Black J. From Louis XIV to Napoleon The Fate of a Great Power
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Elector of Mainz was approached with the same warnings about Austria and Prussia, while,
in May, Dumouriez had instructed the newly accredited envoy to Naples to seek Neapolitan
neutrality.
64
Chambonas’s approaches met with no response, and can be seen as evidence of improbable
hopes and desperate fears. War with Austria and Prussia was a more serious prospect than
those that had faced France at the beginning of wars earlier in the century. Once the hopes of
Prussian non-intervention had been shown to be naïve, the French radicals in 1792 were
mostly driven into a bunker mentality with a hostility to the outer world, sometimes shot
through with implausible hopes of alliances. Chambonas’s political position was less radical.
His approaches to other powers also reflected a desperate opportunism, and too much
weight should not be placed on individual arguments at such a juncture.
As with other analyses of the international situation, that by Chambonas has to be set in
context. Thus, reasons had to be advanced to support the approach to Britain. Accepting
this caveat, the approach on the eve of a major period of conflict in Europe is interesting for
its echo of earlier suggestions, most recently by D’Aiguillon in 1772–3, by Vergennes after
the War of American Independence, and by Montmorin in late 1787. All assumed that Britain
should be an ally in opposing unwelcome steps by all, two or any of the Partitioning powers.
This cut across the argument that France’s interests were bound up with a struggle with
Britain for maritime supremacy. Such an argument meant little during the struggle for survival
in 1792. Chambonas’s suggestions are important in indicating the extent to which efforts
were made to maintain or create links in 1792, and suggest the volatility of French policy at
this juncture. Chambonas was one of the five foreign ministers in 1792: revolutionary
politics put a major strain on the conduct of foreign policy.
65
These efforts were to be hindered, and yet also given new energy, by the pressure of
domestic change. Louis XVI’s dismissal on 13 June 1792 of the Girondin ministers appointed
on 10 March had both created a sense of new diplomatic possibilities and helped to unite and
radicalize his opponents. Marseille volunteers marched into Paris on 30 July, singing the
War Song written by Rouget de Lisle. Such volunteers were keen to fight against the enemies
of the Revolution, and, increasingly, ready to identify them with the occupants of the
Tuileries, where the Girondin press claimed that an ‘Austrian committee’ was meeting with
the support of the queen. The poisonous effects of paranoia brought denunciations and
violence to Paris. On 25 July the advancing Prussian commander, the Duke of Brunswick,
issued a declaration setting out the aims of Frederick William II and Francis II. They claimed
to seek the re-establishment of Louis XVI’s legislative authority and, to that end, Brunswick
warned that Paris would be subject to exemplary vengeance if the king was harmed.
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News of the declaration caused outrage in Paris, helping precipitate the crisis on 10
August in which the Tuileries was stormed. The monarchy was suspended by the Legislative
Assembly, and on 13 August Louis XVI was in effect imprisoned in the Temple keep. The
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165
theory and, to a limited extent, practice of popular sovereignty was thrust to the fore.
Surrender of frontier fortresses – Longwy on 23 August and Verdun on 3 September – to the
advancing Allied forces, led in Paris to the September Massacres, as 1,100–1,400 people
accused of treason, including Montmorin and his successor, Lessart, were killed.
The practice of authority was similarly disrupted in the French colonial world. In
Mauritius and Réunion popular assemblies seized power and in November 1790 a mob
killed the Count of Macnamara, commander of the French squadron in the Indian Ocean.
More generally, the breakdown of authority in France and the French colonial world gravely
weakened the navy.
67
The Revolution divided the French adventurers in India, who having
developed westernized forces for Indian princes served as foci for French interests and
hopes, especially in Hyderabad and northern India. In the West Indies, the Revolution
encouraged slave aspirations for a new order and led to a total breakdown of authority and
colonial control with a major rebellion in St Domingue.
Diplomats had been accredited to Louis XVI and the collapse of his government led in
August 1792 to a break in formal diplomatic relations. The British, Danish, Dutch, Polish,
Spanish, Swedish and Venetian envoys left. However, the new revolutionary government
wished to maintain relations, and indeed hoped for an alliance with Britain, Prussia and the
Dutch, a favoured scheme of the new foreign minister, Lebrun,
68
a former journalist. Danton
wished to restrict the war to Austria. The attacks on Montmorin in the Legislative Assembly
on 21 and 31 August 1792 had centred on his failure the previous year to take advantage of
what was seen as a good opportunity to negotiate a Franco-Prussian alliance.
