any causeways, the central one of which led to the bridge. The
first attempt to cross was repulsed by the deadly fire which the
Croats poured in from their sheltered position. Augereau, with his
picked corps, fared no better in a second charge led by himself
bearing the standard; and, in a third disastrous rush, Bonaparte, who
had caught up the standard and planted it on the bridge with his own
hand, was himself swept back into a quagmire, where he would have
perished but for a fourth return of the grenadiers, who drove back the
pursuing Austrians, and pulled their commander from the swamp. Fired
by his undaunted courage, the gallant lines were formed once more. At
that moment another French corps passed over lower down by pontoons,
and the Austrians becoming disorganized, in spite of the large
reinforcements which had come up under Alvinczy, the last charge on
the bridge was successful. With the capture of Arcola the French
turned their enemy's rear, and cut off not only his artillery, but his
reserves in the valley of the Brenta. The advantage, however, was
completely destroyed by the masterly retreat of Alvinczy from his
position at Caldiero, effected by other causeways and another bridge
further north, which the French had not been able to secure in time.

Bonaparte quickly withdrew to Ronco, and recrossed the Adige to meet
an attack which he supposed Davidowich, having possibly forced
Vaubois's position, would then certainly make. But that general was
still in his old place, and gave no signs of activity. This movement
misled Alvinczy, who, thinking the French had started from Mantua,
returned by way of Arcola to pursue them. Again the French commander
led his forces across the Adige into the swampy lowlands. His enemy
had not forgotten the desperate fight at the bridge, and was timid;
and besides, in his close formation, he was on such ground no match
for the open ranks of the French. Retiring without any real resistance
as far as Arcola, the Austrians made their stand a second time in that
red-walled burg. Bonaparte could not well afford another direct
attack, with its attendant losses, and strove to turn the position by
fording the Alpon where it flows into the Adige. He failed, and
withdrew once more to Ronco, the second day remaining indecisive. On
the morning of the seventeenth, however, with undiminished fertility
of resource, a new plan was adopted and successfully carried out. One
of the pontoons on the Ad