That Melas did not carry out this course was due to the fact that no sooner had he learned of the destination of the Army of Reserve than he began to tremble for the safety of his own army. He at once perceived that it was the intention of Bonaparte to sever the Austrian communications. He therefore abandoned any intention which he may have had of attacking Lannes and of seizing the communications of Bonaparte, in order to take the necessary measures for the preservation of his own communications. Consider now the operations of Bonaparte; they are worthy of careful study. No one who stops to consider the smallness of the means with which he defeated the Austrians in this campaign can fail to appreciate his genius. At the outset an Austrian army of one hundred thousand men, led by a courageous commander, was in possession of northern Italy. Everywhere Melas had defeated the French. Masséna at Genoa was about to surrender; and Suchet along the Var was fighting desperately to prevent the invasion of France. Melas, encouraged by these successes, looked hopefully forward to new triumphs. Such was the situation when Bonaparte entered Italy with his columns, numbering in all a little less than sixty thousand men. With these forces he plunged into the Austrian theatre of operations, and in a month ended the campaign. He so manoeuvred that a victory of twenty-eight thousand Frenchmen over twenty-nine thousand five hundred Austrians decided the fate of one hundred thousand Austrians and gained for him the greater part of northern Italy. How, in so short a time and with so few forces, did Bonaparte accomplish such results? In these comments an attempt will be made to answer this question. It is our purpose to analyze somewhat critically the strategical manoeuvres of Bonaparte, to compare the things he did with what he might have done, and to show why the whole of northern Italy fell into his possession as a result of the victory at Marengo. It is our purpose, also, to discuss the battle of Marengo from a tactical point of view, and to set forth some of the reasons why the battle, lost in the morning, was won in the afternoon. The portion of northern Italy then occupied by the Austrians is divided by the Po and Apennines into three unequal parts, through all which roads pass eastwardly from the French frontier to Mantua. Bonaparte, having decided to lead the Army of Reserve into Italy, might have adopted any one of three plans. He might have marched into the southern part of the Austrian theatre of operations, lying between the Apennines and the Gulf of Genoa; or into the middle part between the Apennines and the Po; or into the northern part between the Po and Switzerland. Let us examine each of these plans, in order to determine, if possible, which would have procured him the greatest advantages.