ositions left them utterly unable to withstand the
blows which he now showered upon them. The Sardinians were too far
away on the west to help Argenteau in his hour of need: they were in
and beyond Ceva, intent on covering the road to Turin: whereas, as
Napoleon himself subsequently wrote, they should have been near enough
to their allies to form one powerful army, which, at Dego or
Montenotte, would have defended both Turin and Milan. "United, the two
forces would have been superior to the French army: separated, they
were lost."

The configuration of the ground favoured Bonaparte's plan of driving
the Imperialists down the valley of the Bormida in a north-easterly
direction; and the natural desire of a beaten general to fall back
towards his base of supplies also impelled Beaulieu and Argenteau to
retire towards Milan. But that would sever their connections with the
Sardinians, whose base of supplies, Turin, lay in a north-westerly
direction.

Bonaparte therefore hurled his forces at once against the Austrians
and a Sardinian contingent at Millesimo, and defeated them, Augereau's
division cutting off the retreat of twelve hundred of their men under
Provera. Weakened by this second blow, the allies fell back on the
intrenched village of Dego. Their position was of a strength
proportionate to its strategic importance; for its loss would
completely sever all connection between their two main armies save by
devious routes many miles in their rear. They therefore clung
desperately to the six mamelons and redoubts which barred the valley
and dominated some of the neighbouring heights. Yet such was the
superiority of the French in numbers that these positions were
speedily turned by Massena, whom Bonaparte again intrusted with the
movement on the enemy's flank and rear. A strange event followed. The
victors, while pillaging the country for the supplies which
Bonaparte's sharpest orders failed to draw from the magazines and
stores on the sea-coast, were attacked in the dead of night by five
Austrian battalions that had been ordered up to support their
countrymen at Dego. These, after straying among the mountains, found
themselves among bands of the marauding French, whom they easily
scattered, seizing Dego itself. Apprised of this mishap, Bonaparte
hurried up more troops from the rear, and on the 15th recovered the
prize which had so nearly been snatched from his grasp. Had Beaulieu
at this time thrown all his forces on th