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From Valmy to war with Britain, 1792–3
Diplomatic might-have-beens were overtaken by military success. The Prussian advance on
Paris was blocked by a larger French force at Valmy, about 108 miles from Paris, on 20
September 1792. The Prussians had already encountered serious problems with the intractable
terrain of the Argonne, logistics, the effect of rain on the roads, and sickness, especially
dysentery. They were not prepared for a major campaign, and the very presence of a
numerous, well-prepared French army was sufficient to check them. Negotiations between
Dumouriez and the Prussians for a cessation of arms began on 23 September and lasted for
a month. The French government hoped for a separate Franco-Prussian peace as a possible
prelude to a quadruple alliance of the two powers, Britain and the Dutch. What they
obtained was a Prussian withdrawal from France.
Brunswick abandoned Verdun on 8 October and Longwy on 22 October. Meanwhile, on
22 September the French Army of the Alps invaded Savoy. Chambéry fell on 24 September,
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Nice on 29 September. In the Rhineland, French troops advancing on Brunswick’s flank,
captured Speyer on 30 September, Worms on 4 October, Mainz on 21 October and Frankfurt
on 22 October. On 23 October the celebratory salvoes of the cannon of General Kellermann’s
Army of the Moselle proclaimed that all foreign troops had been driven from the Republic.
Following a victory over a smaller Austrian army at Jemappes on 6 November, the Austrian
Netherlands were rapidly overrun. Brussels fell on 13 November, Ostend on 16 November,
Liège on 27 November, Antwerp on 29 November and Namur on 2 December.
On 16 November 1792 the Executive Council decreed that the Austrians should be
pursued wherever they retreated, a threat to neutrals such as the Elector of Cologne and,
more particularly, the Dutch, and that the estuary of the Scheldt was to be open to navigation,
a clear breach of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Four days later, these decisions were
ratified by the National Convention, which had come into being on 21 September 1792 after
the overthrow of the constitution of 1791. The logic of their new ideas and their rejection of
the past made the French radicals unwilling to accept the apparent denial of the natural right
of the Belgians to trade, which had been enforced by the closure of the Scheldt.
Asserting the importance of the independence of nations, Lebrun argued that he was not
seeking to harm the right of the Dutch, who had insisted on the closure of the Scheldt in order
to benefit their own trade, but that the Belgians were not obliged to maintain engagements
made by their former Habsburg masters, whose yoke had now been rejected.
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This argument
indicated Lebrun’s wish to dramatize the breach between ancien régime and revolutionary
diplomacy, as did his offer of Tobago to Britain with the caveat that the consent of its
inhabitants was necessary.
71
The dispatch of warships up the Scheldt would also enable the
French to put pressure on the garrison in Antwerp, then still resisting the French.
French decrees individually and collectively helped to raise international tension and
increase suspicions. On 19 November 1792, in response to appeals for help from radicals in
Zweibrücken and Mainz, the National Convention passed a decree declaring that the French
people would extend fraternity and assistance to all peoples seeking to regain their liberty.
72
As a general principle, this was subversive of all international order; it was also unrealistic
and was revoked by the Convention on 14 April 1793, Danton pointing out that it would
oblige the French to assist a revolution in China. In specific terms, the decree challenged the
Dutch government, for Dutch ‘Patriot’ refugees in Paris continually pressed for action on
their behalf, as indeed did refugees from all over Europe. Citizenship was given to a number
of European radicals.
On 27 November 1792 conquered Savoy was incorporated into France – a consequence
of the decree of 19 November; on 3 December the decision was taken to try Louis XVI, and
on 15 December a decree to ensure that the ancien régime be swept away in territories
occupied by French forces was promulgated. Elections were to be held to create a new order,
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but the electorate was restricted to adult men ready to swear an oath to be ‘faithful to the
people and the principles of liberty and equality’. It was anticipated that people thus ‘freed’
would support and seek ‘union’ with France, where elections entailed an oath of loyalty to
the Revolution. French pressure on Geneva led to the creation there of a new-model francophile
government in early December, while the threat of naval attack later in the winter made the
Neapolitan government agree both to acknowledge the French republic and to be neutral.
73
Lebrun argued that any treaty by which people were obliged to submit to harmful systems
of government was void,
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a view that challenged the principles and practice of Russian
intervention in Poland and Sweden.
