On the eve of active operations in the first months of 1800 the military situation was as follows: The Italian line stretched from Genoa around by Savona to the Col di Tenda. On it were thirty thousand men, under Masséna, while ten thousand more guarded the passes of the Alps. Confronting it was an Austrian force of eighty thousand men, under Melas, a general of the old formal school, hampered by tradition and by the machinery of the Aulic Council in Vienna. In Tuscany, in the Papal States, and in Piedmont were twenty thousand Austrian soldiers in garrison. On the Rhine stood Moreau, with a hundred and twenty thousand men, facing a less able antagonist than Melas in the person of Kray, whose army was about equal in number to his own. The Austrian lines stretched from the falls of the Rhine northward by their headquarters at Donaueschingen to Kinzig. The greatest of the Austrian generals, the Archduke Charles, was not in the field. A sensitive epileptic, he had been wounded by the incessant and meddling interference of the Vienna bureaucrats, and had temporarily withdrawn from service. The plan of Francis and his ministry was to drive back Masséna's inferior force; then, with the aid of the English fleet, which arrived in March, under Keith, to reduce Genoa, where Masséna was sure to make a stand; then to cross the Var, and increase the numerical superiority of the Austrians still further by a union with the royalists of Provence, who were organizing under Pichegru, just escaped from Guiana; and finally to carry the war into the heart of France, while Kray held Moreau in check. CHAPTER XV STATESMANSHIP AND STRATEGY[16] [Footnote 16: The important military authorities are Napoleon's own letters and bulletins. Dumolin: Précis d'histoire militaire. Yorck von Wartenburg: Napoleon als Feldherr. Jomini: Histoire critique et militaire des guerres de la Révolution, 1792-1803. Dodge: Napoleon. Clausewitz: Werke. For other material see Thugut's letters, Marbot's memoirs, Thiébault's Journal of the Blockade of Genoa, Valmy: Histoire de la Campagne de 1800, Alison's Castlereagh, Woronzow's Archives, and Bailleu: Essays in the Historische Zeitschrift, vols. 77 and 81; Cugnac: Campagne de l'armée de reserve en 1800, La campagne de Marengo; Gachot: La deuxième campagne d'Italie; Neipperg: Aperçu sur la bataille de Marengo; Hüffer: Quellen zur Geschichte des Zeitalters der französischen Revolution; Picard: Bonaparte et Moreau.] Bonaparte's Plan of Campaign -- His Relation to Moreau -- The Reserve Army -- The Movements of Moreau -- The Austrians Defeated -- Further Advance of Moreau -- Bonaparte with the Army -- The Italian Campaign -- Position of the Austrians -- The St. Bernard -- Passage of the Alps -- Military Problems -- Grand Strategy -- Bonaparte's Preparation.