Treaty of Campo Formio — 18 octobre 1797

The treaty signed near Udine confirmed the Italian conquests: Austria gave up Belgium and recognised the Cisalpine Republic in exchange for Venetia, Istria and Dalmatia. Bonaparte negotiated alone, without waiting for the Directory's instructions, and imposed his peace on Paris. The thousand-year-old Republic of Venice vanished from the map.

Leoben, then Venice

Halted a hundred kilometres from Vienna for want of support on the Rhine, Bonaparte signed the preliminaries of Leoben alone on 18 April 1797. Something had to be found to compensate Austria for the loss of Belgium and Lombardy: it would be the Republic of Venice, neutral for a century. An incident at the Lido in April supplied the pretext; on 12 May the Great Council voted its own abdication, ending eleven centuries of independence.

The treaty

Signed on 18 October at the castle of Passariano near Udine, the text was negotiated by Bonaparte facing Cobenzl, without firm instructions from Paris. France obtained Belgium, the Ionian Islands and recognition of the Cisalpine Republic; Austria received Venetia, Istria and Dalmatia. Secret articles promised Vienna the left bank of the Rhine subject to a future congress at Rastatt — which came to nothing.

What the treaty announced

The First Coalition was liquidated: England alone remained at war. But the price was a heavy precedent, a sovereign republic handed over as small change, which Europe would not forget.

For Bonaparte the gain was political: at twenty-eight he had made war, peace and the map of Italy. Received in triumph at the Luxembourg on 10 December, he was already a power the Directory preferred to send to Egypt rather than keep in Paris.