Absorbed by the trial of Louis XVI, the atmospherre and strains of which made compromise
in foreign policy very difficult, and affected by the rhetoric and experience of success, the
French government failed to appreciate the impact of its policies and statements on neutral
powers, especially Britain and the United Provinces. Negotiations in the winter of 1792–3
were hampered by mutual suspicion and incompatible views and principles. The Dutch
decision not to resist the passage of French ships up the Scheldt, and the French order of 13
December to Dumouriez to respect Dutch neutrality and to move into winter quarters,
served to defuse immediate tension over Dutch security; but the general context was of steps
that made the overall tenor of relations worse and the atmosphere more charged and bitter.
The Executive Council and many French politicians sought peace with Britain and the
Dutch, but not at the price of returning all France’s territorial gains. Lebrun’s response to a
Neapolitan suggestion for Austro-French negotiations scarcely suggested any prospect of
peace. He made it clear that a breach between Austria and Prussia would be a necessary
preliminary to any agreement, and that Austria could then seek compensation for the loss of
the Austrian Netherlands in the conquest of Silesia.
75
The expulsion of the French envoy from London after the execution of Louis XVI on 21
January 1793 was received with fury in Paris. The political atmosphere there was not
conducive to any abandonment of ideals, statements and conquests. Though some politicians
were worried about the prospect of expanding the war, they were not strong enough to force
through the concessions demanded by Britain. Influential speakers in the National Convention
were convinced that Britain was weak and that the people, especially in Ireland and Scotland,
would support France. Secret peace negotiations were meaningless without the political will
and ability to win support for any agreement, and, under pressure from the Jacobins, their
rivals were in no position to run the risk of being accused of making concessions, let alone
actually to make any.
76
On 1 February 1793 the National Convention decided unanimously to declare war on
Britain and the Dutch. Making novel use of the notion that war was declared on sovereigns,
and, thus, that aggression was not being committed against other peoples, the Convention
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also agreed to a motion that the British people be asked to rebel by an address composed by,
among others, Tom Paine, a prominent radical who was a member of the Convention.
77
War
on Spain was declared on 7 March 1793.
The foreign policy of the republic
The willingness of the French to sponsor or encourage discontent and sedition was seen as
an indication both of the essential objectives of French policy and of the means by which
they sought to effect them. In May 1791 Montmorin, noting the belief that the French
wished to force ‘tout l’univers’ to adopt their new regime, had, instead, argued that it was up
to each nation to judge what was best for itself. Eighteen months later, it was credible to
argue that the French had bridged the two propositions by defining other nations in terms of
revolutionary and pro-French populaces, and, indeed, the support of such elements
compromised French diplomacy.
The French government might complain of misleading and hostile images spread by
émigrés,
78
but the course of the Revolution appeared to justify them. The policy of French
agents in this respect was a crucial source of distrust. The interception of Maulde’s dispatches
revealed that his protestations of good intentions towards the Dutch government did not
inhibit his encouragement of sedition.
79
Such action suggested that no French envoy or
approach could be trusted. If individual French agents, or indeed ministers, differed in
private from the more alarmist aspects of French policy, as many did, that was of limited
consequence because they were unwilling and unable to stop it in the electric public forum
that was now so crucial to its development.
Far from French intentions being secondary to the fact of power, these intentions were
the issue. It was not a matter of suspicion, for hostile intentions were proclaimed in France
without hesitation or equivocation. Furthermore, rapid changes in the government of France
made it appear dangerous, sinister, violent and radical. French statements and demands made
the revolutionary threat apparent and concrete. French declarations and the debates they
sprang from reflected the application of philosophical idealism to international relations
with all the cant and self-righteous response to the views of others that was to be anticipated.
The new society that was being advocated and created in France was not essentially designed
to be formed with reference to the concept of the territorial state. In so far as the new politics
and ideology illuminated the policy of French governments, they did not encourage the
limitation of policy aspirations nor compromise with the interests of territorial states.
80
Diplomatic instructions revealed an unwillingness to accept the validity of other perceptions
and there was no consistent willingness to compromise with other states to any serious
extent.
