Valence, Lyons, Chalon and Nevers, arriving in Paris on the morning of
16 October. He was delighted with the tumultuous reception he got,
especially in A vignon, where the people seemed to regard him as a
deliverer.
At first sight Napoleon's gamble in going to Egypt and returning only
when the Directory was discredited seemed to have paid off. Until the
news of Aboukir reached France, he appeared to be losing the
propaganda battle: the Battle of the Nile, the revolt of the 'angel' El Modi
and British disinformation about atrocities had been cleverly played up
by his enemies. Most of all, it became obvious that, no matter how many
victories Napoleon won in Egypt, in the context of a general European
war these made little impact. The sensational news about Aboukir cut
through all that, but Napoleon's position was by no means as good as he
would have liked. The principal problem was that France's military
position had stabilized by the time he returned.
In Cairo Napoleon had read a litany of French disasters. In 1799 the
Allies finally put their differences behind them and launched a new
coalition against France. The Russians under General Suvorov joined the
Austrians in a campaign in northern Italy which rapidly undid all
Bonaparte's work. The Allies overran the Cisalpine Republic, occupied
Turin and forced the French to quit Rome (which they had occupied in
February 1798). Suvorov then defeated in succession the French generals
Scherer, Moreau and MacDonald, while the British reoccupied Naples.
By the end of June 1799 the French had lost all their Italian conquests
except Genoa and a narrow strip of the Ligurian coast. Meanwhile in
Germany the Archduke Charles repeatedly defeated Jourdan and opened
the passes between Germany and Italy. In Holland the military initiative
was held by an Anglo-Russian army under the Duke of York.
Such was the situation when Napoleon left Egypt. By the time he
arrived in Paris, there had been a rapid turnaround in military fortunes.
Facing disaster, the Directors made a string of mistakes, but these were
capped by the Allies. First, in June 1799, the Directory enacted a
conscription law which led to wholesale evasion by draftees. The
Directors then compounded their error by detaching large sections from
Jourdan's hard-pressed army on the Rhine to round up the draft dodgers,
and then ensured that Scherer lost Italy by insisting on sending every
available soldier against Naples.
However, the Allies made the egregious mistake of insisting on clearing
the Danube and Po valleys of opposition before moving against
Switzerland, the strategic key to Europe. Then the Austrian minister
Thugut inexplicably decided to switch commanders, with Archduke
marcin
(Marcin)
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