This could not be done without abandoning for the time the blockade of Mantua; but it was not for Buonaparte to hesitate about purchasing a great ultimate advantage by a present sacrifice, however disagreeable.

The guns were buried in the trenches during the night of the 31st July, and the French quitted the place with a precipitation which the advancing Austrians considered as the result of terror.
Napoleon meanwhile rushed against Quasdonowich, who had already come near the bottom of the Lake of Guarda.

At Salo, close by the lake, and, further from it, at Lonato, two divisions of the Austrian column were attacked and overwhelmed.

Augereau and Massena, leaving merely rear-guards at Borghetto and Peschiera, now marched also upon Brescia.
The whole force of Quasdonowich must inevitably have been ruined by these combinations, had he stood his ground; but by this time the celerity of Napoleon had overawed him, and he was already in full retreat upon his old quarters in the Tyrol.

Augereau and Massena, therefore, countermarched their columns, and returned towards the Mincio.