...d it, it will take a strategic position for covering it; thus, in 1796, the army of Italy, not numbering fifty thousand combattants, was not able to pass Mantua, in order to penetrate to the heart of Austria , leaving twenty-five thousand men before the place, and having besides forty thousand men in front, upon the double line of the Tyrol and the Frioul. In the case, on the contrary, where the army ...