According to the "story" Georgiana had heard from Bonaparte, the greatest difference between Moreau and Napoleon was not whether they were Republican generals.
The army, newly liberated from the old regime, still followed the old-era system. It had to obey orders from the capital. In the past, those orders came from the king and his chief ministers; in Moreau and Napoleon's time, they came from the Directory. Moreau had delayed many opportunities for battle.
He had already arrived at the Rhine River on June 1, yet he remained active on its left bank. First, he did not build pontoon bridges; second, he did not maintain contact with the Army of Sambre and Meuse. After the main army crossed the river, he waited for eight days at the battlefield of Neresheim before finally deciding to advance toward Donauwörth. Even then, he had still not established contact with the Army of Sambre and Meuse.
Moreau's decision to cross the river was not his own either; he had waited for orders from the Directory. Crossing a river like the Rhine was an extremely difficult military operation and had to be carried out swiftly. Moreau planned to cross on June 24. He had Desaix lead 2,500 men by boat to seize Erlen-Rhine Island before dawn on June 24, then seize Kehl in the morning. Only at dusk did they begin setting up pontoon bridges, which were not completed until noon on the 25th.
If he had completed the pontoon bridges before noon on the 24th, then by the time Archduke Charles learned on June 26 that the French had crossed near Kehl, the 70,000 men of the Army of the Rhine—three corps and reserves—could already have reached the right bank and advanced. They could have caught the scattered Austrian divisions along the river by