The United Service Magazine - pt. 3 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MILITARY DEFENCE OF RIVERS. ?? JOBN FINCH, ESO., CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE LITERART AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF Q.DEBEC, OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCI... more »ETIES OF MONTREAL, NEW YORK, DELAWARE, ETC. (Continued from No. 215, page 189.) If we examine with attention into the circumstances attending the defeats which the Austrians sustained in their conflict with the French republic, and afterwards with the Emperor Napoleon, we shall find that they arose in a great measure from their Generals considering rivers as defensible positions in war. If an Austrian Commander was entrusted with the defence of a country, and there was a river on its frontier, he invariably stationed his troops on the whole line of the river, for its defence. To defend the Netherlands, in the campaign of 1794, their troops were stationed on the line of the Sambre, and they sustained the most bloody conflicts in order to prevent the French armies from passing1 that river. In the campaigns of 1796 and 1797, their army was dispersed on the banks of the Rhine, to preserve Germany from invasion. During the campaigns of the same years against Bonaparte in Italy, the Austrian General first stationed his troops on the Bormida ; the French army forded the river, and the Austrian commander was nearly taken prisoner at Dego. They then attempted to defend in succession the lines of the Adda, the Po, the Mincio, the Adige, the Piave, the Tagliamento, and the Lisonzo, and with uniform ill success. In the campaign of 1800, in order to defend Piedmont the Austrian forces were stationed along the whole course of the river Chinsella; to defend Milan, they were placed on the Ticino, and, in the subsequent operations of the campaign, their armies were encamped on the Mincio and the Adige. To defend Austria from the a...« less