This was the plan laid before the Directory.
When la Vendée was quelled, the forces were immediately to assume the offensive. Our armies of the Rhine were to blockade and besiege Mayence, to subjugate the princes of the empire one after another, to transfer the theatre of war into the Hereditary States, and to establish themselves in the noble valleys of the Mein and Necker.
From this time forward the armies would not cost France anything, the war would defray the expenses of the war.
As for Italy, a great victory was needed to force the King of Piedmont to make peace, or to compel him to give up his kingdom. This end achieved, the kingdom of Piedmont wiped off the map of Italy and joined to France under the title of the department of the Po, they would cross the river, skirt Pavia, wrest Milan from Austria, then break through into Lombardy, and penetrate up to the very gates of Vienna by way of the Tyrol and Venice.
As in the case of Germany (and certainly as well able to do it as Germany), Italy would feed our armies.
In consequence of this scheme, and in order to put it into execution, Hoche was to unite under his command the three armies of the coasts of Cherbourg, the shores of Brest, and of the West, a hundred thousand men all told, to achieve the pacification of la Vendée.
Jourdan was to keep the command of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse.
Moreau was to replace Pichegru on the Rhine.
And Bonaparte was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy.
On the 21st March 1796, Bonaparte left Paris, taking with him in his carriage two thousand louis. It was all he had been able to get together, and it included his own fortune, the contributions of his friends, and the subsidies of the Directory.