On the 22nd of June, the Austrians were ranged along the left bank of the Mincio from Peschiera to Mantua, and the French were massed near Montechiaro, on the Brescia road, which Napoleon had made his headquarters. In withdrawing all their men from the right bank of the river, the Austrians desired to create the impression that they had finally abandoned it. It was their plan, which did not lack boldness, to throw the whole army back upon the right bank, and to perform a concentric movement on Montechiaro, where they hoped to fall unawares on the French and destroy them. They were confident of success, for they knew what a good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that Gyulai was got rid of, and the young Emperor had taken the field, they did not doubt that fortune would turn her wheel. To these men of many nations, the presence of their Emperor was the one inspiration that could rouse them, for if they were fighting for anything, it was for him in the most personal sense; it was to secure his mastery of the splendid land over which he looked from the castle of Valleggio, on the 23rd of June, whilst his brilliant staff stood round, waiting for the signal to mount and clatter down the steep road to the Mincio bridge. The army now advanced along all its line.
Even the soberest writers have not resisted making some reference to the magnificent scene of to-morrow's battle. On one side, the mountain bulwarks rising tier on tier, gorgeous with the trancendent beauty of colour and light of the Italian summer; on the other, the vine-clad hillocks which fall gently away from the blue lake of Garda till they are lost in the
............harvest shining plain Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe.
The 24th of June was to decide how much longer the Lombard peasant should labour to fill a stranger's treasury.
The calculations of the Austrians were founded on the slowness which had hitherto characterised Napoleon's movements. Hess thought that two days might be safely allowed for the Austrian advance, and that the enemy would remain passive on the west bank of the river Chiese, waiting to be attacked on the 25th. If the operation could have been performed in one day, and it is thought that it could, there would have been more prospect of success. But even then, the original plan of attacking the allies west of the Chiese could not have been carried out, as on the 23rd the whole allied army moved forward, the French occupying Castiglione and Lonato, and the Sardinians Rezzato and Desenzano, on the lake of Garda. It is not clear how far the allies believed in the Austrian advance; that they had warning of it from several quarters is certain. For instance, a gentleman living at Desenzano heard from the country people, who, for marketing or other purposes, constantly go to and fro between that place and Peschiera, that the Austrians had ordered a quantity of country carts and transport waggons to be in readiness on the 23rd, and he hastened with the intelligence to the Piedmontese General Delia Rocca, who, in a fine spirit of red-tapism, pooh-poohed the information. The French encountered several Austrian patrols in the course of the day, but they were inclined to think that the Austrians were only executing a reconnaissance. On the whole, it seems that the conflict came as a surprise to both sides.