Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

Expedition to Egypt. 1798.

Battle of the Nile. 1st August.

On the 9th of May 1798 Bonaparte left Toulon at the head of a picked force of his veterans of Italy, and accompanied not only by his favourite generals, but also by some of the leading savants and men of letters of France. On the 9th of June the fleet reached Malta, and on the 12th the Knights of St. John of the Hospital, who had held the island ever since the Middle Ages, surrendered it to the French general. Leaving a garrison in Malta, Bonaparte then proceeded to Egypt. He disembarked in front of Alexandria on the 1st of July, and upon the 4th he occupied that city. He then advanced on Cairo, and on the 21st of July he defeated the Mamelukes at the Battle of the Pyramids, and on the 24th he occupied Cairo. The English fleet in the Mediterranean, under the command of Nelson, had been intended to stop the expedition to Egypt, but it had been misdirected, and was unable to prevent the disembarkation of the French forces. On the 1st of August, however, Nelson appeared before Alexandria, and in the battle of Aboukir Bay, generally known as the Battle of the Nile, he destroyed the French fleet. This victory entirely cut off Bonaparte and his army from France. The English held the Mediterranean, and for many months prevented the despatch of either news or reinforcements. In November they strengthened their position in the great south European sea by the occupation of Minorca by an army under the Hon. Sir Charles Stuart, and in 1800 the French garrison in Malta surrendered to General Pigot and Captain Sir Alexander Ball.

Internal Policy of the Directory.

Before Bonaparte left Paris the time had come round for the election of a new Director. The lot fell upon François de Neufchâteau to retire, and his place was filled by Treilhard, a former member of the Constituent Assembly and of the Convention. Treilhard had been himself one of the leading Thermidorians, and since the close of the Convention he had been employed first as Minister in Holland and then as one of the French plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Rastadt. There is little doubt that Sieyès might have entered the Directory had he so wished, but he preferred to act in a different capacity. François de Neufchâteau at once returned to his former office of Minister of the Interior, and the only other alteration in the ministry was the appointment of Admiral Bruix to be Minister of Marine. The Directory, inspired by its victory on the 18th of Fructidor, did not hesitate to infringe the terms of the Constitution of the Year III. The Royalists or Clichians had not dared to appear at the elections to the Councils in 1798, and the democrats had been able to elect whom they wished. But the Directors did not intend to be subject to the democrats any more than to the Clichians, and without the slightest show of legality they quashed many of the elections to the Councils and gave the vacant seats to their own nominees. This disregard of the law was also shown in other branches of the internal policy of the Directory. The Directors, in spite of the Constitution, interfered with the finances, and, by the advice of Ramel, followed Cambon’s example of declaring a partial bankruptcy. This, however, had but little effect in France, for, owing to the depreciation in the value of the government paper money, very little interest was expected by the creditors of the State. In purely internal administration the weariness of the French people of political disturbances enabled the agents of the Directory to maintain the public peace without difficulty. The lack of capital in the country was compensated by the fact that the government was the only great employer of labour, and the spoils of the conquered countries enabled it to pay the workmen sufficiently. It seems surprising that this bankrupt government should have been acknowledged without opposition throughout France, but the cause is to be found in the universal attention paid to the course of foreign affairs.

The Foreign Policy of the Directory.

