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
of war, the defensive party should avoid them, since by such a course he
might lose the advantages of the local defenses. He, however, ends by
demonstrating that a passive defense must yield under an active
attack,--which goes to show that the initiative is no less favorable in
mountains than in plains. If there could be any doubt on this point, it
ought to be dispelled by Massena's campaign in Switzerland, where he
sustained himself only by attacking the enemy at every opportunity, even
when he was obliged to seek him on the Grimsel and the Saint-Gothard.
Napoleon's course was similar in 1796 in the Tyrol, when he was opposed
to Wurmser and Alvinzi.

As for detailed strategic maneuvers, they may be comprehended by reading
the events of Suwaroff's expedition by the Saint-Gothard upon the
Muttenthal. While we must approve his maneuvers in endeavoring to
capture Lecourbe in the valley of the Reuss, we must also admire the
presence of mind, activity, and unyielding firmness which saved that
general and his division. Afterward, in the Schachenthal and the
Muttenthal, Suwaroff was placed in the same position as Lecourbe had
been, and extricated himself with equal ability. Not less extraordinary
was the ten days' campaign of General Molitor, who with four thousand
men was surrounded in the canton of Glaris by more than thirty thousand
allies, and yet succeeded in mainta