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Undoubtedly this blazing passion helped to spur on the lover to that terrific energy which makes the Italian campaign unique even amidst the Napoleonic wars. Beaulieu, Würmser, and Alvintzy were not rivals in war; they were tiresome hindrances to his unsated love.
Wurmser had twenty-six thousand men in Mantua; but from fear and fever half of them were in the hospitals. Meanwhile, disaster had overtaken the French arms in the North. Jourdan had crossed the Rhine at Düsseldorf, as Moreau had at Kehl.
A fresh body of Austrian troops under Wurmser crossed the mountains to their relief; but Wurmser, instead of advancing with his whole force, incautiously pressed forward with thirty-two thousand men through the valley of the Adige, while Quosdanowich led eighteen thousand along the western shore of the Lake of Garda.
He awaited the result with calmness. Wurmser might have learned from the successes of Buonaparte the advantages of compact movement; yet he was unwise enough to divide his great force into three separate columns, and to place one of these upon a line of march which entirely separated it from the support of the others.
In the next two letters he could only tell her, in a few lines, what had happened at the theatre of war; that he had again defeated Wurmser, and had surrounded him, and that he hopes to take Mantua. Even for his constant complaint about Josephine's slothfullness in writing, he finds no room in these short letters. In the next letter, however, it appears the more violently.
I write by this courier for Paris. All is well. Wurmser was defeated yesterday under Mantua. Your husband needs nothing but the love of his Josephine to be happy. But the most terrible doubts hung yet over this love.
General Boros led another Austrian corps across Nassau to Ehrenbreitstein, at that time besieged by the French under their youthful general, Marceau, who instantly retired. Wurmser no sooner arrived in person than, attacking the French before Mannheim, he completely put them to the rout and took General Oudinot prisoner.
Bonaparte's position was now even more critical than it had been at Castiglione; he had to contend with two new Austrian armies, one on each flank, and Wurmser with a third stood ready to sally out of Mantua in his rear. If there should be even partial coöperation between the Austrian leaders, he must retreat. But he felt sure there would be no coöperation whatsoever.
The natural result of these two dazzling triumphs was the fall of the fortress for which the Emperor Francis had risked and lost five armies. Würmser surrendered Mantua on February 2nd with 18,000 men and immense supplies of arms and stores. The close of this wondrous campaign was graced by an act of clemency.
Against an enemy now desperate and at bay his operations fell into four divisions, each resulting in an advance the first, of nine days, against Wurmser and Quasdanowich; the second, of sixteen days, against Wurmser; the third, of twelve days, against Alvinczy; and the fourth, of thirty days, until he captured Mantua and opened the mountain passes to his army.
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