ABSTRACT
The efforts which Austria was making to rebuild her military power had not escaped the notice of Napoleon. About the most anxious to make common cause with Austria against Napoleon's yoke had been Stein: in the autumn of 1808, when a rupture between France and Austria seemed imminent, he had thrown all his influence into the scale on the side of an insurrection. Expecting the Austrians to take the offensive, Napoleon first ordered Berthier to concentrate the army behind the Lech, with the right under Massena at Augsburg, the centre at Donauworth, and the left at Ratisbon, but with detachments stretching as far as Ingolstadt. Though Napoleon's rule had not yet begun to press half as heavily on Germany as it was to do before the Continental System succumbed to its own inherent defects, it had already provoked widespread opposition.
