Southern Austrian Frontier – Approaches to Carinthia.
March 14th, 1836.
French columns crossed into Austrian territory without ceremony, without pause, and without the kind of resistance that might have marked the moment as decisive. There were no grand defensive stands waiting for them at the frontier. No prepared line strong enough to force a halt.
The southern advance pushed through the Alpine approaches that connected northern Italy to the Austrian interior. Roads cut through valleys, winding between rising slopes that narrowed the space available for maneuver. It was the kind of terrain Austrian planners had hoped to use to slow the French.
But they had not held long enough to prepare it.
A French colonel rode at the front of one of the leading formations, his horse stepping carefully along a road that had already seen too much movement in the past week. Beside him, an officer from the engineering corps studied the slopes ahead.
