e interval
between the two acts of a great campaign, men were much more occupied
with speculations about the decision of arms than with a change which
was, after all, only another phase of a protracted, tiresome struggle
in which the papacy had long since fallen from its pinnacle. It was,
however, an element of terrific demoralization in the house of
Austria, which thus saw the consolidation of Italy under the Napoleon
family complete, and their last hope to regain their European
influence by enlargement in that peninsula extinguished.

Such was the scenic diversion provided for the great world in the
pause of a few days after the occupation of Vienna. These moments were
likewise occupied by the greatest military activity. Morning, noon,
and night secretaries wrote and messengers ran; the roads of central
Europe resounded beneath the feet of tramping infantry and the hoofs
of horses which were dragging provision-trains and artillery
carriages, or bearing despatches to distant points.

The Archduke Charles was a fine strategic theorist, in his age second
only to Napoleon. After the fatal division of his army before
Landshut, he had wonderfully retrieved his strength in seizing
Ratisbon, crossing the Danube, and standing at Cham eighty thousand
strong, as he did after his reinforcement by the division which he
called in from the Bohemian Forest. But again he became the victim of
indecision. Calling for peace negotiations, he loitered long at
Budweis, failed to join Hiller so as to throw their united force
across the French advance to Vienna, and when at last he brought up on
the slopes of the Bisamberg he seemed for an instant aimless. Thus can
the hope of peace paralyze a great general's activity. But when,
having offered to open negotiations with his adversary, he received no
answer, when he learned that the Austrian ministry also was determined
to fight the struggle out, he was himself again. His plan was the
greatest perhaps ever devised by him: so great, indeed, that four
years later Napoleon made it his own at Dresden. It was to free Vienna
by threatening the French communications.

The idea was old enough; the novelty lay in the details. Kollowrath
was to detach twenty-five thousand men from his own force, and to
seize Linz with its bridge; the Archduke John was to join the Army of
the Tyrol, which had retreated to the head waters of the Enns, and
then march with fifty thousand men to the same point. But Massena