adly. It was the force of circumstances,
and not a premeditated plan, which brought about the strategic movement
of the army of the Moselle on the Sambre; and it was this which led to
the success of Fleurus and the conquest of Belgium.

In 1795 the mistakes of the French were so great that they were imputed
to treachery. The Austrians, on the contrary, were better commanded by
Clairfayt, Chateler, and Schmidt than they had been by Mack and the
Prince of Coburg. The Archduke Charles, applying the principle of
interior lines, triumphed over Moreau and Jourdan in 1796 by a single
march.

Up to this time the fronts of the French armies had been large,--either
to procure subsistence more easily, or because the generals thought it
better to put all the divisions in line, leaving it to their commanders
to arrange them for battle. The reserves were small detachments,
incapable of redeeming the day even if the enemy succeeded in
overwhelming but a single division. Such was the state of affairs when
Napoleon made his _debut_ in Italy. His activity from the beginning
worsted the Austrians and Piedmontese: free from useless incumbrances,
his troops surpassed in mobility all modern armies. He conquered the
Italian peninsula by a series of marches and strategic combats. His
march on Vienna in 1797 was rash, but justified by the necessity of
overcoming the Archduke Charles before he could receive reinforcements
from the Rhine.

The campaign of 1800, still more characteristic of the man, marked a new
era in the conception of plans of campaign and lines of operations. He
adopted bold objective points, which looked to nothing less than the
capture or destruction of whole armies. The orders of battle were less
extended, and the more rational organization of armies in large bodies
of two or three divisions was adopted. The system of modern strategy was
here fully developed, and the campaigns of 1805 and 1806 were merely
corollaries to the great problem solved in 1800. Tactically, the system
of columns and skirmishers was too well adapted to the features of Italy
not to meet with his approval.

It may now be a question whether the system of Napoleon is adapted to
all capacities, epochs, and armies, or whether, on the contrary, there
can be any return, in the light of the events of 1800 and 1809, to the
old system of wars of position. After a comparison of the marches and
camps of the Seven Years' War with those of the _seven weeks'_ war