eat numbers at every
discharge. Again the assault was renewed with a vast superiority of
numbers, and again "the brave men who headed the column almost perished
at the foot of the intrenchment; and, after sustaining a heavy loss,
they were compelled to abandon the enterprise."

While the forces on the Var thus stayed the waves of Austrian success,
Massena, in the fortifications of Genoa, sustained a blockade of sixty,
and a siege of forty days, against an army five times as large as his
own; and when forced to yield to the stern demands of famine, he almost
dictated to the enemy the terms of the treaty. These two defences held
in check the _elite_ of the Austrian forces, while the French reserve
crossed the Alps, seized the important points of the country, and cut
off the Austrian line of retreat. "But even after the victory of
Marengo," says Napoleon, "I did not consider the whole of Italy
reconquered, until all the fortified places between me and the Mincio
should be occupied by my troops. I gave Melas permission to return to
Mantua, on condition of his surrendering all these fortresses."

He now directed Chasseloup de Laubat and his engineers to repair and
remodel the fortifications of Verona, Legnano, Pechiera, Mantua, the
line of the Adda, Milan, Alessandria,[5] Roco d'Aufo, Genoa, and several
smaller works; thus forming a quadruple line of defence against Austrian
aggression in Italy. These works were of great service to the French in
1805, enabling Massena with fifty thousand men to hold in check the
Archduke Charles with more than ninety thousand, while Napoleon's grand
army, starting from the solid base of the Rhine, traversed Germany and
seized upon the capital of Austria.

[Footnote 5: More than twenty millions of money were appropriated for
this place alone.]

The neglect of the Prussians to place their country in a state of
military defence, previous to declaring war against Napoleon in 1806,
had a most disastrous influence upon the campaign. Napoleon, on the
other hand, occupied and secured all the important military positions
which he had captured in the preceding campaign. "The Prussians," said
he, "made no preparations for putting into a state of defence the
fortifications on their first line, not even those within a few marches
of our cantonments. While I was piling up bastion upon bastion at Kehl,
Cassel, and Wesel, they did not plant a single palisade at Magdeburg,
nor put in battery a single can