First: Should the French capture Stokach, they would permanently separate the Austrian left from the centre and right. Thus they would divide the forces of the Austrians, and might thereafter be able to defeat them in detail. Second: Should the French capture Stokach, they would be in a favorable position to march north against the Austrians and sever their communications with Ulm. In this position, the French, if defeated, could fall back to Schaffhausen, and recross the river there with little or no danger of losing their communications; but the Austrians, being obliged to form their line of battle parallel, or nearly so, to the roads leading to their base, would, if defeated, be thrown back into the Black Forest, where doubtless they would be captured or destroyed. In short, the success of the French at Stokach would enable them to carry out two great principles of war: not only would they divide the forces of their enemy, and thus eventually be able to defeat them in detail; but they would gain a position where they could threaten the communications of Kray in the Black Forest without exposing their own to his attacks. In the angle of the Rhine between Lake Constance and Strasburg, Kray had but eighty thousand soldiers. Upon this force he had to rely in order to repel any attack which the French might make in the Black Forest; for his extreme right, under Starray, and his left, under Prince de Reuss, were too far away to support his centre before the French could unite to attack it. Bearing in mind that the French crossed the Rhine with one hundred and four thousand soldiers, we perceive that the opportunity was offered Moreau of bringing superior numbers against Kray. In other words, should both opposing commanders succeed in uniting all their available forces upon a battle-field in the Black Forest, Moreau would outnumber Kray in about the proportion of four to three. As the first principle of war is to be stronger than the enemy at the vital point, it is always of the greatest importance that no plan of campaign be adopted, which shall, at the very start, allow the enemy to bring superior numbers on the battle-field. In withdrawing seven thousand men from Stokach to replace the seven thousand sent from Villingen to re-enforce Kienmayer, Kray committed another error. In fact, at the outset of the campaign he weakened the garrison of the most important point of the whole Austrian line, by sending away more than one third of the troops there. Thus, unconsciously, he played into the hands of his adversary; for at the very time that these troops were leaving Stokach, Moreau was so regulating his manoeuvres as to make in the near future his first great effort against Kray at or near that place.