there we shall find honor, glory and riches.” In a short
period of time, Napoleon turned them into an out-
standing fighting force, and on 10 April 1796, the army
entered Italy. In a series of lightning-fast skirmishes—at
Montenotte (12 April), Millesimo (13 April), and Dego
(15 April), his troops captured extensive territory. The
Italian leaders fled as their armies collapsed, and Na-
poleon called on the Italian people to embrace him as
their new leader. In May 1796, he forced Sardinia to
sign a peace treaty, then turned on the Austrians, whom
he saw as a continuing threat to France. He crossed the
bridge at Lodi (10 May), entered Milan (14 May), and
attacked Mantua (July 1796); then, turning northward,
he crossed the Alps and headed toward Vienna. Aware
that the Austrians, under the command of the Archduke
charles (brother of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II)
and General Baron Joseph Alvintzy, were strengthening
their forces on the Rhine River, Napoleon decided to
utilize the talents of several French generals, most no-
tably Jean-Baptiste bernadotte, and attack Charles’s
army head on. He mocked the Austrians, whose com-
manders, “faithful to the old system of warfare, scattered
their troops in small detachments before a man who
practiced mass-movement.” At Rivoli (January 1797),
he won a huge victory over the Austrians, leading to ne-
gotiations and the truce of Leoben (April 1797), which
was solidified by the Treaty of Campo Formio (17 Oc-
tober 1797). The remarkable campaign established his
reputation.
Napoleon’s dream was to invade England, the
French revolutionaries’ steadfast enemy, and conquer
the British Isles. However, because of Britain’s naval
superiority, he decided instead to attack British posses-
sions. Starting in Egypt, he moved an army of 40,000
men into Malta, seizing the island before landing at Al-
exandria on 1 July 1798. He won several battles, but
the destruction of the French fleet by Admiral Horatio
nelson at the battle of the Nile (also Aboukir, 1 August
1798) reduced his ability move his army. His attempt to
conquer Syria to the north was stopped by the heroic
defense of Acre (16 March–20 May 1799) by the British
admiral Sidney Smith.
Napoleon’s gains in Europe were threatened when
French troops in Italy were forced to withdraw before
forces of the Second Coalition, composed of Austria,
Great Britain, Naples, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal,
and Russia. However, on 4–7 June 1799 at Zurich,
Archduke Charles was held and then pushed back by
French marshal André masséna. When the Russian
general Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov moved to sup-
port Charles’s gains, friction and conflict between the
Austrians and Russians led to a series of defeats for the
anti-Napoleon coalition.
Napoleon returned to France just as the Directory,
the haphazard council that was running France, collapsed
in the coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799). Named
as first consul and de facto ruler of France, Napoleon im-
mediately began a series of military maneuvers to recap-
ture the land lost to the Second Coalition. With Russia
out of the confederacy, it became easier for the French
to fight on varying fronts, and he moved back into Italy,
destroying the Austrians at Marengo (14 June 1800).
At Hohenlinden (3 December 1800), Jean Moreau,
Peter ney, and Emmanuel Grouchy set 100,000 French
troops against Archduke John’s 130,000, cutting down
the Austrians, who lost some 18,000 dead and wounded.
These two horrendous losses forced Emperor Francis II
to sign the Treaty of Lunéville (9 February 1801), which
set the Rhine River as France’s eastern border.
Returning to France, Napoleon established a gov-
ernment and constitution in 1802 and, in 1804, de-
clared himself emperor of France. His Napoleonic Code
codified many laws in the lands he conquered and con-
trolled and established one set of laws—guidelines that
would rule Europe for many years after his fall. A series
of further codes, dealing with trade and civil and crimi-
nal litigation, followed until 1810.
In 1805, Napoleon declared himself king of Italy,
and when this move was followed by the annexation
of Genoa to France, another alliance, called the Third
Coalition, was formed by Austria, Great Britain, Russia,
and Sweden. Once again, French forces moved eastward
to attack the Austrians; at Ulm on 20 October 1805,
Napoleon encircled the 40,000-man Austrian army and
forced General Karl Mack to surrender. He occupied Vi-
enna, and at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805, he won a
crushing victory over a combined Austrian and Russian
force that suffered over 27,000 killed and wounded in
a single day. On 26 December 1805, Napoleon forced
Austria to sign the Treaty of Pressburg and leave the
Third Coalition. The Prussians took their place, but at
Jena (14 October 1806), the French again routed their nApoleon bonApARte