Bonaparte's earlier plan for using the reserve army was that it should take up the division of Lecourbe, cross from Zurich by the Splügen into Italy, where, absorbing Masséna's force, it would finally number over a hundred thousand, and be sufficiently strong to conquer Melas. But the latter's immense superiority of numbers throughout April had enabled him in the mean while to cut off all communication with Masséna, and the worst was feared. It was determined, therefore, to cross the Alps much farther to the westward; and Berthier was ordered to study first the St. Gotthard and the Simplon, then both the Great and Little St. Bernard passes, the former of which was still erroneously held to be Hannibal's route. This easy adaptation to changing conditions was another sign of the First Consul's military greatness. The idea of a march to Milan was likewise quickly abandoned in order to relieve Masséna the sooner by way of Tortona. By May ninth all was in order. By "general's reckoning, not that of the office," as Berthier's words were, there were forty-two thousand men on or near the Lake of Geneva. When Bonaparte arrived at Lausanne on the tenth, Lannes was at the foot of the Great St. Bernard, with eight thousand infantry; four other divisions, comprising twenty-five thousand men, stood between Lausanne and the head of the lake; another, of five thousand men, under Chabran, was in Savoy at the foot of the Little St. Bernard. Besides these, Turreau, with five thousand men who had originally formed part of Masséna's left wing, was at the southern end of the Mont Cenis pass; and the fifteen thousand men detached from Moreau were already marching under Moncey toward the northern entrance of the St. Gotthard. The situation of the Austrians and the French in Italy had not materially changed on May thirteenth, and was of course still to the advantage of the former. Masséna was in Genoa with twelve thousand available troops and sixteen thousand sick or wounded. Ott was conducting the siege with twenty-four thousand men. Melas, with his twenty-eight thousand men, was still on the Var, firmly convinced that the French reserve army would unite with Suchet's ten thousand in Provence and attack from the front. Five days later he was informed of the truth, and leaving a corps of seventeen thousand to guard the Riviera, hurried with the rest back to Turin, which he reached on the twenty-fifth. Ten thousand Austrians were watching the St. Gotthard at Bellinzona, three thousand were in the valley of the Dora Baltea to observe the southern exit from the St. Bernard range, while five thousand were on the Dora Riparia and one thousand on the Stura for similar purposes regarding the Mont Cenis. Six thousand were marching from Tuscany to reinforce Melas, and three thousand remained there; while in the Romagna, in Istria, and in various garrisons of upper Italy, were sixteen thousand more.