the lion of the russian army - Florida State University

CHAPTER II
Italy
March - June 1799
After General Napoleon Bonaparte’s startling victories in Italy in 1796-1797 and
the Treaty of Campo Formio, Europe experienced a dramatic transformation in political
equilibrium. The French government created several new republics, Cisalpine and
Ligurian in the Northern Italy, the Batavian Republic in Holland and the Helvetian
Republic in Switzerland. Early in 1798, Rome was occupied, a Roman Republic
proclaimed, and Pope Pius VI taken to France. French expansion continued and, within a
year, Naples was occupied and another republic, the Parthenopean, was established.
Furthermore, Piedmont, part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, was annexed to France and
Grand Duke of Tuscany expelled from his realm. France seemed to threaten the
independence of the whole of Italy. After the Treaty of Campo Formio 1 ended the wars of
First Coalition, only Great Britain remained at war with France. In 1798, General
Bonaparte left Toulon with over 30,000 men for Egypt, where he intended to secure the
base for his campaign against Britain and its colonies.
Great Britain, Austria and Russia watched French expansion with apprehension.
To halt it, they united in the Second Coalition, with Britain paying large subsidies to the
Russian and Austrian armies. Previously, Russia had refrained from direct participation
in the wars of the First Coalition against France. Catherine the Great considered the
revolutionary threat too far in the west to be of any consequences for Russia. She was
1 The treaty followed the preliminaries at Leoben in April 1797. Austria recognized the French
annexation of former Austrian Netherlands, the left bank of Rhine, and the creation of Cisalpine
republic in north Italy. In return, the French concurred with the Austrian seizure of the Venetian
Republic.
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