III.

From General to Statesman, 1796-1800

The Italian front was a sideshow in the war between France and the coalition powers; those in Switzerland and on the Rhine, under Generals Victor Moreau, Louis Hoche, and Charles Pichegru were of greater importance (see French Revolutionary Wars). However, Napoleon turned Italy into an unrivalled military success. Above all, he displayed a remarkable combination of political and diplomatic skills to consolidate his military victories, in ways the other generals did not. There was little in his early career to hint at these talents, but these years revealed the essence of what was to follow.

In his first Italian campaign (1796-1797) Napoleon effectively brought the entire peninsula under French control, thus establishing his military reputation. He then forced the Austrians to let him redraw the map of Italy at theTreaty of Campo Formio, in October 1797. Napoleon acted on his own initiative throughout, the Directory trailing behind. Campo Formio confirmed the existence of Napoleon’s first political creation, the Cispadane (later the Cisalpine) Republic, carved out of the former Austrian-ruled provinces of northern Italy. Aided by the pro-French minority of Italian “patriots” Napoleon made himself president of the new state, giving it a constitution based on that of France, but with a much stronger one-man executive. Napoleon was seldom an innovator at any time in his career, and “sister republics” were not new, but the Cisalpine was the first such to emerge as the work of a single general. Napoleon used it as a power base, from whence he despatched troops to crush a coup against the Directory, a clear sign of the regime’s dependence on the military, and of Napoleon’s direct interest in internal politics. He also attended the Congress of Rastadt, in Germany, where he did much to undermine Austrian influence among the smaller states.

Napoleon returned to Paris in triumph in December 1797. In May 1798 he was sent to capture Egypt, then a semi-autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, in hopes he would succeed but in the sure knowledge he would be out of politics. Narrowly evading the British fleet commanded by Horatio Nelson, Napoleon defeated the Mamelukes—the military aristocracy who ruled Egypt—and set about reforming the country along French lines, although in Cairo he declared that he and his whole army would convert to Islam, if it would help secure his rule. The Egyptian campaign produced major scientific and archaeological discoveries by the team of academics Napoleon brought with him, the most famous being the discovery and transportation to France of the Rosetta Stone. The campaign ended ingloriously and in an act of cynicism bordering on cowardice, Napoleon abandoned his troops and returned to France.

Egypt saved Napoleon from association with the even greater military disasters France had experienced in his absence. By 1799 Italy was lost and there were defeats on the Rhine; for the first time since 1794, France was menaced with invasion and the Directory faced a resurgence of Jacobin and royalist agitation. Several leading politicians, led by Emmanuel Sieyès—a constitutional expert and leader in the early Revolution—now felt the need for a stronger executive that would include a leading general. They had envisioned a coup since 1797, and turned to Napoleon because he was less pro-royalist than Moreau, and less pro-Jacobin than Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (later Charles XIV John), Napoleon’s clearest rivals. The coup took its name, the 18 Brumaire, from the date in the Revolutionary calendar on which it fell (November 9-10, 1799) and the politics behind it have always been unclear. Napoleon stormed the assemblies with his guard to proclaim the new constitution and coerce the deputies into agreement; he almost lost his nerve, stumbled over his speech, and was saved only by the intervention of his brother, Lucien, himself a deputy. The real keys to success were the indifference of educated public opinion and the neutrality of Moreau and Bernadotte.

Napoleon proved less hesitant in power. The Directory was replaced by a provisional Consulate composed of Napoleon, the legal expert Jean Jacques Cambacérès and the financial expert Charles Lebrun, who remained among Napoleon’s closest aides. For Napoleon it was only a springboard and he bullied Sieyès into designating him ”First Consul”. His rapid rise to supreme power might have been more predictable to contemporaries had they paid more attention to his political activities in Italy and Egypt. His first priority was the war emergency, however. Napoleon confided the more important fronts of Switzerland and the Rhine to Moreau, who rewarded his trust with a crushing victory over the Austrians at Hohenlinden. Napoleon took the Italian front, and his defeat of the Austrians at Marengo on June 14, 1800, returned Italy to French rule and soon ended the war. The Treaty of Lunéville of February 1801 generally reproduced the terms of Campo Formio. Austria’s influence among the smaller German states was also now weakened. By the Treaty of Amiens of March 1802, Britain made peace with France. France was now the dominant power in western Europe. Internally, these lightning victories confirmed the usefulness of having united in one person, the roles of the civilian chief executive and commander-in-chief: Napoleon.