nd and Russia can come
to terms, and asserting that the annexation of Genoa concerns England
alone; but if Austria wants to find a pretext for war, she may now
find it.

Then he hurries back to Fontainebleau, covering the distance from
Turin in eighty-five hours; and, after a brief sojourn at St. Cloud,
he reaches Boulogne. There, on August the 22nd, he hears that Austria
is continuing to arm: a few hours later comes the news that Villeneuve
has turned back to Cadiz. Fiercely and trenchantly he resolves this
fateful problem. He then sketches to Talleyrand the outlines of his
new policy. He will again press, and this time most earnestly, his
offer of Hanover to Prussia as the price of her effective alliance
against the new coalition. Perhaps this new alliance will strangle the
coalition at its birth; at any rate it will paralyze Austria.
Accordingly, he despatches to Berlin his favourite aide-de-camp,
General Duroc, to persuade the King that his alliance will save the
Continent from war.[21]

Meanwhile the Hapsburgs were completely deceived. They imagined
Napoleon to be wholly immersed in his naval enterprise, and
accordingly formed a plan of campaign, which, though admirable against
a weak and guileless foe, was fraught with danger if the python's
coils were ready for a spring. As a matter of fact, he was far better
prepared than Austria. As late as July 7th, the Court of Vienna had
informed the allies that its army would not be ready for four months;
yet the nervous anxiety of the Hapsburgs to be beforehand with
Napoleon led them to hurry on war: and on August 9th they secretly
gave their adhesion to the Russo-British alliance.

Then, too, by a strange fatuity, their move into Bavaria was to be
made with a force of only 59,000 men, while their chief masses, some
92,000 strong, were launched into Italy against the strongholds on the
Mincio. To guard the flanks of these armies, Austria had 34,000 men in
Tyrol; but, apart from raw recruits, there were fewer than 20,000
soldiers in the rest of that vast empire. In fact, the success of the
autumn campaign was known to depend on the help of the Russians, who
were expected to reach the banks of the Inn before the 20th of
October, while it was thought that the French could not possibly reach
the Danube till twenty days later.[22] It was intended, however, to
act most vigorously in Italy, and to wage a defensive campaign on the
Danube.

Such was the plan concocted at Vien