Moreau did not comply fully with the agreement entered into with the First Consul, but on the 11th and 12th of May he selected fifteen thousand men from the different French corps, united these troops into a single corps and ordered it to proceed into Italy. Though Moreau had not succeeded in severing the communications of Kray, and in capturing or destroying his army, he had been generally successful in his manoeuvres; he had pushed the Austrians back from Lake Constance, defeated them at Stokach and Engen, forced them to retreat after the battle of Mosskirch, and compelled them to seek security in the intrenched camp of Ulm. Though he had retained General Lecourbe and his corps in the valley of the Danube, and had failed to send into Italy the full number agreed upon in the stipulation with the First Consul, nevertheless, he had weakened his army by fifteen thousand men, and, by so doing, had given Bonaparte the opportunity of bringing to a successful issue one of the most striking and dramatic campaigns of his career. COMMENTS. In order to understand clearly the strategical problems presented by these operations, it is necessary to keep in mind the positions of the French and Austrian forces, and the topography of the country in which these manoeuvres and battles took place. Picture to yourself the French forces occupying Switzerland and France on the left bank of the Rhine as far north as Strasburg; and on the opposite side of the river, the long line of the Austrians, their left on the borders of eastern Switzerland and in the Tyrol, their right extending far to the north, even to Mayence, and their centre, forming the main part of the Austrian army, occupying the Black Forest with advanced brigades and outposts pushed forward almost to the banks of the Rhine. Picture to yourself the triangular mountain system of the Black Forest, lying in the angle of the Rhine between Lake Constance and Strasburg, like a huge bastion, its south and west sides steep and rugged, and its hills and mountains covered with a dark forest of pines and firs. Picture to yourself the fifteen thousand Austrians, under Kienmayer, along the rugged west face of this mountain group; the forty thousand, under the immediate command of Marshal Kray, lying on the eastern slope of this great barrier of mountains and hills; the reserve of nineteen thousand at Stokach on the direct road between Schaffhausen and Ulm, and but a day's march from the French in Switzerland; the magazines at Stokach, Engen, Mosskirch, and Biberach, upon which Kray depended for his supplies; and the immense intrenched camp at Ulm, which, lying in his rear upon the Danube, was the temporary base of the Austrians in the Black Forest.