Editing French Directory (section)

=== War and Diplomacy (1796–1797) ===
The major preoccupation of the Directory during its existence was the war against the coalition of [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]] and [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]]. The military objective set by the Convention in October 1795 was to enlarge France to what were declared its natural limits: the [[Pyrenees]], the [[Rhine]] and the [[Alps]], the borders of [[Gaul]] at the time of the [[Roman Empire]]. In 1795, [[Prussia]], [[History of Spain (1700-1808)|Spain]] and the [[Dutch Republic]] quit [[the War of the First Coalition]] and made peace with France, but Great Britain refused to accept the French annexation of the [[Austrian Netherlands]]. Beside Britain and Austria, the only enemies remaining for France were the [[Kingdom of Sardinia (1720-1861)|Kingdom of Sardinia]] and several small Italian states. Austria proposed a European congress to settle borders, but the Directory refused, demanding direct negotiations with Austria instead. Under British pressure, Austria agreed to continue the war against France.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=223}}

[[Lazare Carnot]], the Director who oversaw military affairs, planned a new campaign against Austria, using three armies: General [[Jean-Baptiste Jourdan]]'s [[Army of Sambre-et-Meuse]] on the Rhine and General [[Jean Victor Moreau]]'s [[Army of the Rhine and Moselle]] on the [[Danube]] would march to [[Vienna]] and dictate a peace. A third army, the [[Army of Italy (France)|Army of Italy]] under General Bonaparte, who had risen in rank with spectacular speed due to his defense of the government from a royalist uprising, would carry out a diversionary operation against Austria in northern Italy. Jourdan's army captured [[Mayence]] and [[Frankfurt]], but on 14 August 1796 was defeated by the Austrians at the [[Battle of Amberg]] and again on 3 September 1796 at the [[Battle of Würzburg]], and had to retreat back to the Rhine. General Moreau, without the support of Jourdan, was also forced to retreat.

==== Italian campaign ====
[[File:La Bataille du Pont d'Arcole.jpg|thumb|Bonaparte won his first major victory leading his soldiers across a bridge at the [[Battle of Arcole]] (17 November 1796)]]
[[File:Napoleon at the Battle of Rivoli.jpg|thumb|Bonaparte defeats the Austrians at the [[Battle of Rivoli]] (14 January 1797)]]
[[File:Irish-Invasion-Gillray.jpeg|thumb|A British cartoon showed the failure of the French military expedition to Ireland dispersed by storms at sea in 1797]]
The story was very different in Italy. Bonaparte, though he was only twenty-eight years old, was named commander of the Army of Italy on 2 March 1796, through the influence of Barras, his patron in the Directory. Bonaparte faced the combined armies of Austria and Sardinia, which numbered seventy thousand men. Bonaparte slipped his army between them and defeated them in a series of battles, culminating at the [[Battle of Mondovi]] where he defeated the Sardinians on 22 April 1796, and the [[Battle of Lodi]], where he defeated the Austrians on 10 May. King [[Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia]] was forced to make peace in May 1796 and ceded [[Nice]] and [[Savoy]] to France.

At the end of 1796, Austria sent two new armies to Italy to expel Bonaparte, but Bonaparte outmaneuvered them both, winning a first victory at the [[Battle of Arcole]] on 17 November 1796, then at the [[Battle of Rivoli]] on 14 January 1797. He forced Austria to sign the [[Treaty of Campo Formio]] (October 1797), whereby Emperor [[Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor|Francis II]] ceded [[Lombardy]] and the [[Austrian Netherlands]] to the French Republic in exchange for [[Venice]] and urged the [[Diet of the Holy Roman Empire|Imperial Diet]] to surrender the lands beyond the Rhine.<ref name=Black173>Black, p. 173.</ref>

==== Spanish alliance ====
The Directory was eager to form a coalition with Spain to block British commerce with the continent and to close the [[Mediterranean Sea]] to British ships. By the [[Second Treaty of San Ildefonso]], concluded in August 1796, Spain became the ally of France, and on 5 October, it [[Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808)|declared war on Britain]]. The British fleet under Admiral [[John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent|Jervis]] defeated the Spanish fleet at the [[Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797)|Cape St Vincent]], keeping the Mediterranean open to British ships, but Britain was brought into such extreme peril by the [[Spithead and Nore mutinies]] in its fleet that it offered to acknowledge the French conquest of the Netherlands and to restore captured French colonies in the Caribbean and India.

==== Irish Misadventure ====
{{main|French expedition to Ireland (1796)}}
The Directory also sought a new way to strike British interests and to repay Britain for the support it gave to royalist insurgents in [[Brittany]]. A French fleet of 44 vessels departed [[Brest, France|Brest]] on 15 December 1796, carrying an expeditionary force of 14,000 soldiers, led by General Hoche to [[Ireland]], where they hoped to join forces with Irish rebels to expel the British from the [[Kingdom of Ireland]]. However, the fleet was separated by storms off the Irish coast and, being unable to land in Ireland, had to return to home port with 31 vessels and 12,000 surviving soldiers.