The Elector, who had a son travelling in France, resisted anxiously and strenuously.

"On my knees," he wrote to the Emperor, "I beg of you that I may be permitted to remain neutral." This appeal was disregarded.

The Austrian troops advanced into Bavaria, where they appear to have conducted themselves as in an enemy's country; and the indignant Elector withdrew his army into Franconia, where he expected the advance of the French as liberators.
This unjustifiable behaviour was destined to be severely punished.

No sooner did Napoleon understand that war was inevitable, than he broke up his great army on the coast opposite to England, and directed its march upon the German frontier; while Massena received orders to assume, also, the offensive in Italy, and force his way, if possible, into the hereditary states of Austria.

The favourite scheme of Carnot was thus revived, and two French armies, one crossing the Rhine, and the other pushing through the Tyrolese, looked forward to a junction before the walls of Vienna.
The rashness which had characterised the conduct of the Cabinet of Vienna, was fatally followed out in that of its general, Mack: instead of occupying the line of the river Inn, which, extending from the Tyrol to the Danube at Passau, affords a strong defence to the Austrian territory, and on which he might have expected, in comparative safety, the arrival of the Russians--this unworthy favourite of the Emperor left the Inn behind him, and established his headquarters on the western frontier of Bavaria, at Ulm.
Napoleon hastened to profit by this unpardonable error.