Note 9 — Front matter (continued 3)

In his memoirs and in other places Napoleon often speaks of "lines of operations," meaning "lines of communication." Every advancing army must necessarily have a line of operations. If the roads leading from an army to its base are held by the enemy, the army is said to have lost its communications; in other words, to have lost its line of communication with its base of operations. The point that Napoleon intended to make in the discussion is this: Fort Bard being at the time in possession of the Austrians, the French army had no unobstructed line of communication back to its base of operations at Lake Geneva; hence, if defeated, it would find great difficulty in retreating by this route.