February. Kehl was at first assaulted by a force _four_ times as
numerous as the garrison; if the enemy had succeeded, he would have cut
off Moreau's retreat, and destroyed his army. Fortunately the place was
strong enough to resist all assaults; and Moreau, basing himself on the
fortresses of Alsace, his right covered by Huninguen, Neuf-Brisach, and
Béfort, and his left by the iron barrier of the Netherlands, effectually
checked the waves of Austrian success.

Let us now turn to the campaigns of Napoleon. In his first campaign in
Italy, 1796, the general was directed "to seize the forts of Savona,
compel the senate to furnish him with pecuniary supplies, and to
surrender the keys of Gavi, a fortress perched on the rocky height
commanding the pass of the Bocchetta." Setting out from Savona, he
crossed the mountains at a weak point between the Alps and the
Apennines, and succeeded in piercing the enemy's line of defence. The
king of Sardinia, jealous of Austrian influence, had refused to permit
the Austrian army to garrison his line of fortifications. Napoleon,
profiting by his victorious attitude, the mutual jealousy of Austria
and Sardinia, and the intrigues of his diplomatists, soon gained
possession of these important works. "_These Sardinian fortresses_," he
wrote to the Directory, "_at once put the Republicans in possession of
the keys of the Peninsula_." Basing himself on Coni, Mondovi, Ceva,
Gavi, and Alessandria, with Tortosa as his dépôt of magazines, he
advanced against Lombardy. Now basing himself on the Adda and Po, with
the fortress of Pizzighettone as the dépôt of his magazines, he advanced
upon the line of the Adige. Pechiera became his next dépôt, and he now
had four fortresses in echelon between him and his first dépôt of
magazines; and, after the fall of Mantua, basing himself on the Po, he
advanced against the States of the Church, making Ferrara and then
Ancona, his places of dépôt.