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Nor was there any sustained attempt to explain the views of other powers to the National
Assembly and the Convention. The creation of these institutions was part of a political
culture that encouraged both the public expression of specific views on foreign policy and
attempts to influence policy with these. Ministers and politicians who wished to fight were
encouraged; their more hesitant colleagues became cautious about expressing their opposition
and lost the ability to push through their own ideas. The fevered nature of the crucial
debates, the declamatory style and extravagant arguments of the speakers and the frequent
interventions of the spectators on the side of action and against compromise, all combined to
produce a context within which it was difficult to conduct not just diplomacy as conventionally
understood, but also any negotiations in which mutual comprehension and concessions were
to play a role. The reading of dispatches in the National Assembly angered French diplomats
and their contacts.
81
There was also anger that their dispatches appeared in the French
press.
82
Envoys worried about the negative impression created by instability within France.
83
They found it difficult to adapt the convention that internal disorder created a bad effect
abroad (previously applied to other countries) to new circumstances in France,
84
and, more
generally, to learn to cope with the discussion of foreign states in both the French press and
the National Assembly.
85
Problems were also created for foreign powers. In April 1792 Lord Grenville, the British
foreign secretary, wrote to Earl Gower, the envoy in Paris, concerning a recent clash between
frigates off India. ‘You will observe that my dispatch is drawn with a view to public
discussion, as I imagine that considering the present state of things in France, that can hardly
be avoided, however desirable it would have been’. In this case, however, a crisis was
avoided. The French were then far more concerned about the breakdown in relations with
Austria. The Earl of Elgin, another British diplomat, then in Paris, heard, and was pleased by,
the minister’s report on the episode to the National Assembly.
86
Even if the 1780s and 1790s can be seen in large part in terms of continuity, of the
tensions of the early-modern period, even if parallels can be found in the Reformation, the
Revolution still represented a break from ancien régime diplomacy. The revolutionaries
thought of themselves as acting in a new fashion, an important aspect of novelty in response
to a culture that was primarily reverential of, and referential to, the past. In 1792 Lebrun
sought to free France from ‘miserables querelles d’etiquette’
87
and argued that the phrase
‘pacte de famille doit etre effacé du vocabulaire de la politique françoise; la Republique ne
connoit plus de famille que la grande famille de l’Etat’.
88
Chauvelin referred to ‘lettres de
créance signées au nom de 24 millions d’hommes libres et vainqueurs’.
89
Diplomatic relations, procedures and personnel were all disrupted and this also affected
the consular service.
90
Relations with the Papacy collapsed.
91
Avignon became French and
the position in Alsace altered not in response to international treaty, but as a result of what
were held to be popular will and natural rights. The argument that treaties entered into by
rulers could not bind people was subversive. The subordination of foreign policy and the
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foreign minister to control by a committee of a popular assembly was new: control passed
from the executive to the legislature.
92
Particular episodes over the previous century prefigured some of the experience of the
revolutionary period. The Revolution was still different because it affected France, the most
populous state in Western Europe, the paradigm of European monarchy and the most
important western European participant in continental international relations, because the
radicalization of the Revolution was unprecedented for any large polity, and because the
French Revolutionary Wars involved and affected all of Europe. The Revolution released,
energized and directed French resources, so that the country was able and willing to play a
more forceful role in international relations.
Nevertheless, the willingness of powers to negotiate with a regicide regime was striking.
The Treaties of Basle between France and Prussia, the United Provinces and Spain (1795)
were followed by the Franco-Sardinian Armistice of Cherasco (1796), the Franco-Austrian
treaties of Campo Formio (1797) and Lunéville (1801),
93
and the Anglo-French Treaty of
Amiens (1802). Furthermore, traditional interests and objectives can be stressed in the
international relations of the 1790s. Continuity can also be emphasized if an effort is made
to distinguish clearly between on the one hand revolutionary ideologies and ideals, and, on
the other, actual policies, what ministries in Paris did or tried to do. However radical the
speeches made by revolutionary orators, many of the presuppositions underlying government
policy were to a large extent traditional. Ideas about France’s traditional allies, notably the
Turkish Empire and the Poles, were largely as they had been under the ancien régime. In the
winter of 1792–3 the French offered sympathy to the Polish patriots, one of whom, Tadeusz
Kosciuszko, visited France in early 1793. Later that year, the French tried to revive their
alliance with Turkey.
The hostility of the revolutionaries to the Austrian alliance had deep prerevolutionary
roots;
94
and the tendency to look to Prussia as a possible or likely ally went back to the
1740s. The idea of closer relations with the German states, other than Austria and Prussia,
was also revived, as was interest in splitting Catalonia from Spain, a policy supported in the
1640s.
