French-allied victory Second Coalition: Holy Roman Empire (until 1801)[note 1] United Kingdom[2] Russia[3] Ottoman Empire[4] Naples (until 1801)[5] Portugal[6] Sardinia[7] French Republic SpainFrench client republics:[8] 200,000 killed and wounded140,000 captured[9] The War of the Second Coalition (French: Guerre de la Deuxième Coalition) (1798/9 – 1801/2, depending on periodisation) was the second war targeting revolutionary France by many European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria, and Russia and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and various German monarchies.

In large part because of the difference in strategy among the three major allied powers, the Second Coalition failed to overthrow the revolutionary government, and French territorial gains since 1793 were confirmed.

From October 1797 until March 1799, France and Austria, the signatories of the Treaty of Campo Formio, avoided armed conflict but remained skeptical of each other, and several diplomatic incidents undermined the agreement.

Republicans in the Swiss Cantons, supported by the French Revolutionary Army, overthrew the central government in Bern and established the Helvetic Republic.

Napoleon immediately ordered the bombardment of Valletta, and on 11 June 1798, General Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers directed a landing of several thousand French troops at strategic locations around the island.

Military strategists in Paris recognized the strategic significance of the Upper Rhine Valley, the southwestern German regions, and Switzerland for the defense of the Republic.

[17] Jourdan's orders were to take the army into Germany and secure strategic positions, particularly on the southwest roads through Stockach and Schaffhausen, at the westernmost border of Lake Constance.

These positions would prevent the Allies of the Second Coalition from moving troops back and forth between the northern Italian and German theatres, but would allow French access to these strategic passes.

[22] The preliminary military action under the alliance occurred on 29 November when General Karl Mack, an Austrian serving Naples, occupied Rome, wishing to restore Papal authority with the Neapolitan army.

[22] All these companions became reckless gamblers when the poorly equipped and led Neapolitan army was not only soon defeated outside Rome and pushed back, but Naples itself was occupied by France on January 23.

The allies were less successful in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland, where the British and Russians retreated after a defeat at Castricum, and in Switzerland, where after initial victories an Austro-Russian army was completely routed at the Second Battle of Zurich.

The French successfully charged the Austrian flank with cavalry and Napoleon negotiated for Austria to evacuate Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy.

[citation needed] Russia formally made peace with France through the Treaty of Paris on 8 October, signing a secret alliance two days later.

The peace treaties ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France and recognized the independence of the Cisalpine, Batavian and Helvetic republics.

[31] These historians had assumed that Austria failed to act in accordance with the Coalition's common goal of invading France, ending the Revolution and restoring the Bourbon monarchy, because Vienna was too selfish and too greedy for territorial expansion.

The enormous financial debt it still had from the War of the First Coalition jeopardised not just the Habsburg Monarchy's ability to field an army capable of defeating the French, but had also caused hyperinflation and internal instability that risked a revolution inside Austria itself.

[32] The Habsburg monarchy's very survival was at stake, and so Emperor Francis II and Thugut resolved not to enter a war in order to defeat France at all costs, but to make Austria come out stronger than it went in.