On the east bank of the Ticino River, the Austrian Empire's Italian Legion forward command post.
"The French are still as arrogant as ever. We have almost twice their numbers right now, yet they actually dare to withdraw troops from the front."
A veteran staff officer who had fought in the War of the Sixth Coalition said this, but one of his colleagues immediately challenged him.
"Could the French be putting on a show for us? Our intelligence says they only have enough food to last a few months.
Could they be trying to lure us into a decisive battle before their food runs out?"
There was some truth to this. Now that fighting on the other fronts had ended, the French Army was in full retreat, allowing the Austrian Empire to send more troops to the Italian front.
Besides the Austrian Empire's own troops, there were also large numbers of recruits and volunteers from the German States. More than four hundred thousand soldiers had gathered along the Ticino River alone.
Just cleaning up the 120 tons of waste the soldiers produced every day required a hundred manure carts and three hundred workers.
Fortunately, the camp wasn't far from the farms. But soon, the septic pits in several nearby villages were full, and the cleanup crews had to go farther afield to sell the waste.
Most of the army's sanitation workers were Irish refugees whom Franz had taken in earlier. Unable to speak the language, they could only do this simple, easily scorned work.
But to most Irish refugees, this was already life in paradise. At least they no longer had to worry about starving to death.
The Austrian army had also formed an Irish Brigade, though its officers were mostly Austrian.
Through years of experience, most Austrian junior officers