[Sidenote: Appearance of Napoleon Bonaparte]
Napoleon Bonaparte hitherto had not been particularly conspicuous in politics or in war. He was believed to be in full sympathy with the Revolution, although he had taken pains after the downfall of Robespierre to disavow any attachment to the extreme radicals. He had acquired some popularity by his skillful expulsion of the British from Toulon in 1793, and his protection of the National Convention against the uprising of the Parisian radicals in 1795 gave him credit as a friend of law and order. Finally, his marriage in 1796 with Josephine Beauharnais, the widow of a revolutionary general and an intimate friend of one of the Directors, bettered his chances of indulging his fondness for politics and his genius in war.
[Sidenote: Bonaparte's First Italian Campaign, 1796-1797]
[Sidenote: Treaty of Campo Formio, 1797]
That very year (1796), while the older and more experienced French generals were repeatedly baffled in their efforts to carry the war into the Germanies, the young commander—but twenty-seven years of age— swept the Austrians from Italy. With lightning rapidity, with infectious enthusiasm, with brilliant tactics, with great personal bravery, he crossed the Alps, humbled the Sardinians, and within a year had disposed of five Austrian armies and had occupied every fort in northern Italy. Sardinia was compelled to cede Savoy and Nice to the French Republic, and, when Bonaparte's army approached Vienna, Austria stooped to make terms with this amazing republican general. By the treaty of Campo Formio (1797), France secured the Austrian Netherlands and the Ionian Islands; Austria obtained, as partial compensation for her sacrifices, the ancient Venetian Republic, but agreed not to interfere in other parts of Italy; and a congress was to assemble at Rastatt to rearrange the map of the Holy Roman Empire with a view to compensating those German princes whose lands on the left bank of the Rhine had been appropriated by France.
[Sidenote: Great Britain Left Alone in Arms Against the French
Republic]
The campaign of 1796-1797, known in history as the First Italian campaign, was the beginning of a long series of sensational military exploits which were to rank Napoleon Bonaparte as the foremost soldier of modern times. Its immediate effect was to complete the dissolution of the First Coalition by forcing Austria and Sardinia to follow the example of Spain, Prussia, and Holland and to make a peace highly favorable to the French Republic. Great Britain alone continued the struggle against the Directory.
[Sidenote: Bonaparte's Rising Fame]
Another effect of the first Italian campaign, almost as immediate and certainly more portentous, was the sudden personal fame of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was the most talked-of man in France. The people applauded him. The government feared but flattered him. Schemers and plotters of every political faith sought his support. Alongside of decreasing respect for the existing government was increasing trust in Bonaparte's strength and ability.
[Sidenote: Bonaparte's Egyptian Campaign Against Great Britain, 1798]
It was undoubtedly with a sense of relief that the despised Directors in 1798 assented to a project proposed by the popular hero to transport to Egypt a French expedition with the object of interrupting communications between Great Britain and India. The ensuing Egyptian campaign of 1798 was spectacular rather than decisive. Bonaparte made stirring speeches to his soldiers. He called the Pyramids to witness the valor of the French. He harangued the Mohammedans upon the beautiful and truthful character of their religion and upon the advantages which they would derive from free trade with France. He encouraged the close study of Egyptian antiquities. [Footnote: It was an army officer on this Egyptian expedition who discovered the famous Rosetta Stone, by the aid of which hieroglyphics could be deciphered.] But his actual victories did not measure up to the excessively colored reports that he sent home. He was checked in Syria, and a great naval victory won by the celebrated English admiral, Lord Nelson, near the mouth of the Nile, effectually prevented the arrival of reinforcements.