After putting down revolts in Pavia and Milan, the focus of Napoleon's war in Italy shifted in June 1796 to the long and difficult siege of Mantua, which would see the French blockade the city and defeat four relief efforts by Austrian armies from August 1796 to January 1797.

[4] At this point Napoleon sent to Paris, through the representatives Robespierre and Saliceti, the plan for the second part of the offensive, which was to lead the French army to Mondovì, where the problems linked to the supply of soldiers that had been plaguing them for some time would be eliminated.

[6] The immobility into which the Army of Italy fell following the arrest of General Bonaparte forced Saliceti to exonerate him and give him support in his military initiatives; Austrian troops were also concentrating in the Bormida Valley to retake Savona.

Disappointed by these orders, he resigned but on 29 June, that is, eight days later, the Austrians pushed the 30,000 soldiers of the Italian army back to Loano, now under the command of François Christophe Kellermann who wrote to Paris that he was not certain of even being able to hold Nice.

Schérer divided his forces into three divisions: one under the command of Jean Mathieu Philibert Sérurier operating from Ormea, one under Masséna based in Zuccarello and another directed by Pierre François Charles Augereau stationed in Borghetto Santo Spirito.

[17] More concretely, the orders written by the War Ministry for Napoleon required him to push into the Milanese area with a secondary attack against Acqui and Ceva so as not to further antagonize the Piedmontese government, whose population was not entirely opposed to revolutionary ideas.

However, Bonaparte considered the conquest of Piedmont indispensable and insisted so much that the Directory, on 6 March 1796, corrected the orders as follows:[18] "The situation requires that [...] we force the enemy to recross the Po, to therefore exert our maximum effort in the direction of Milan.

"[19] On the same day he became commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy, 27 March 1796,[20] Napoleon summoned the three most senior generals of division to his headquarters, through his chief of staff Louis Alexandre Berthier, to give them orders regarding the upcoming campaign.

Cervoni, having noticed his evident numerical inferiority, ordered the retreat and Napoleon started the attack plan, now knowing the position of Beaulieu, Voltri, therefore hypothesizing that this would take some time before being able to rescue Colli's Piedmontese.

However, Piedmont was not yet defeated, so Napoleon advanced towards Turin on 23 April, but already that evening Colli asked for an armistice, which was accepted only after Masséna occupied Cherasco and Augereau Alba, thus completing the separation of the Piedmontese and the Austrians.

[26] The phase of fighting from 11 to 21 April 1796 marked a decisive turning point in the war and also in the career of the young general Bonaparte; the series of so-called "immortal victories" boasted by propaganda gave great prestige to the commander of the Army of Italy.

[29] The French avant-garde arrived in sight of Lodi in the early hours of the morning of May 10,[30] by which time the entire Austrian army was safe beyond the Adda protected by a rear guard of 10,000 men under the orders of General Karl Philipp Sebottendorf.

[31] As soon as he returned from a reconnaissance in the area and easily took possession of Lodi, Napoleon deployed his cannons on the south bank and sent a contingent of cavalry under the command of Michel Ordener and Marc-Antoine Beaumont up and down the river to look for a ford and thus circumvent the enemy.

A counterattack by Sebottendorf almost made the Austrians regain the bridge, but Masséna and Augereau's men cut short the action by breaking into the enemy lines, also hit by the providential arrival of Ordener's cavalry who in the meantime had found a ford.

What dampened the enthusiasm was a message coming from the Paris Directory in which the decision was communicated to divide the command of the Italian army between Bonaparte and Kellermann, so as to assign the former the task of destroying the Pope and the latter to maintain control of the Po valley.

[32] On 22 May, the day after hearing the news of the peace with Piedmont (Treaty of Paris of 15 May 1796), 5,000 French remained to besiege the Sforzesco Castle while another 30,000 set off again to stop Beaulieu, who in the meantime had positioned, in a rather dispersive manner, his 28,000 men beyond the Mincio, with their flanks covered by Lake Garda to the north and the Po to the south.