The Peace of Campo-Formio had, as has been shown, left France face to face with England, and it was to strike a blow at the power of England that Bonaparte proceeded to Egypt. For the same reason the Directory carried out the favourite scheme of Hoche, and despatched a force to Ireland under General Humbert in August 1798, which was forced to surrender to Lord Cornwallis in September. But though the powers of the Continent had been compelled to acknowledge the military superiority of France, they were only seeking a loophole by which to enter once more upon a general war. The departure of Bonaparte seemed to offer them a good opportunity, and pretexts were not wanting for the formation of a new coalition against France. The English ministry understood this attitude of the Continental powers, and their emissaries were busy in all the Courts of Europe. The Directors knew of these efforts of Pitt and did their best to counteract them. The keynote of the French policy was, as it had always been, to make an ally of Prussia. For this purpose Sieyès, who, though not in office, was probably the most influential man in France, obtained his nomination to a special embassy to Berlin. He hoped by mixed measures of conciliation and of menace to induce Frederick William III. of Prussia, who had succeeded his father in November 1797, to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance. But that monarch, in spite of the weakness of his personal character, had absolutely determined to maintain his father’s policy of strict neutrality, and neither the arguments of Sieyès nor those of Mr. Thomas Grenville, the brother of the English Foreign Minister, could induce him to swerve from it in either direction. The efforts of England were crowned with more success at Vienna and St. Petersburg. The Emperor Francis, and still more the Austrian people, were profoundly disgusted by the triumphs of the French, and flattered themselves that their defeats had been due to the genius of Bonaparte more than to the valour of the French soldiers. On the conclusion of the Treaty of Campo-Formio, Bonaparte had, without consulting the Directory, nominated General Bernadotte to be the French Ambassador at Vienna. The Austrian people took this appointment as an insult; Bernadotte, though well received by the Emperor and his ministers, soon found that he was most unpopular in Vienna, and on the 13th of April 1798 the Viennese mob collected in front of the French Embassy, insulted the ambassador, and tore down the insignia of the French Republic. In spite of this insult the Directors did not at once declare war against Austria, but it afforded a pretext for dwelling on the inborn hatred of the Austrians for the French in their proclamations to the French people. Since such was the disposition of the Austrian people, it need hardly be said that the English envoy was heartily welcomed at Vienna. At St. Petersburg the application of Pitt for armed help was favourably received. The Emperor Paul, though already showing signs of the brutal insanity which was to lead to his assassination, still preserved the prestige of being the heir of the great Catherine. His ministers were those of Catherine; his policy was based on hers. But whereas Catherine had steadfastly refused to go to war with France, Paul showed a decided inclination, which was fostered by his generals, to see whether the Russian army would not be more successful than the Prussian or the Austrian against the seemingly invincible French republicans.

The Helvetian Republic. April 1798.

The French Directory, though recognising that it might have soon to contend again with the power of Austria, and for the first time with that of Russia, nevertheless roused without any reason fresh enemies upon the French frontiers. Its greatest mistake at this period was its interference with the affairs of Switzerland. For this interference there was no real cause, but the Directors could not resist the temptation of inflicting their special form of republic upon the Swiss. The organisation of most of the cantons of Switzerland was essentially feudal and oligarchical. The government of each canton and of each city was in the hands of a very few families, and the people were in much the same condition politically, socially, and economically as the people of France before the Revolution. The Swiss peasants had caught the contagion of revolution from France, and in the beginning of 1798 the people of the Pays de Vaud rose in insurrection against the authority of the Canton of Berne. This rising was followed by popular tumults in other cantons, and the peasants everywhere destroyed the signs of the feudal system and declared themselves in favour of ‘Liberty—Equality—Fraternity.’ The popular leaders appealed to France for help, and a powerful army under the command of General Brune invaded Switzerland. The militia of the cantons was speedily routed; Brune occupied Berne and sent the national treasury to Paris, and a freely-elected Constituent Assembly was summoned. This assembly proclaimed an Helvetian Republic, one and indivisible, with a Directory, two Councils, and Ministers, in imitation of the French, the Cisalpine, and the Batavian Republics, to take the place of the old Swiss federal constitution. Great reforms were speedily accomplished; on the 8th of May 1798 internal customs-houses were abolished, and on the 13th of May torture was forbidden in judicial processes; on the 3d of August marriages between persons of different religions were declared legal; and eventually all feudal rights were suppressed. Great as were these reforms, they were not entirely acceptable to the Swiss people. The mountaineers of Uri, Schweitz and Unterwalden, the descendants of the founders of the ancient Swiss liberties, objected to be freed under the influence of French bayonets, and the cry of national patriotism soon raised an army against the French liberators of the peasants. The French troops had to remain perpetually under arms, and the Helvetian Republic, in spite of the popular freedom which it secured, was hated even by the peasants whom it had relieved. The hatred for the French name was increased by the arbitrary conduct, and it was asserted by the corrupt behaviour, of Rapinat, the French commissioner, who was a near relative of Reubell, the Director. The intervention of the Directory had, therefore, in Switzerland, roused a people in arms, even though it had been dictated by the best of motives.

Italian affairs.