left,—that is, both upon the Meuse,—the state of affairs would have been different. By establishing themselves in the center of a line of scattered forces they could have prevented the junction of the different fractions. It may be dangerous in a battle to attack the center of a close line of troops when it can be simultaneously sustained by the wings and the reserves; but it is quite different on a line of three hundred miles in extent.
In 1795 Prussia and Spain retired from the coalition, and the principal theater of war was shifted from the Rhine to Italy,—which opened a new field of glory for the French arms. Their lines of operations in this campaign were double; they desired to operate by Dusseldorf and Manheim. Clairfayt, wiser than his predecessors, concentrated his forces alternately upon these points, and gained victories at Manheim and in the lines of Mayence so decisive that they caused the army of the Sambre and Meuse to recross the Rhine to cover the Moselle, and brought Pichegru back to Landau.
In 1796 the lines of operations on the Rhine were copied from those of 1757 and those in Flanders in 1794, but with different results. The armies of the Rhine, and of the Sambre and Meuse, set out from the extremities of the base, on routes converging to the Danube. As in 1794, they were exterior lines. The Archduke Charles, more skillful than the Prince of Coburg, profited by his interior lines by concentrating his forces at a point nearer than that expected by the French. He then seized the instant when the Danube covered the corps of Latour, to steal several marches upon Moreau and attack and overwhelm Jourdan: the battle of Wurzburg decided the fate of Germany and compelled the army of Moreau to retreat.
Bonaparte now commences in Italy his extraordinary career. His plan is to separate the Piedmontese and Austrian armies. He succeeds by the battle of Millesimo in causing them to take two exterior strategic lines,