The campaign, however, was far from over given that the Austrian army had not yet been forced to fight a decisive pitched battle, and was actually preparing for a counterattack given the French inactivity on the Rhine and in consideration of the fact that the lines of enemy communications had necessarily become longer.

Together with Augereau and Vaubois, on 23 June Bonaparte took possession of the mighty Fort Urbano (a papal fortress located near the current Castelfranco Emilia), whose cannons were sent to Mantua after having persuaded the veterans of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan to surrender on 29 June; Florence and Ferrara spontaneously opened their doors to the French and Vaubois occupied Livorno, thus depriving the Royal Navy of a useful base in the Mediterranean; However, even before that Pius VI asked for and obtained the armistice of Bologna in exchange for the occupation of Ancona, Ferrara and Bologna and the payment of a large sum of money including some works of art.

[36][37] The French, having successfully completed the incursion to the south, reconcentrated again around Mantua, but the specter of a dangerous Austrian counter-offensive coming from Tyrol convinced Bonaparte to lift the siege on 31 July, falling back to better positions.

[44] A part (19,000-20,000 men) of Wurmser's army, still disciplined overall, prepared to once again follow the orders of its commander, who had in turn received instructions directly from Vienna to once again attempt to liberate Mantua; the plan that was to be implemented would be a descent along the Brenta valley to the Adriatic, leaving General Paul Davidovich with 25,000 soldiers to protect Trento and Tyrol.

The second Austrian attempt to liberate Mantua ultimately proved to be a failure because Wurmser had locked himself in a trap, furthermore the increased number of mouths to feed worsened the already precarious food situation of the besieged.

Mechanisms were set in motion to deceive Napoleon that the only threat was represented by Alvinczy's 28,000 men marching on Bassano,[54] hoping that at the right moment an attack by Davidovich on Trento would send the Italian army into panic.

Napoleon put together a plan to take Villanova di San Bonifacio, thus hoping to engage in battle with Alvinczy in the marshy area between the Alpone and Adige rivers, nullifying the Austrian numerical superiority.

Unseen, the small detachment crossed the Alpone and, thanks to the sound of musical instruments, he simulated the approach of a large unit right behind the Austrians headquartered in Arcole, who immediately retreated northwards, convinced of an imminent heavy attack by French forces.

[69] Satisfied that the situation in Rivoli was completely under French control and knowing the Austrians under Provera were about to cross the Adige at Angiari, Bonaparte left the pursuit of Alvinczy's defeated forces to Joubert and rushed south to direct the operations around Mantua.

On 16 January the last sortie of the old general Wurmser was a failure, and in the afternoon the arrival of Napoleon and Augerau surrounding Provera and forcing him to surrender caused the end of the Austrian attempts to liberate Mantua in the Battle of La Favorita [fr].

[69] In February 1797 the Directory, given the developments in Italy, changed its strategy by assigning men and resources to Napoleon to the detriment of the German front, placing hopes of a happy end to the war in the Corsican general.

The main attack nucleus was made up of 32,000 Frenchmen who headed towards Valvasone covered on their left by Masséna's 11,000 men, and on 16 March the French led by General Bernadotte forded the Tagliamento, capturing 500 Austrians and 6 cannons.

[74] At this point Napoleon took the decision to leave the lines of communication unprotected by ordering Joubert, Bernadotte and Victor to concentrate in Klagenfurt (reinforcements were in fact needed to march on Vienna, also due to the strong detachments left to guard the flanks of the French deployment),[75] awaiting General Moreau's attack on the Rhine, who however showed no sign of wanting to take action.

[79] On 4 September 1797, with a document supplied by Napoleon of the treasonous activities of Jean-Charles Pichegru, the then-President of the Council of Five Hundred, and the backing of troops by General Lazare Hoche and Augereau, the Directory felt strong enough to purge the legislature in the Coup of 18 Fructidor.