True, Mantua was a formidable stronghold, but no fortress could make the Milanese other than a weak and straggling territory, the retention of which by the Court of Vienna was a defiance to the gospel of nature of which Rousseau was the herald and Bonaparte the militant exponent.
The Austro-Sardinian forces were now occupying the pass which separates the Apennines from the Maritime Alps north of the town of Savona.

They were accordingly near the headwaters of the Bormida and the Tanaro, two of the chief affluents of the River Po: and roads following those river valleys led, the one north-east, in the direction of Milan, the other north-west towards Turin, the Sardinian capital.

A wedge of mountainous country separated these roads as they diverged from the neighbourhood of Montenotte.

Here obviously was the vulnerable point of the Austro-Sardinian position.

Here therefore Bonaparte purposed to deliver his first strokes, foreseeing that, should he sever the allies, he would have in his favour every advantage both political and topographical.
All this was possible to a commander who could overcome the initial difficulties.