The Russian vanguard was on the banks of the Inn: all the French, except the relics of Dupont's division, were south of the Danube, and a few vigorous blows at their communications might have greatly embarrassed troops that had little artillery, light stores of ammunition, and lived almost entirely on the produce of the country.

We may picture to ourselves the fierce blows that, in such a case, Frederick the Great would have rained on his assailants as he wheeled round on their rear and turned their turning movements.

With Frederick matched against Napoleon, the Lech and the Danube would have witnessed a very cyclone of war.
But Mack was not Frederick: and he had to do with a foe who speedily made good an error.

On October 13th, when Mack seemed about to cut off the French from the Main, he received news through Napoleon's spies that the English had effected a landing at Boulogne, and a revolution had broken out in France.

The tidings found easy entrance into a brain that had a strange bias towards pleasing falsities and rejected disagreeable facts.