Napoleon Bonaparte set out to take command of the
Army of Italy. In a way, his campaign was intended
less to give France power in Italy than to give the
French a strong bargaining position to force
concessions from Austria. Perhaps most important was
the fact that the French government had no money.
Napoleon Bonaparte was really asked to plunder
and pillage Italy in order to fill the
Directory's treasury.

France hoped to strike at Austria by attacking
Italy. Austria was not the relatively small nation
it is now, but a large power empire. Italy was not
a unified country, but collection of separate
states. Some were independent, like the Papal States,
the republics of Venice and Genoa, and the
Kingdom of Sardinia; others belonged to foreign powers,
primarily Austria, which claimed Milan, Mantua,
Tuscany and Modena.

Germany was in a similar situation. The most powerful
German state was Prussia; most of the others were weak
and divided. The year before Napoleon's Italian
campaign, Prussia had signed a treaty giving France the
states on the left bank of the Rhine River, the part of
Germany closest to France. But Austria refused to
recognize this treaty and took up arms against France.

The war in Germany was not going well for the French, so
they hoped that success on the Italian front would give
them leverage. With a series of victories in Italy, they
might be able to pressure Austria into yielding the
left bank of the Rhine.

Napolean had no doubt that the plan he had thought up
in 1794, the one that had so impressed Robespierre,
would bring such victories. But the army with which he
was supposed to carry out the plan was in terrible shape.

The Army of Italy had been sitting at the foot of the Alps
for three years. One of its battalions refused to leave
France until it had been paid. There was no food, no
ammunition, and no money to buy any.

Napoleon set up his headquarters in Nice and received his
generals. They took one look at their new commander,
a short, skinny 26 year old with long, messy hair, who held
a portrait of his new wife in one hand and insisted that
everyone look at it, were not impressed. They thought he
was a political schemer who had managed to get this post
through back-room deals. Did he really expect to take on
the Austrian Empire with 27,000 ragged, hungry soldiers
who had not been paid in months and wore shoes made of straw?

But young Napoleon was not the least bit intimidated by them.
He asked about the size of their units, troop morale, and
supplies. Then he said he would inspect the soldiers the
next day and begin to march the day after.

Within 48 hours he managed to get enough bread, meat, and
brandy to last 6 days. He split up the soldiers in the
rebellious battalion and spread them out among all the other
units, thus diffusing their anger.

This was his speech to them to inspire courage:
"Soldiers, you are naked and undernourished. The government
owes you much, but can give you nothing. Your patience in
bearing all privation and your courage in facing all kinds of
danger have won the admiration of France. She is a witness to
your hardships. You have no shoes or coats or shirts, and
almost no food. Our supply is up to you to capture them. You
want to do it, and you can do it. Let's go!

He electrified his soldiers and began his march on April 2, 1796.
Inseatd of tackling the well defended passes through the Alps,
he quickly marched his army across Genoese territory. He beat
back Austro-Sardinian forces in four battles, and on April 28 the
king of Sardinia agreed to a truce. The Austrian army retreated
to protect the city of Milan.

After these first victories, Napoleon Bonaparte had another
speech for his troops.
"Soldiers! Up to this time you have fought for nothing better
than barren rocks, which although made famous by your courage,
are useless to the Fatherland. Lacking everything, you have
made up for everything you lacked. You have won battles without
cannon, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced marches
without boots, and bivouacked without brandy and often without
bread. Only the soldiers of liberty could have endured what you
have endured! For all this, my thanks. You still have battles
to fight, cities to take, and rivers to cross. You have done
nothing, since you have everything to do."

When he signed the peace treaty with the king of Sardinia, he
wrote into it the "right to cross the Po River at Valenza."
The Austrian general was completely fooled and immediately
took his troops off to Valenza to lie in wait for the French army.

But Napoleon calmly crossed the river at Piacenza instead,
taking the Austrians by surprise from behind. After the
Battle of Lodi, the rich provence of Lombardy fell into his lap.
Now Milan was wide open to his advance. Archduke Ferdinand
of Austria left that city in a great hurry, taking with him
his gold and art collections.

