Before the darkness of the ensuing night had passed away Napoleon was again at the head of his troops, and the whole French army was rushing down the defiles of the Brenta, to surprise Wurmser in his straggling march. The Austrian general had thirty thousand men. Napoleon could take with him but twenty thousand. He, however, was intent upon gaining a corresponding advantage in falling upon the enemy by surprise. The march of sixty miles was accomplished with a rapidity such as no army had ever attempted before. On the evening of the 6th, Wurmser heard with consternation that the corps of Davidovich was annihilated. He was awoke from his slumbers before the dawn of the next morning by the thunders of Napoleon's cannon in his rear. The brave old veteran, bewildered by tactics so strange and unheard of, accumulated his army as rapidly as possible in battle array at Bassano. Napoleon allowed him but a few moments for preparation. The troops on both sides now began to feel that Napoleon was invincible. The French were elated by constant victory. The Austrians were disheartened by uniform and uninterrupted defeat. The battle at Bassano was but a renewal of the sanguinary scene at Roveredo. The sun went down as the horrid carnage continued, and darkness vailed the awful spectacle from human eyes. Horses and men, the mangled, the dying, the dead, in indiscriminate confusion were piled upon each other. The groans of the wounded swelled upon the night air; while in the distance the deep booming of the cannon of the pursuers and the pursued echoed along the mountains. There was no time to attend to the claims of humanity. The dead were left unburied, and not a combatant could be spared from the ranks to give a cup of water to the wounded and the dying. Destruction, not salvation was the business of the hour. Wurmser, with but sixteen thousand men remaining to him of the proud array of fifty-five thousand with which, but a few days before, he had marched from Trent, retreated to find shelter within the walls of Mantua. Napoleon pursued him with the most terrible energy, from every eminence plunging cannon-balls into his retreating ranks. When Wurmser arrived at Mantua the garrison sallied out to aid him. Unitedly they fell upon Napoleon. The battle of St. George was fought, desperate and most bloody. The Austrians, routed at every point, were driven within the walls. Napoleon resumed the siege. Wurmser, with the bleeding fragment of his army, was held a close prisoner. Thus terminated this campaign of _ten days_. In this short time Napoleon had destroyed a third Austrian army, more than twice as numerous as his own. The field was swept clean of his enemies. Not a man was left to oppose him. Victories so amazing excited astonishment throughout all Europe. Such results had never before been recorded in the annals of ancient or modern warfare.