Sometimes we see a hazardous campaign succeed, the plan of which is
directly at variance with the principles of the art of war. But this
success depends generally on the caprice of fortune, or upon faults
committed by the enemy--two things upon which a general must never
count. Sometimes the plan of a campaign, although based on sound
principles of war, runs the risk of failing at the outset if opposed
by an adversary who acts at first on the defensive, and then, suddenly
seizing the initiative, surprises by the skilfulness of his manœuvres.
Such was the fate of the plan laid down by the Aulic council for the
campaign of 1796, under the command of Marshal Wurmser. From his
great numerical superiority, the marshal had calculated on the entire
destruction of the French army, by cutting off its retreat. He founded
his operations on the defensive attitude of his adversary, who was
posted on the line of the Adige, and had to cover the siege of Mantua,
as well as central and lower Italy.
Wurmser, supposing the French army fixed in the neighborhood of
Mantua, divided his forces into three corps, which marched separately,
intending to unite at that place. Napoleon, having penetrated the
design of the Austrian general, perceived the advantage to be derived
from striking the first blow against an army divided into three corps,
with no communication between them. He hastened, therefore, to raise
the siege of Mantua, assembled the whole of his forces, and by this
means became superior to the imperialists, whose divisions he attacked
and beat in detail. Thus Wurmser, who fancied he had only to march
to certain victory, saw himself compelled, after ten days campaign,
to retire with the remains of his army into the Tyrol, after a loss
of twenty-five thousand men in killed and wounded, fifteen thousand
prisoners, nine stand of colors, and seventy pieces of cannon.
Hence, nothing is so difficult as to prescribe beforehand to a general
the line of conduct he shall pursue during the course of a campaign.
Success must often depend on circumstances that cannot be foreseen;
and it should be remembered, likewise, that nothing cramps so much the
efforts of genius as compelling the head of an army to be governed by
any will but his own.