Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/212

Rh 200 NAPOLEON [1797- had he lived longer, he might have played with success the part in which Moreau afterwards failed. The revolution of Fructidor, being military, had an immediate effect on foreign affairs. It commences the period which was to last till the fall of Napoleon, a period of war pursued by France for its own sake, and as a kind of national business. As negotiations with England are at once violently broken off, so a change comes over the negotiations with Austria. With the fall of the peace party Austria loses all hope of favourable terms. Bona parte is now residing at Passeriano in a villa belonging to Doge Manin, and the negotiations take place at Udine in the neighbourhood. As at Leoben, Bonaparte is more pacific than the Directory. They are prepared to recom mence the war ; his ambition is to win from the other generals the distinction of terminating it. The struggle between them concerns the fate of Venice, the complete possession of which is a bribe sufficient to induce Austria to recede entirely from the preliminaries of Leoben, but which the Directory is unwilling to cede. Between the beginning of September and the middle of October this Treaty of struggle continued; at length, on October 17th, the treaty Campo was signed at the little village of Campo Formio (more rm 0&amp;gt; correctly Campo Formido) close to Udine. Bonaparte took his own course, gave Venice, Istria, Dalmatia, and all Venetian territory beyond the Adige to Austria, founded the Cisalpine Republic, and reserved for France, besides Belgium, Corfu and the Ionian Islands. A congress was to open at Rastatt, and Austria bound herself by a secret article to do her best to procure for France from the Germanic body the left bank of the Rhine. By retaining the Ionian Islands Bonaparte gave the first intimation of his design of opening the Eastern question. Returns He now left Italy, setting out from Milan on November to Paris. I7th ; made a flying visit to Rastatt, where the congress had already assembled, and reached Paris on December 5th. What next would be attempted by the man who at twenty-seven had conquered Italy and brought to an end the most memorable Continental war of modern times ? From a speech delivered by him on the occasion of his reception by the Directory it appears that he had two thoughts in his mind, to make a revolution in France (&quot;when the happiness of the French people shall be based on the best [or on better] organic laws, all Europe will be free&quot;) and to emancipate Greece (&quot;the two most beautiful parts of Europe, once so illustrious for arts, sciences, and the great men of whom they were the cradle, see with the loftiest hopes the genius of liberty issue from the tombs of their ancestors &quot;). He had now some months in which to arrange the execution of these plans. The Directory, seeing no safety but in giving him employment, now committed the war with England to his charge. He becomes &quot;ge ne ral en-chef de I arme e d Angleterre.&quot; His study of internal politics soon landed him in perplexity. Should he become a Director, procuring an exemption from the rule which required the Directors to be more than forty years of age ? He could decide on nothing, but felt himself unprepared to mingle in French party strife. He decided therefore that &quot; the pear was not ripe,&quot; and turned again to the military schemes which might raise his renown still higher during the year or two which the Directory would require to ruin itself. It seemed possible to com bine war against England with the Oriental plan which had been suggested to him, it is said, by Monge at Passeriano. During the last war between Russia and Turkey some publi cists (including Volney, an acquaintance of Bonaparte s) had recommended France to abandon her ancient alliance with Turkey and seek rather to share with Russia in her spoils. Thus was suggested to Bonaparte in Italy the thought of seizing Greece. Now as head of the army of England he fixed his eyes on Egypt also. In India the Egyp- game was not yet quite lost for France, but England had tian now seized the Cape of Good Hope. To save therefore e. x P ecli- what remained of her establishments in India, France must seize Egypt. She must not only conquer but colonize it (&quot;if forty or fifty thousand European families fixed their industries, their laws, and their administration in Egypt, India would be presently lost to the English much more, even by the force of events than by that of arms&quot;). Such was the scheme, according to which Turkey was to- be partitioned in the course of a war with England, as Venice had disappeared in the course of a Avar with Austria. That such a scheme could scarcely fail to kindle a new European war more universal than that which Bonaparte had just brought to a close was probably its principal recom mendation in his eyes. He also instinctively saw that, while he conquered in the East, France, deprived of her best troops and generals, would suffer disasters at home, though he could not anticipate what actually happened that she would be unfortunate both at home and in the East. But the European war showed signs of recommencing even before he could set sail. For the tide of militarism in France could not be arrested for a moment ; scarcely a month passed but was marked by some new aggression and annexation. In the spring of 1798 the old constitution of Switzerland was overthrown, French troops entered Bern and seized a treasure of 40,000,000 francs ; at the same time a quarrel was picked with the Papal Government ; it was overthrown, the treasury plundered, and the aged pope, Pius VI., carried into captivity. Thus, as Berthier said, money was furnished for the Egyptian campaign ; but on the other hand Europe was thoroughly roused ; England could meet the threatened attack by forming a new Coalition, and at the beginning of May, three weeks before Bonaparte set sail, the probability of a new- Continental war was already so great that he writes, for the benefit of General Brune, a plan for defending Italy against an attack by a superior force of Austrians. It is asserted by Miot that at the last moment Bonaparte would gladly have abandoned his Eastern expedition, since it would have suited him as well to take the command again against Austria, but that the Directory, to be rid of him at all hazards, forced him to depart. In any case the departure of Bonaparte for the East with 30,000 men and Generals Murat, Berthier, Desaix, Kl^ber, Lannes, and Marmont Nelson in front of him and a European war behind perhaps marks the moment of wildest confusion in the modern history of Europe. From his letters written on board &quot; L Orient &quot; it would seem that he scarcely realized the terrible risk he ran ; it is to be considered that the superiority of the English marine had not yet been clearly proved, and that the name of Nelson was not yet redoubtable. He set sail on May 19, having stimulated the zeal of his soldiers by promising that each should return rich enough to buy six &quot; arpents &quot; of land (the Directory were obliged to deny the genuineness of the proclamation), and, eluding Nelson, who had been driven by a storm to the island of St Pietro near Sardinia, arrived on June 9 at Malta, where a squadron from Civita Vecchia and another from Ajaccio had preceded him. This island was in the possession of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, who acknowledged the king of Naples as their feudal superior and the czar as their protector. To attack them was the direct way to involve France in war both with Naples and Russia. Bonaparte, demanding admission into the harbour for his fleet, and receiving answer that the treaties which guaranteed the neutrality of Malta permitted only the admission of four ships, attacked at once, as indeed he had been expressly com-