In this discussion it has been assumed, in order to point out some of the advantages of a defensive campaign in northern Italy, that forty thousand Frenchmen, commanded by Masséna, might have driven fifty thousand Austrians, under Melas, from the Apennines to and even beyond the Mincio. But this assumption is altogether improbable. Undoubtedly Melas could have held in check the Army of Italy along the Apennines. To prove this statement, consider for a moment what Bonaparte did in the same theatre of operations in 1796. Though he defeated fifty thousand allies with forty thousand Frenchmen, his success was due in great measure to the faulty position of the allies. They were greatly subdivided and separated. Their front was widely extended. At Montenotte he broke through their long line, then defeated them in detail at Millesimo, Dego, and Mondovi. Their faulty position was due to the fact that the Sardinian army, based upon Turin, and the Austrian army, based upon the Mincio, were attempting to cover their divergent lines of communication back to their bases of operations. Moreover, as they fell back along these divergent lines, they became farther and farther separated from each other. The error of separating their armies and of scattering their forces, caused by the attempt to cover directly their communications, made it easier for Bonaparte to defeat them than if they had been united into a single army, and had adopted a single base of operations. For Masséna to defeat fifty thousand Austrians, based upon the Mincio, would therefore be a more difficult undertaking than was that of Bonaparte in 1796. But to do even what Bonaparte did in the early days of the first Italian campaign required a greater soldier than Masséna,--a Frederick himself might have failed.