Peace Interrupted
From October 1797 until March 1799, the signatories of the Treaty of Campo Formio avoided armed conflict. Despite their agreement at Campo Formio, two primary combatants, France and Austria, remained suspicious of each other and several diplomatic incidents undermined the agreement. The French demanded additional territory not mentioned in the Treaty. The Habsburgs were reluctant to hand over designated territories, much less additional ones. The Congress at Rastatt proved inept at orchestrating the transfer of territories to compensate the German princes for their losses. Ferdinand of Naples refused to pay tribute to France, followed by the Neapolitan rebellion and the subsequent establishment of the Parthenopaean Republic. Republicans in the Swiss cantons, supported by the French army, overthrew the central government in Bern and established the Helvetic Republic.
For more details on this topic, see Mediterranean campaign of 1798.Other factors contributed to the rising tensions. On his way to Egypt, Napoleon had stopped at the heavily fortified port city of Valletta. The governor of Malta would only allow two ships at a time into the harbor, in accordance with the island's neutrality. Bonaparte immediately ordered the bombardment of Valletta and on 11 June, General Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers directed a landing of several thousand French troops at strategic locations around the island. The French Knights of the order deserted, and the remaining Knights failed to mount a successful resistance. Bonaparte forcibly removed the Hospitallers from their possessions, angering Paul, Tsar of Russia, who was the honorary head of the Order. The French Directory, furthermore, was convinced that the Austrians were conniving to start another war. Indeed, the weaker the French Republic seemed, the more seriously the Austrians, the Neapolitans, the Russians and the British actually discussed this possibility.
Read more about this topic: War Of The Second Coalition
Famous quotes containing the words peace and/or interrupted:
“In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.”
—Croesus (d. c. 560 B.C.)
“A designer who is not also a couturier, who hasn’t learned the most refined mysteries of physically creating his models, is like a sculptor who gives his drawings to another man, an artisan, to accomplish. For him the truncated process of creating will always be an interrupted act of love, and his style will bear the shame of it, the impoverishment.”
—Yves Saint Laurent (b. 1936)