.[62]

With true Hapsburg tenacity, Francis determined on further efforts for
the relief of Mantua. Apart from the promptings of dynastic pride, his
reasons for thus obstinately struggling against Alpine gorges, Italian
sentiment, and Bonaparte's genius, are wellnigh inscrutable; and
military writers have generally condemned this waste of resources on
the Brenta, which, if hurled against the French on the Rhine, would
have compelled the withdrawal of Bonaparte from Italy for the defence
of Lorraine. But the pride of the Emperor Francis brooked no surrender
of his Italian possessions, and again Wuermser was spurred on from
Vienna to another invasion of Venetia. It would be tedious to give an
account of Wuermser's second attempt, which belongs rather to the
domain of political fatuity than that of military history. Colonel
Graham states that the Austrian rank and file laughed at their
generals, and bitterly complained that they were being led to the
shambles, while the officers almost openly exclaimed: "We must make
peace, for we don't know how to make war." This was again apparent.
Bonaparte forestalled their attack. Their divided forces fell an easy
prey to Massena, who at Bassano cut Wuermser's force to pieces and sent
the _debris_ flying down the valley of the Brenta. Losing most of
their artillery, and separated in two chief bands, the Imperialists
seemed doomed to surrender: but Wuermser, doubling on his pursuers,
made a dash westwards, finally cutting his way to Mantua. There again
he vainly endeavoured to make a stand. He was driven from his
positions in front of St. Georges and La Favorita, and was shut up in
the town itself. This addition to the numbers of the garrison was no
increase to its strength; for the fortress, though well provisioned
for an ordinary garrison, could not support a prolonged blockade, and
the fevers of the early autumn soon began to decimate troops worn out
by forced marches and unable to endure the miasma ascending from the
marshes of the Mincio.

The French also were wearied by their exertions in the fierce heats of
September. Murmurs were heard in the ranks and at the mess tables that
Bonaparte's reports of these exploits were tinged by favouritism
and by undue severity against those whose fortune had been less
conspicuous than their merits. One of these misunderstandings was of
some importance. Massena, whose services had been brilliant at Bassano
but less felicitous since the crossi