and it required all the efforts of St Cyr and their other officers during the winter to retain them at their colours. The Army of Germany, which was afterwards called the Army of the Danube, was a hundred and twenty thousand strong, including sixteen thousand cavalry-of which immense force a hundred thousand men, including fourteen thousand horse, could be relied on for active operations. An army of reserve of fifty thousand men was at the same

VOL. V.

time formed, the headquarters of which were nominally at Dijon, but the bulk of the force was in reality disposed at Geneva, Lausanne, and the other towns which lay between the Jura and the Alps. This reserve was destined either to support the Army of Italy or that of Germany, as circumstances required, and it was formed of twenty thousand veteran soldiers, brought from Holland, under Brune, to La Vendée, which the pacification of that district rendered disposable for offensive operations, and thirty thousand conscripts, directed to that quarter from the central depots. These troops traversed France, with drums beating and colours flying, in the finest order, and their splendid appearance contributed much to revive the martial ardour of the people, which the disasters of the preceding campaign had seriously impaired. Berthier received the command of this army, and gave up the portfolio of minister of war to Carnot, whom Napoleon recalled from exile to fill that important situation.

2. On the other hand, the Imperialists had collected ninety-six thousand men in Piedmont and at the foot of the Maritime Alps, besides twenty thou sand who were dispersed in garrisons in the states of Venice, Lombardy, and Tuscany. Their forces in Germany were nearly as considerable, amounting to ninety-two thousand men, including

A

command to his former rival ;* and the disposition of his troops was too republican, and their attachment to their general too strong, to render it prudent to run the risk of revolt in so powerful an army, even for the sake of the greatest external advantages. An angry discussion took place between the two generals, which terminated in the retention of the supreme command by Moreau, and the adoption of a modified plan for the campaign in Germany, in lieu of the brilliant but hazardous one projected by the First Consul. In consequence, Napoleon resolved to direct the army of reserve to Italy, and in person renew the struggle on the scene of his former triumphs on the plains of Piedmont. The First Consul had no alternative in this determination; the relinquishment of the command of the army of the Rhine to Moreau had become a matter of necessity. At that period the soldiers of that army were far from cordially supporting the government of the First Consul. Independent of the republican principles with which, in common with all the other French troops, they were more or less imbued, they were in a peculiar manner jealous of the audacious general who had placed himself at the head of affairs, and seized the sceptre which they thought would have been more worthily held by his less interested rival. Any attempt to displace Moreau from the command of this great army would probably have led to a collision which might have proved fatal to the infant authority of Napoleon.

6. Field-Marshal Kray had his headquarters at Donauschingen; but his chief magazines were in the rear of his army, at Stockach, Engen, Moeskirch, and Biberach. The right wing, twentysix thousand strong, under the command of Starray, rested on the Maine; its headquarters were at Heidelberg, and it guarded the line of the Rhine from Renchen to the Maine. The left, under the orders of the Prince of Reuss, * He said, "I have no notion of seeing a little Louis XIV. at the head of my army,

If the First Consul takes the command, I will

send in my resignation."-ST CYR, ii. 103,

Histoire Militaire.

was in the Tyrol; it consisted of twenty-six thousand men, besides seven thousand militia, and occupied the Rheinthal and the shores of the lake of Constance. The centre, forty-three thousand strong, under the command of Kray in person, was stationed behind the Black Forest in the environs of Villingen and Donauschingen; its advanced posts occupied all the passes of that woody range, and observed the course of the Rhine from the lake of Constance to the neighbourhood of Kehl; while fifteen thousand men, under Keinmayer, guarded the passes from Renchen to the Valley of Hell, and formed the link which connected the centre and right wing. Thus, though the Imperialists were nearly one hundred and ten thousand strong, their detachments were stationed at such a distance from each other as to be incapable of rendering any effectual aid in case of need; and were rather to be regarded as three separate armies, the largest of which could not bring above forty thousand men into the field at any one point.

7. The French army, at the opening of the campaign, was also divided into three corps. The right, thirty-two thousand strong, under Lecourbe, occupied the cantons of Switzerland from the St Gothard to Bâle, won from the Imperialists at the expense of so much blood in the preceding campaign; the. centre, under St Cyr, who had been transferred to that command from the army of Genoa, consisted of twentynine thousand men, and occupied the left bank of the Rhine, from New Brisach to Plobsheim; the left, under Sainte-Suzanne, twenty-one thousand strong, extended from Kehl to Haguenau.

Independent of these, Moreau himself was at the head of a reserve, consisting of twenty-eight thousand men, which was assembled in the neighbourhood of Bâle, and which, if added to either of the divisions of the army, would give it a decided preponderance over that of the enemy to which it was opposed. Thus Moreau could, by uniting the reserve and centre, bring nearly sixty thousand men to bear upon the Austrian force of forty