The Italian and Swiss expedition of 1799[5] was a military campaign undertaken by a combined Austro-Russian army under overall command of the Russian Marshal Alexander Suvorov against French forces in Piedmont and Lombardy (modern Italy) and the Helvetic Republic (present-day Switzerland).

[8] Moreover, London was still in a bitter dispute with Vienna over a loan convention to pay off Austria's debts to Britain, and so it refused to subsidise the Austrian troops as well,[8] even though the Habsburgs had barely recovered from the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797).

[9] According to Paul W. Schroeder (1987), Britain and Russia also 'deliberately fostered and exploited' the rivalry between Prussia and Austria to entice both to join the Second Coalition; Berlin would end up retaining its neutrality.

[citation needed] He had won no fewer than sixty-three battles in the course of his long military career and had been appointed field marshal during the reign of Catherine the Great, though he was dismissed by Tsar Paul, her son and successor, after the old soldier had the audacity to criticise the new imperial Infantry Code.

[3] Strength: 148,663 (178,253 when garrisons are included) in August 1799[13] Taking command on 19 April, Suvorov moved his army westwards in a rapid march towards the Adda River; covering over 480 kilometres (300 mi) in just eighteen days.

Marching back to the north, Suvorov chased the French Army of Italy as it retreated towards the Riviera, taking the fortified city of Mantua on 28 July.

With 29,463 men, his command then marched to Zürich to join up with the 25,000-man corps of Austrian general Friedrich von Hotze, who had defeated the French army at the Battle of Winterthur on 27 May 1799.

Korsakov then took up a position on the east of the Rhine in the Dörflingen Camp between Schaffhausen and Constance, remaining there while Masséna was left free to deal with Suvorov, but suffered a heavy defeat in the Muottental.

[citation needed] However, the defeat of Korsakov's army at the Second Battle of Zürich proved to be decisive: it destroyed any hopes of invading France and restoring the Bourbon monarchy and, along with the failed Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland and rising tensions with Austria (which escalated during the Austro–Russian occupation of Piedmont), Tsar Paul I became so enraged that he pulled Russia out of the Second Coalition and the Russian troops were withdrawn.

[19] The main effect of Russia's defection on the Coalition was that Britain could no longer control Austria's actions as it pleased and had to deal with Vienna as an equal partner.

[18] Paul I attempted to forge a Russo–Prussian alliance in late 1799 and 1800 to punish Austria[18] and by January 1801 his relations with Britain had also worsened so much that he was on the brink of invading British India with 22,000 Don Cossacks.

[13]: 341  The army was in a desolate and impoverished state with famine, lack of ammunition and horses, and bouts of desertion and mutiny as hungry soldiers sought to take food from civilians to survive.