You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

Welcome to the Age of Napoleon.

Episode 30, Risk and Reward

Thanks for joining me.

We left off last time in the summer of 1796.

Napoleon and the Army of Italy had almost entirely expelled the

Austrians from Northern Italy. This region had been part of the Habsburg

sphere for centuries, but all that remained of that once extensive

network of influence was one city, Mantua.

Unfortunately for the French, Mantua would be quite a tough nut to crack.

It was more a stronghold than a city, protected by strong natural defenses and state-of-the-art

fortifications.

Over 12,000 Austrian troops manned the ramparts, with perhaps as many as 500 cannon.

The Army of Italy had stormed some tough positions in its sweep across the Poe River Valley,

but nothing they'd seen so far even came close to the forbidding walls of Mantua.

For the last few episodes, our story has had no single geographic focal point.

The Army of Italy simply moved too quickly for us to dwell on any one specific location,

but we're now in a different phase of the campaign. Everything now hinges on Mantua, and this will be the case for the better part of a year.

So what made this one position so important?

Well, as I'm sure most of you intuitively understand,

if the French hoped to control Northern Italy,

it would be pretty helpful to control the strongest

...