went well. If Massena surrendered, if the
British War Office and Admiralty worked up to time, if the winds were
favourable, and if the French royalists again ventured on a revolt,
then France would be crippled, perhaps conquered. As for the French
occupation of Switzerland and Moreau's advance into Swabia, that was
not to prevent the prosecution of the original Austrian plan of
advancing against Provence and wresting Nice and Savoy from the French
grasp. This scheme has been criticised as if it were based solely on
military considerations; but it was rather dictated by schemes of
political aggrandizement. The conquest of Nice and Savoy was necessary
to complete the ambitious schemes of the Hapsburgs, who sought to gain
a large part of Piedmont at the expense of the King of Sardinia, and
after conquering Savoy and Nice, to thrust that unfortunate king to
the utmost verge of the peninsula, which the prowess of his
descendants has ultimately united under the Italian tricolour.

The allied plan sinned against one of the elementary rules of
strategy; it exposed a large force to a blow from the rear, namely,
from Switzerland. The importance of this immensely strong central
position early attracted Bonaparte's attention. On the 17th of March
he called his secretary, Bourrienne (so the latter states), and lay
down with him on a map of Piedmont: then, placing pins tipped, some
with red, others with black wax, so as to denote the positions of the
troops, he asked him to guess where the French would beat their foes:

"How the devil should I know?" said Bourrienne. "Why, look here,
you fool," said the First Consul: "Melas is at Alessandria with his
headquarters. There he will remain until Genoa surrenders. He has
at Alessandria his magazines, his hospitals, his artillery, his
reserves. Crossing the Alps here (at the Great St. Bernard), I
shall fall upon Melas, cut off his communications with Austria, and
meet him here in the plains of the River Scrivia at San Giuliano."

I quote this passage as showing how readily such stories of ready-made
plans gain credence, until they come to be tested by Napoleon's
correspondence. There we find no strategic soothsaying, but only a
close watching of events as they develop day by day. In March and
April he kept urging on Moreau the need of an early advance, while he
considered the advantages offered by the St. Gotthard, Simplon, and
Great St. Bernard passes f