After each conquest, Napoleon presented himself as a liberator.
Even though the Directors had told him not to help
revolutionary movements in Italy. France did not want any
Italian entanglements, Napoleon disobeyed. He addressed the
Italians in stirring words.

"People of Italy! The French army comes to break your chains.
The French nation is the friend of all nations; receive us
with trust! Your property, your religion, your customs will be
respected. We shall wage war like generous enemies, for our
only quarrel is with the tyrants who have enslaved you."

The citizens of Milan greeted Napolean with open arms.
He emptied their treasury and marched south. He conquered
the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the duchies of Modena and Parma,
and the papal city-states of Bologna and Ferrara. This
diversion took him a month and secured vast amounts of money,
horses, ammunition, food, and equipment. Napoleon also looted
the great cultural treasures of these states, sending to
France many priceless paintings and other works of art.

The Directory was delighted with the spoils but less
ecstatic about the fact that Napoleon was negotiating all the
treaties himself. He did not ask for their permission or
their stamp of approval. His popularity was growing by leaps
and bounds, and the Directors were in no position to stop him.

Throughout the entire campaign, the Austrian generals in
Italy made the mistake of dividing their troops, thus handing
Napoleon some easy victories. He also had an advantage
because his army was very different from the armies it faced.
The Austrian troops were paid professional soldiers. They
would continue to eat whether they won or lost. But for
the French army, victory meant food and clothes. Defeat
meant starvation.

Napoleon's only problem in Italy was Mantua. His troops
tried for a month to bring the city to its knees, but Mantua
refused to surrender. A fresh division of Austrian troops
was sent to break the French army. Soon there were rumors
in France that Napolean was about to lose Italy.

But in January 1797 the Austrian general again made the
fatal mistake. Although his army was much larger than
Napoleon's, he split it into two groups. This made
Napoleon's strategy simple. He attacked the left flank
of the Austrian army and demolished it. The rest of the
Austrian troops fled. In hot persuit, Napoleon set out
across the Alps. When he was practically at the gates of
Vienna, Austria's capital, the Austrians decided to
negotiate. The result was the preliminary peace treaty of
Leoben, signed in April 1797. Napoleon concluded this
treaty on his own authority, without the approval of the
Directors, who considered the terms too generous to Austria.

Although the Directors were not pleased with his personal
diplomacy, they were anxious to keep Napoleon ot of Paris.
They thought he was growing far too popular with the French
people and might be dangerous if he returned.

Napoleon stayed in Italy to complete the peace
negotiations, but the Austrians were in no hurry to reach
a final agreement. Elections had recently been held in
France, and the royalists had done well in the Council of
Elders and the Council of Five Hundred. Both councils
were fighting with the Directors, the Directors were
fighting with each other, and the Austrians were hoping
for a royalist take over of the government.

As the royalists become an increasing menace to the
republic, the Directors decided they had no choice but to
call upon Bonaparte and his army. Too weak and divided
to turn to the French people for defense or to come up
with a political solution, they wanted Napoleon to
impose a military solution.

Napoleon had been alarmed by the election results and had
urged the Directors to suppress the royalists. But when
they actually sent for him, he played his cards carefully.
If the coup against the royalists failed, he did not want
to be too closely associated with it. So instead of
going to Paris himself, he sent one of his generals,
Pierre Augereau. Augereau arrived on August 7, and by
September 4 the royalists had been defeated.

Napoleon claimed the victory as his own, and the Austrians
suddenly decided to make a hasty final settlement.

The Treaty of Campo-Formio was signed on October 17, 1797.
It basically confirmed the earlier Peace of Leoben, leaving
Austria in control of important areas of Italy. But the
French claimed the Low Countries and much of Italy, and won a
secret promise that Austria would yield the left bank of
the Rhine to France.

Napoleon signed the treaty without authorization from the
Directors, but the French people were delirious with joy.
When he returned to Paris on December 5, a huge official
celebration awaited him. The Directors realized that they
could not afford to let the people know how irritated they
were. They proclaimed that the treaty fulfilled all their
wishes, and they immediately gave Napoleon command of the
Army of England, anything to get him out of Paris.
Introductory Essay on Leadership
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.


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