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TheFrench Revolutionary Wars continued from 1795, with the French in an increasingly strong position as members of theFirst Coalition made separate peaces.Austria and Great Britain were the main remaining members of the coalition. Therebellion in the Vendée was also finally terminated byGeneral Hoche.

Mignet'sHistory of the French Revolution states:

"The Directory found theRhine open towardsMainz, the war of LaVendée rekindled; the coasts of France and Holland threatened with a descent from England; lastly, thearmy of Italy destitute of everything, and merely maintaining the defensive under Schérer andKellermann.Carnot prepared a new plan of campaign, which was to carry the armies of the republic to the very heart of the hostile states.Bonaparte, appointed general of the interior after the events of Vendémiaire, was placed at the head of the army of Italy;Jourdan retained the command of the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, andMoreau had that of the army of theRhine, in place ofPichegru. The latter, whose treason was suspected by the Directory, though not proved, was offered the embassy to Sweden, which he refused, and retired to Arbois, his native place. The three great armies, placed under the orders of Bonaparte, Jourdan, and Moreau, were to attack the Austrian monarchy through Italy and Germany, combine at the entrance of theTyrol and march uponVienna, in echelon. The generals prepared to execute this vast movement, the success of which would make the republic mistress of the headquarters of the coalition on the continent."

Bonaparte left Paris on 11 March forNice to take over the weak and poorly suppliedArmy of Italy, arriving on 26 March. The army was already being reorganised and supplied when he arrived, and he found that the situation was rapidly improving. He was soon able to carry out the plan for the invasion of Italy that he had been advocating for years, which provided for an advance over the Apennines near Altare to attack the enemy position ofCeva.

TheMontenotte Campaign opened afterBeaulieu's Austrian forces attacked the extreme French eastern flank nearGenoa on 10 April. Bonaparte countered by attacking and crushing the isolated right wing of the allied armies in theBattle of Montenotte on 12 April. The next day he defeated an Austro-Sardinian force at theBattle of Millesimo. He then won a victory at theSecond Battle of Dego, driving the Austrians northeast, away from their Piedmontese allies. Satisfied that the Austrians were temporarily inert, Bonaparte harriedMichelangelo Colli's Piedmontese atCeva andSan Michele Mondovì before whipping them at theBattle of Mondovì. A week later, on 28 April, Piedmont signed an armistice atCherasco, withdrawing from the hostilities. On 18 May, Piedmont signed theTreaty of Paris (1796), cedingSavoy andNice, and allowing France to use its territory for the campaign against Austria.

After a short pause, Bonaparte carried out a brilliant flanking manoeuvre, and crossed thePo atPiacenza, nearly cutting the Austrian line of retreat. The Austrians escaped after theBattle of Fombio, but had their rear-guard mauledat Lodi on 10 May, after which the French tookMilan. Bonaparte then advanced eastwards again, drove off the Austrians in theBattle of Borghetto and in June began theSiege of Mantua.Mantua was the strongest Austrian base in Italy. Meanwhile, the Austrians retreated north into the foothills of theTyrol.

During July and August, Austria sent a fresh army into Italy underWurmser. Wurmser attacked toward Mantua along the east side ofLake Garda, sendingPeter Quasdanovich down the west side in an effort to envelop Bonaparte. Bonaparte exploited the Austrian mistake of dividing their forces to defeat them in detail, but in so doing, he abandoned the siege of Mantua, which held out for another six months. (Carl von Clausewitz mentioned inOn War that the siege might have been kept up if Bonaparte hadcircumvallated the city.^[1]) The French defeated Quasdanovichat Lonato on 3 August and Wurmserat Castiglione on 5 August. Wurmser retreated to the Tyrol, and Bonaparte resumed the siege.

In September, Bonaparte marched north againstTrento in Tyrol, but Wurmser had already marched toward Mantua by theBrenta River valley, leavingPaul Davidovich's force to hold off the French. Bonaparte overran the holding force at theBattle of Rovereto. Then he followed Wurmser down the Brenta valley, to fall upon and defeat the Austrians at theBattle of Bassano on 8 September. Wurmser elected to march for Mantua with a large portion of his surviving troops. The Austrians evaded Bonaparte's attempts to intercept them but were driven into the city after a pitched battle on 15 September. This left nearly 30,000 Austrians trapped in the fortress. This number rapidly diminished due to disease, combat losses, and hunger.

The Austrians sent yet another army underJózsef Alvinczi against Bonaparte in November. Again the Austrians divided their effort, sending Davidovich's corps from the north while Alvinczi's main body attacked from the east. At first they proved victorious over the Frenchat Bassano,at Calliano, andat Caldiero. But Bonaparte ultimately defeated Alvinczi in theBattle of Arcole southeast ofVerona. The French then turned on Davidovich in great strength and chased him into the Tyrol. Wurmser's only sortie was late and ineffectual.

Meanwhile, Moreau and Jourdan crossed the Rhine and invaded Germany. Moreau was at first completely successful, and having crossed the Rhine and defeated the Austrian forces there, he advanced into Bavaria and fought the Archduke to an inconclusive draw at Neresheim. Advancing to the edge of the Tyrol, he tookUlm andAugsburg, but Jourdan became separated from Moreau and was defeated by theArchduke Charles of Austria atAmberg andWürzburg, and both armies were forced to retreat separately across the Rhine by September (including theBattle of Theiningen), ending with theBattle of Emmendingen in October and the same territorial conditions as the campaign had begun.

Spain signed theSecond Treaty of San Ildefonso with France on 19 August 1796, entering the war against Britain on the side of France in return for concessions in Italy. In response, Britain withdrew fromCorsica in order to concentrate the Mediterranean fleet atGibraltar against the combined threat.

• War in the Vendée

• Clausewitz, Carl von.Napoleon's 1796 Italian Campaign.Archived 22 January 2021 at theWayback Machine Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. This also includes the notes from J. Colin's French translation as well as extensive commentary on Clausewitz's history and theory. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas (2018).ISBN 978-0-7006-2676-2

This article makes use of the out-of-copyright workHistory of the French Revolution by François Mignet (1824):

• History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 atProject Gutenberg

• Bonaparte's Italian Campaign

• Campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars by year
• Conflicts in 1796
• 1796 in France

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