95
It can, therefore, be argued that, although revolutionary emotion altered much of the
tone of French policy, it had much less effect on its substance, and thus the situation after
1792– 3 was one of the pursuit by greatly expanded means of aims which were not in
themselves new.
Against this must be set the new element of distrust in relations that the Revolution
introduced, a distrust that was paranoid, linked alleged domestic and foreign threats, and
echoed the fevered anxieties of Reformation relations. Britain was accused of stirring up
disaffection within France, and the prospect of more energy being devoted to such a policy,
led Montmorin in February 1791 to worry about the prospect of peace in Europe.
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The
distrust, which characterized the Revolutionaries, and their opponents, as well as neutral
powers, affected the content and character of policy and foreign relations. Louis XIV had
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aroused considerable distrust elsewhere in Europe, but posed less of a threat to the affairs of
other countries than the Revolutionaries.
Similarities have been found between ancien régime and revolutionary policy, both in
terms of French goals
97
and of the application of reason.
98
Chambonas’s argument in July
1792 that rivalry between Prussia and Austria was a guarantee of the independence and
liberties of the empire, that any alliance between the two was dangerous, and that Russia’s
policy towards Poland made it suspect, would have been familiar to many earlier foreign
ministers.
99
Nevertheless, revolutionary ideals and the logic of domestic politics pushed
France towards war in a fashion that was totally different from the impact of domestic
pressures elsewhere. It had proved possible to avoid war over the Scheldt in 1784, and in the
Dutch crisis in 1787. Such a process of compromise was not possible in 1792–3. Basle,
Cherasco, Campo Formio, Lunéville and Amiens were very much the products of military
exhaustion, failure or defeat.
100
The course of Revolutionary foreign policy and the response of other powers both
greatly reflected the fortunes of war. Defeat at Neerwinden on 18 March 1793 and the loss
of Belgium to the Austrians led to a more cautious approach to annexation and the spread of
revolution, and led to stronger interest in peace. Brissot and the Girondins fell in June 1793.
The Jacobin coup gave power to Danton, who sought a return to more conventional diplomacy.
The Girondin foreign minister, Lebrun, was imprisoned and then executed.
In order to obtain peace, Danton tried to create a powerful league. Prussia, Sardinia,
Switzerland and Tuscany were offered terms that were designed to weaken the relative
position of Austria and Britain. Danton sought a negotiated peace with Britain in late 1793,
but French objectives were scarcely those that would satisfy her or Austria. The situation
was transformed by the victories of the Revolutionary armies in Belgium in 1794. The army
was given new force by the levée en masse, able new commanders, and more effective
organization. The levée en masse entailed an obligation on all to serve in the war, and all
single men between 18 and 25 being called upon to join the army. The armies raised were both
larger than those deployed by France hitherto, and enabled her to operate effectively on
several fronts at once, to sustain casualties, and to match the opposing forces of much of
Europe. Initially, at least, Revolutionary enthusiasm was an important element in French
capability, helpful in providing the morale required for effective shock action, for crossing
the killing ground produced by opposing firepower.
The outbreak of war increased the paranoia of French public culture and helped the
Revolutionaries to associate themselves with France. Demonizing their opponents, they
waged war by the brutalization of subjects and the despoliation of foreigners. An extension
of government power helped mobilize resources. In 1793–4 alone, nearly 7,000 new cannons
and howitzers were cast. The exploitative nature of French rule abroad led to a crucial
increase in resources that complemented France’s domestic mobilization, but the exploitation
helped to limit the popularity of the Revolution outside France. Victory gave war prestige
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and discouraged compromise, as did the Terror within France. The government, military and
generals required continued warfare in order to fund their activities.
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Thermidor and the Peaces of Basle
This remained true of the Thermidorean regime that succeeded the Terror on 27 July 1794.
Expropriation and exploitation generated resistance,
102
but Austria, Prussia and, particularly,
Russia were increasingly concerned about Eastern Europe. The Second Partition of Poland in
1793 was followed by the Kosciuszko rebellion and then by the Third Partition in 1795.
Having overrun the Low Countries in 1794–5, the French were able to negotiate peace with
an exhausted Prussia. Under the Peace of Basle of 5 April 1795, Prussia accepted French
occupation of the left bank of the Rhine, France promised compensation on the right bank
and accepted a Prussian-led neutrality zone in northern Germany. This abandonment of the
coalition covered France’s position in the Low Countries and led other powers to follow.
