"Barthélemy Schérer, commander of the French Army, gazed at the new military orders from Paris in disbelief. The grandoise strategy, detailing an advance on three fronts with the armies uniting in Tyrol for a concentrated thrust at Vienna, were far beyond the capabilities of the starving southern army he commanded along the French Riveria against the combined forces of Austria and Sardinia. Disgusted at the situation before him, he asked to be relieved. He also suggested that the member of the Topgraphical Bureau who drafted the strategy, the 26-year-old upstart Corsican, General Napoleon Bonaparte, be sent to carry them out. And that is exactly what happened. On February 23, 1796, Schérer was relieved of command and replaced with Bonaparte.
In 1792, Revolutionary France went to war with Austria and Prussia. Following the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in January 1793, Great Britain, Spain, the Dutch Republic, and several minor Italian states joined what became known as the First Coalition. Its mission was to restore the French monarchy and destroy the French Republic before its ideas of liberty, equality, brotherhood among men, and violence spread to other nations.
Napoleon had missed the greatest fame and glory achieved by revolutionary France in 1794. French victories that year wrecked the First Coalition. Holland became the Batavian Republic in January of 1795 and an ally of France. Prussia made peace in April 1795, and Spain did likewise in July. By the summer 1795, Britain, Austria, and Sardinia were the only major powers still at war with France…"
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