nch at Rivoli in their rear. Had it arrived sooner, the
position would, as the French declared, have been lost to them. As it
was, instead of making an attack, the Austrians had to await one.
Bonaparte directed a falling artillery fire against them, and threw
them back toward Lake Garda. He thus gained time to re-form his own
ranks and enabled Massena to hold in check still another of the
Austrian columns, which was striving to outflank him on his left.
Thereupon the French reserve under Rey, coming in from the westward,
cut the turning column entirely off, and compelled it to surrender.
The rest of Alvinczy's force being already in full retreat, this ended
the worst defeat and most complete rout which the Austrian arms had so
far sustained. Such was the utter demoralization of the flying and
disintegrated columns that a young French officer named Rene, who was
in command of fifty men at a hamlet on Lake Garda, successfully
imitated Bonaparte's ruse at Lonato, and displayed such an imposing
confidence to a flying troop of fifteen hundred Austrians that they
surrendered to what appeared to be a force superior to their own. Next
morning at dawn, Murat, who had marched all night to gain the point,
appeared on the slopes of Monte Baldo above Corona, and united with
Joubert to drive the Austrians from their last foothold. The pursuit
was continued as far as Trent. Thirteen thousand prisoners were
captured in those two days.

[Illustration: Enlarged Plan of Lake of Garda and Adjacent Country.
Map Illustrating the Campaign Preceding the Treaty of Campo-Formio
1797.]

While Murat was straining up the slopes of Monte Baldo, Bonaparte,
giving no rest to the weary feet of Massena's division,--the same men
who two days before had marched by night from Verona,--was retracing
his steps on that well-worn road past the city of Catullus and the
Capulets onward toward Mantua. Provera had crossed the Adige at
Anghiari with ten thousand men. Twice he had been attacked: once in
the front by Guieu, once in the rear by Augereau. On both occasions
his losses had been severe, but, nevertheless, on the same morning
which saw Alvinczy's flight into the Tyrol, he finally appeared with
six thousand men in the suburb of St. George, before Mantua. He
succeeded in communicating with Wurmser, but was held in check by the
blockading French army throughout the day and night until Bonaparte
arrived with his reinforcements. Next morning there was a gener