II.

Background to Conflict, 1799-1803

At all times, then, it was Napoleon who was the chief focus of conflict. Ironically, however, he came to power as a peacemaker. Virtually all shades of French opinion were heartily sick of war by 1799, the new First Consul's great advantage being that he seemed to be able to combine peace with the protection of the Revolutionary settlement. As he rode into Paris immediately following the coup, indeed, his path was lined by cheering crowds. Virtually the first action of Consular diplomacy was therefore the despatch of appeals to both George III of England and Francis II of Austria for an end to the War of the Second Coalition (strictly speaking, Francis was at this time Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire; however, when this collapsed, he took the title “Emperor of Austria”, becoming Francis I). These, however, were hardly serious. As Napoleon well knew, France's current opponents—Britain, Turkey, Austria, and Naples—were in too good a position to be likely to accept them. The war, then, went on, but this was almost certainly exactly what the First Consul wanted, for, having thrown the responsibility for continuing the war on his enemies, he could now seek further victories that would augment his glory and allow him to dictate peace on his own terms.

There followed the campaign of 1800. Seizing the initiative, the Austrians attacked in Italy, drove back the outnumbered French and besieged Genoa, which, defended with great courage, held out till June 4. Despite the fact that he had been taken by surprise, Napoleon's response was dramatic: while forces under the command of General Jean Victor Moreau crossed the Rhine and defeated the Austrians at Stockach on May 3, the First Consul led the newly created Army of Reserve across the Alps and descended on the Austrian rear, winning a very narrow victory at Marengo on June 14. Although the campaign was badly bungled by Napoleon's standards, sufficient damage had been done to the Austrians to force them to evacuate their Italian conquests and persuade Francis II to open peace negotiations at Lunéville. However it took a further defeat at Hohenlinden for Francis to accept the French terms, Austria being forced to accept France's annexation of Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, to recognize the independence of the various French satellite states that had been established in the 1790s, and to give up the Habsburg-ruled duchies of Modena and Tuscany, together with part of recently acquired Venetia.

With Austria completely humbled, there yet remained the Ottoman Empire, Naples, and Britain. Of these, however, the Turks took no further part in the war after the reconquest of Egypt (which had been invaded by Napoleon in 1798) in August 1801, while the Neapolitans were persuaded to sue for peace by a defeat at Siena. At the same time, even British commitment to the war was rapidly falling away. Left to herself, Britain's military prospects were limited, while at home there was a growing economic crisis, and the new administration of Henry Addington therefore announced that it was ready to come to terms. In keeping with his image as the reluctant warrior, Napoleon was content to entertain these overtures, and all the more so as he had problems of his own and saw peace as an opportunity to strengthen his power at home, rebuild the battered French navy and bring Germany further under France's sway.

The result was the Treaty of Amiens of March 25, 1802. This, however, was never likely to lead to a lasting peace. Though Britain and France had been prepared to come to terms, the former still desired security in Europe and the latter to preserve French hegemony, the two goals soon proving to be incompatible. Nor were matters helped by the fact that the settlement was essentially an unequal one. In order to obtain peace, Britain had been prepared to offer conditions that were extremely generous. France's natural frontiers were recognized, along with the various satellite republics, and almost all Britain's many conquests restored to their original owners. All that Napoleon had to do in exchange being to withdraw all his forces from his satellites and treat them as independent states. For peace to last, therefore, much would depend upon Napoleon. At the very least, the First Consul would have to withdraw his troops from Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, respect the integrity and independence of the Cisalpine, Ligurian, Helvetic, and Batavian Republics, and generally restrain his actions in Europe. A liberal policy towards British trade would also have been advisable, along with an end to French expansion in the wider world.

Given Napoleon's character, however, all this was most unlikely, and the only sign of movement—the abandonment of France's colonial ambitions in the western hemisphere represented by the sale of Louisiana to the United States—was negated by massive naval construction and evidence of fresh designs on Egypt. In consequence, Britain went back to war as early as May 18, 1803. The France of 1803, however, was infinitely more powerful than the France of 1799. Thus, in the four years since he had come to power, Napoleon had ended the chaos that had characterized the domestic situation ever since the Revolution. Major concessions to the Church and improved security arrangements had broken the back of popular resistance and opened the way for taxation and conscription to function effectively. A new system of local government centred on the prefect had greatly increased the power of the state. And the all-important notables—the propertied groups who were the backbone of the French system of government—had been conciliated by the promulgation of a new legal code that in a variety of ways consolidated their position in society. Not only was the war effort secure from domestic disruption, meanwhile, but it also had access to greater resources. Massive naval construction, for example, had in part replaced the terrible losses of the Revolutionary Wars between 1792 and 1802, while a French-orchestrated re-organization of the Holy Roman Empire (a necessary consequence of Austria's surrender of the left bank of the Rhine) had won for France a range of new collaborators in Germany in the form of the much-enlarged states of Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg.