_Campaign on the Rhine--General Plan--Wartensleben and the Archduke Charles retire before Jourdan and Moreau--The Archduke forms a junction with Wartensleben, and defeats Jourdan, who retires--Moreau, also, makes his celebrated Retreat through the Black Forest--Buonaparte raises the Siege of Mantua, and defeats the Austrians at Salo and Lonato--Misbehaviour of the French General Valette, at Castiglione--Lonato taken, with the French Artillery, on 3d August--Retaken by Massena and Augereau--Singular escape of Buonaparte from being captured at Lonato--Wurmser defeated between Lonato and Castiglione, and retreats on Trent and Roveredo--Buonaparte resumes his position before Mantua--Effects of the French Victories on the different Italian States--Inflexibility of Austria--Wurmser recruited--Battle of Roveredo--French victorious, and Massena occupies Trent--Buonaparte defeats Wurmser at Primolano--and at Bassano, 8th September--Wurmser flies to Vicenza--Battle of Saint-George--Wurmser finally shut up within the walls of Mantua._ [Sidenote: CAMPAIGN ON THE RHINE.] The reader must, of course, be aware, that Italy, through which we are following the victorious career of Napoleon, was not the only scene of war betwixt France and Austria, but that a field of equally strenuous and much more doubtful contest was opened upon the Rhine, where the high military talents of the Archduke Charles were opposed to those of Moreau and Jourdan. The plan which the Directory had adopted for the campaign of 1796 was of a gigantic character, and menaced Austria, their most powerful enemy upon the continent, with nothing short of total destruction. It was worthy of the genius of Carnot, by whom it was formed, and of Napoleon and Moreau, by whom it had been revised and approved. Under sanction of this general plan, Buonaparte regulated the Italian campaign in which he had proved so successful; and it had been schemed, that to allow Austria no breathing space, Moreau, with the army of the Sambre and Meuse, should press forward on the eastern frontier of Germany, supported on the left by Jourdan, at the head of the army of the Rhine, and that both generals should continue to advance, until Moreau should be in a position to communicate with Buonaparte through the Tyrol. When this junction of the whole forces of France, in the centre of the Austrian dominions, was accomplished, it was Carnot's ultimate plan that they should advance upon Vienna, and dictate peace to the Emperor under the walls of his capital.[166]