But the Austrians could at least point to some successes; and, above all, Mantua was in a better state of defence than when the French first approached its walls: and while Mantua was intact, Bonaparte was held to the valley of the Mincio, and could not deal those lightning blows on the Inn and the Danube which he ever regarded as the climax of the campaign.

Viewed on its material side, his position was no better than it was before Wuermser's incursion into the plains of Venetia.[62] With true Hapsburg tenacity, Francis determined on further efforts for the relief of Mantua.

Apart from the promptings of dynastic pride, his reasons for thus obstinately struggling against Alpine gorges, Italian sentiment, and Bonaparte's genius, are wellnigh inscrutable; and military writers have generally condemned this waste of resources on the Brenta, which, if hurled against the French on the Rhine, would have compelled the withdrawal of Bonaparte from Italy for the defence of Lorraine.

But the pride of the Emperor Francis brooked no surrender of his Italian possessions, and again Wuermser was spurred on from Vienna to another invasion of Venetia.

It would be tedious to give an account of Wuermser's second attempt, which belongs rather to the domain of political fatuity than that of military history.