at Stockach, he occupied the line from Basel by Schaffhausen and Rheineck to Saint-Gothard, and thence by La Furca to Mont-Blanc. He had enemies in front of Basel, at Waldshut, at Schaffhausen, at Feldkirch, and at Chur; Bellegarde threatened the Saint-Gothard, and the Italian army menaced the Simplon and the Saint-Bernard. How was he to defend such a circumference? and how could he leave open one of these great valleys, thus risking every thing? From Rheinfelden to the Jura, toward Soleure, it was but two short marches, and there was the mouth of the trap in which the French army was placed. This was, then, the pivot of the defense. But how could he leave Schaffhausen unprotected? how abandon Rheineck and the Saint-Gothard? how open the Valais and the approach by Berne, without surrendering the whole of Switzerland to the Coalition? And if he covered each point even by a brigade, where would be his army when he would need it to give battle to an approaching force? It is a natural system on a level theater to concentrate the masses of an army; but in the mountains such a course would surrender the keys of the country, and, besides, it is not easy to say where an inferior army could be concentrated without compromising it.
After the forced evacuation of the line of the Rhine and Zurich, it seemed that the only strategic point for Massena to defend was the line of the Jura. He was rash enough to stand upon the Albis,—a line shorter than that of the Rhine, it is true, but exposed for an immense distance to the attacks of the Austrians. If Bellegarde, instead of going into Lombardy by the Valtellina, had marched to Berne or made a junction with the archduke, Massena would have been ruined. These events seem to prove that if a country covered with high mountains be favorable for defense in a tactical point of view, it is different in a strategic sense, because it necessitates a division of the troops. This can only be remedied by giving them greater mobility and by passing often to the offensive.
General Clausewitz, whose logic is frequently defective, maintains, on the contrary, that, movements being the most difficult part in this kind