"So, my poor fellow," Bonaparte said to him when he had finished, "you neither know who I am nor where you are? I am Bonaparte, commander-in-chief, and you and your 4000 men have fallen right into the midst of my army; go back to those who sent you and tell them I give them five minutes to surrender, and if they refuse I shall put every one of them to the sword, to punish them for the insult offered me."
A quarter of an hour later, the 4000 men had laid down their arms.
When night fell, Bonaparte was at Castiglione.
On the following day Wurmser was defeated, and left 2000 men on the field of battle, where our soldiers, worn out with fatigue, slept pell-mell among the dead.
In five days' time Bonaparte with 30,000 men had beaten 60,000; Wurmser had lost 20,000 men, killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. He had recaptured the Rivoli road between the Adige and the lake of Garda, which was the key to the Tyrol.
Bonaparte collected 28,000 men and dashed in pursuit of Wurmser, who, gaining Quasdanovitch's force, had still 40,000 men left; he won the battle of Roveredo, entered Trent, the capital of the Tyrol, left Vaubois to guard it and threw himself into the gorges of the Tyrol in pursuit of Wurmser; he chased 30,000 men before him with his 18,000, covering twenty leagues in two days, caught up Wurmser upon the banks of the Brenta, gave him battle at Bassano, took 4000 of his men prisoners, took all his war-material, drove him back upon the Adige, and left him and his remaining 14,000 men no other resource but to retire for shelter within the walls of Mantua, the blockade of which he had essayed to raise with 60,000 men.
This was the third Austrian army that Bonaparte had destroyed since he entered Italy.
Wurmser entered Mantua resolved to defend it to the last extremity, and, to add to his provender, he slew and salted his 7000 cavalry horses, converting the cavalrymen into foot-soldiers.
Then, infuriated at the way his men had been led, he condemned his officers as a punishment to parade the streets of Mantua for three months with distaffs in their hands instead of walking-sticks.