Editing French Directory (section)

==== Second Coalition against France ====
{{main|War of the Second Coalition}}
[[File:Suvorovs Battle By Adda.jpg|thumb|[[Suvorov]] and a Russian-Austrian army defeat the French at the [[Battle of Cassano (1799)|Battle of Cassano]] on 27 April 1799 by [[Luigi Schiavonetti]]]]
Britain and Austria had been alarmed by the French creation of Sister Republics. Austria first demanded that France hand over a share of the territory of the new Republics to it. When the Directory refused, Austria began searching for partners for a new military alliance against France. The new Tsar of Russia, [[Paul I of Russia|Paul I]], was extremely hostile to French republican ideas, sympathetic to the exiled Louis XVIII, and willing to join a new coalition against France. The Tsar offered an army of 20,000 men, sent by sea to Holland on his Baltic fleet. He sent another army of 60,000 men, veterans of fighting in Poland and Turkey, under his best general, [[Alexander Suvorov]], to join the Austrian forces in northern Italy.

The King of Prussia, [[Frederick-William III]], had carefully preserved neutrality in order to profit from both sides. The Directory made the error of sending one of the most prominent revolutionaries of 1789, the Abbé Sieyés, who had voted for the death of Louis XVI, as ambassador to Berlin, where his ideas appalled the arch-conservative and ultra-monarchist king. Frederick William maintained his neutrality, refusing to support either side, a setback for France.

By the end of 1798, the coalition could count on 300,000 soldiers, and would be able to increase the number to 600,000. The best French army, headed by Bonaparte, was stranded in Egypt. General Brune had 12,000 men in Holland; [[Charles XIV John of Sweden|Bernadotte]], 10,000 men on the Rhine; Jourdan, 40,000 men in the army of the Danube; Masséna, 30,000 soldiers in Switzerland; [[Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer|Scherer]], 40,000 men on the [[Adige]] river in northern Italy; and 27,000 men under [[Étienne Macdonald|Macdonald]] were based in [[Naples]]: a total of 170,000 men. To try to match the coalition forces, the Directory ordered a new call up of young men between the ages of twenty and twenty five to the army, seeking to add two hundred thousand new soldiers.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=256}}