Victor gave the order without hesitation for the troops to cross the Pontoon Bridge that had long since been set up and return toward Mantua.
Elsewhere, Lieutenant Colonel Mason led the Crown Prince's Guard Grenadier Battalion to a point eighteen kilometers southwest of Trento. Rangers reported that enemy troops had been spotted ahead.
Mason immediately ordered a huge temporary camp built on the spot, then simply confronted the Austrians from there.
Well, he had brought only 1,300 soldiers. He simply had no ability to attack Trento.
Joseph was naturally not with the army either. There was no need for him to take such a meaningless risk.
The two sides remained locked in a cautious standoff for more than ten days.
The young French noblemen were full of fighting spirit, constantly clamoring to attack the city, but Mason stopped them every time.
Finally, three days later, the Austrians could no longer endure it and launched a probing attack.
Then Mason led his soldiers racing back toward Mantua along the mountain roads like the wind.
The Austrian Army was almost instantly left so far behind that it vanished from sight—the Guard Grenadier Battalion all rode fine horses. Even the cheapest cost two or three thousand Francs apiece, while some rode Arabian Stallions worth more than ten thousand Francs.
The Austrian Officers did not dare pursue too far either—the mountain roads west of Lake Garda were too narrow, and it would be easy to be ambushed there.
Moreau's situation was the most dangerous.
Upstream on the Brenta River, he had nearly run into twenty thousand Austrian troops commanded by Prince Schwarzenberg.
He had dared to clash head-on with thirty thousand Austrian troops during the earlier surprise attack, but now he could only choose to avoid them.
Austrian Hussars were everywhere. There