The conquered Dutch on 16 May 1795 accepted satellite status as the Batavian Republic, a
massive indemnity, the cession of Maastricht, Venlo and Dutch Flanders, a French army of
occupation until a general peace was negotiated, and a loss of control over the navy. The
creation of new sister republics, of which this was the first, epitomized the use of power to
make revolutionary changes elsewhere in Europe. Natural limits and small republics had
indeed been aspects of the Girondin plan for Europe,
103
but they were to be introduced under
the shadow of a dominant and exploitative France.
Although Bilbao and Vitoria were captured by the French in 1795, Spain had not been
overrun. The Catalans had ignored French suggestions of a French-backed independent
republic. Spain was also tangential to the principal spheres of French strategic and territorial
interest. By its Peace of Basle of 22 July 1795, Spain only ceded Santo Domingo, its half of
Hispaniola, to France. The following year, Spain allied with France. As a result, the British
fleet was outnumbered in the Mediterranean and withdrew from it in late 1796. These
treaties improved France’s position towards Austria and Britain, neither of which were
seriously interested in accepting French gains, and the French invaded southern Germany
and northern Italy in 1796. War would continue.
The foreign policy of the Directory, 1795–9
The idea that domestic change within France could be accepted so long as she renounced
foreign gains was not credible, because not enough French politicians were willing to accept
it and fight for it. French policy did not reveal a consistent willingness to accept limits that
were acceptable to others. Furthermore, war as a means to blunt the hostility of others
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proved counter-productive, for it encouraged fresh ambitions on the part of France and a
fearful desire for her defeat and for revenge from her opponents.
The government of the Directory (1795–9) believed war necessary in order to support
the army, to please its generals, and, for these and other reasons, to control discontent in
France, not least by providing occupation for the volatile commanders, the views and ambitions
of many of whom were not limited to the conduct of war. At every level, the processes of
diplomacy were designed to serve the cause of war. In 1796 the residence of the consul
general in Morocco was transferred from Salé to Tangier, so that he would be able to report
on naval movements in the Straits of Gibraltar.
Interest in peace was not pursued with great energy. The Alsatian Jean François Reubell,
who was the most influential in foreign policy of the five Directors, sought a peace that
would guarantee what were presented as natural, and, therefore, rational frontiers: the Rhine
and the Alps. Such frontiers appeared a counterpart to the redrawing of boundaries within
France, as long-lasting provinces were replaced by the new départements and their supposedly
more rational boundaries. This rationalization also entailed a significant expansion of French
power into Germany and the Low Countries. Reubell saw this also as a reasonable
compensation for the gains made by Austria, Prussia and Russia through the Partitions of
Poland.
104
In northern Italy, initial French victories led to pressure for further conquest, in order to
satisfy political and military ambitions and exigencies.
105
Napoleon rose to prominence
through his successful operations as commander of the French Army of Italy in 1796–7, and
because his successes contrasted with the failed invasions across the Rhine in 1795 and
1796. Napoleon’s victory at Mondovi in 1796 knocked the kingdom of Sardinia out of the
war, and his triumphs at Lodi, Bassano and Arcola in the same year, and at Rivoli in 1797
brought triumph over the Austrians, apparently compensating for some of the costs of war.
It proved difficult to fix success. The brutal exploitation of Lombardy in 1796 led to a
popular rising that was harshly repressed. There was also a serious popular rising in Swabia
and Franconia, evidence of the fragile basis of French gains. In Italy, Napoleon managed to
regain the initiative, a characteristic feature of his imaginative generalship and opportunistic
approach to international politics. Marching to within 70 miles of Vienna, he forced Austria
to accept the Truce of Leoben on 18 April 1797.
Napoleon’s victories had already destroyed the Directory’s initiative earlier in the year,
of peace on the basis of the gain of Belgium, with Austrian possessions in Italy returned. His
victories ensured that the Directory, which was primarily interested in the annexation of the
left bank of the Rhine, and saw Italian gains as negotiable for Austrian consent, had, instead,
to accept the Leoben terms, and the accompanying French commitment to Italy. Austria
agreed to cede Belgium to France, and the Milanese to a newly-formed French satellite
republic, the Cisalpine Republic, and was to receive the Veneto (Venice’s possessions on the
Italian mainland) in return. Venice would be compensated with Bologna, Ferrara and Romagna,