The campaign of 1796-1797 brought prominence to Napoleon Bonaparte, a young, largely unknown commander, who led French forces to victory over numerically superior Austrian and Sardinian armies.

The first major operation was the annexation of the County of Nice and the Duchy of Savoy (both states of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia) by 30,000 French troops.

This was reversed in mid-1793, when the Republican forces were withdrawn to deal with a revolt in Lyon, triggering a counter-invasion of Savoy by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (a member of the First Coalition).

After the revolt in Lyon had been suppressed, the French under General Kellermann managed to push back the Piedmontese with just 12,000 troops, winning engagements at Argentines and St Maurice in September and October 1793.

The conflict soon escalated with Austrian and Neapolitan forces being mobilised for an invasion of southern France to recover Nice and strike into Provence.

This two-pronged French offensive drove back the Allied force, despite their strong positions, and firmly captured the mountain passes that led into Piedmont.

A further offensive, also designed by General Bonaparte to exploit the victory at Saorgio, was called off under orders from war minister Carnot, who was concerned about supply lines being cut by rebels behind the front.

The commanders in the field were unhappy about this decision, but appeals were interrupted by the overthrow of the Committee of Public Safety and its leader, Maximilien de Robespierre (28 July 1794).

Ignoring Carnot's orders, the commander of the French Army of Italy, André Masséna, launched a counter-offensive and secured supply routes to Genoa following victory at the First Battle of Dego.

The main focus of the war then shifted north to the Rhine, until 29 June 1795, when the Austrians launched an attack against the depleted and poorly supplied Army of Italy.

Bonaparte had no chance of gaining reinforcements as the Republican war effort was being concentrated on the massive offensives planned on the Rhine.

The Army of Italy was now reinforced to almost 50,000 men and Bonaparte continued on the offensive, striking at Austrian forces mobilising in the vicinity of the fortress of Mantua.

Wurmser was reinforced once again to compensate for some 20,000 losses sustained in the past two months and made an attempt to relieve the siege of Mantua.

Additional Austrian forces arrived whilst Bonaparte's army was weakened by disease and his supply lines threatened by rebellion.

Under the Treaty of Tolentino, Pope Pius VI was forced to cede the Romagna region to the newly founded Cisalpine Republic, and recognize Joseph Bonaparte as the ambassador to Rome.

However, shortly after, coalition forces intervened, causing internal struggles within the so-called "Roman Council", which lasted until the Neapolitan invasion in 1799.

Governor Jacques Macdonald defended the city with a small army of 9,000 troops on 19 November, and the Battles of Ferentino, Otricoli, and Civita Castellana, together with an affair at Calvi Risorta and Capua pushed King Ferdinand IV into Castel Sant'Elmo, and led to the declaration of the Parthenopean Republic at Naples, incurring some 8,000 Neapolitan casualties and 1,000 French.

In April, Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo marched into Calabria with an army of 17,000 soldiers and reinstated the Monarchy, initiating a siege of Naples in June.

A Neapolitan invasion in September led to the dissolution of the Roman Republic which was subsequently replaced by the Papacy until the Napoleonic Wars.

Austrian commander Pál Kray defeated the French at Verona and Magnano in late March and early April.

Moreau, who had yet to depart for the Rhine, seized the initiative and led the survivors back to Genoa and began preparing a defence of the city.

However at that time the Allied high command in Vienna ordered Suvorov to move out of Italy and concentrate on breaking through the Swiss front.

It was at this time that the First Consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte (who had seized French power in the Brumaire Coup of 9 November 1799) led his Reserve Army through the Great St Bernard pass with the aim of relieving Masséna in the Siege of Genoa, who was threatened by severe food shortages resulting from the combination of encirclement on land and naval blockade by the British.

Later that month on 25-6 December, a French army under the command of Guillaume Brune defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Pozzolo on the Mincio River in northern Italy.

Under the terms, Austria agreed to surrender multiple strongholds in northern Italy including Peschiera, Verona, Legnago, Ancona and Ferrara.

The final terms of the peace treaty included the surrender of the critical Austrian fortress at Mantua along with the recognition of the sovereignty and independence of the French client republics of Cisalpine, Ligurian, Batavian and Helvetic.