This defeat at Caldiero--for it is idle to speak of it merely as a check--opened up a gloomy vista of disasters for the French; and Bonaparte, though he disguised his fears before his staff and the soldiery, forthwith wrote to the Directors that the army felt itself abandoned at the further end of Italy, and that this fair conquest seemed about to be lost.

With his usual device of under-rating his own forces and exaggerating those of his foes, he stated that the French both at Verona and Rivoli were only 18,000, while the grand total of the Imperialists was upwards of 50,000.

But he must have known that for the present he had to deal with rather less than half that number.

The greater part of the Tyrolese force had not as yet descended the Adige below Roveredo; and allowing for detachments and losses, Alvintzy's array at Caldiero barely exceeded 20,000 effectives.
Bonaparte now determined to hazard one of the most daring turning movements which history records.

It was necessary at all costs to drive Alvintzy from the heights of Caldiero before the Tyrolese columns should overpower Vaubois' detachment at Rivoli and debouch in the plains west of Verona.