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Welcome to the Age of Napoleon.

Episode 25, Naked and underfed.

Thanks for joining me.

We left off last time in March of 1796.

Napoleon was on his way to Nice in southern France, where he would take command of the Army of Italy.

This was an appointment he had dreamed of for months, and the political connections he made after Vondémyer, combined with a shift in French strategy,

had finally opened the door.

Napoleon's orders from the directory were to carry out a planned offensive he himself had drafted during his time at the topographical Bureau.

An all-out push into Northern Italy, relying on speed and exploiting the region's rough terrain.

However, as Bonaparte and his men would soon discover,

the directors were not truly convinced of his mission.

They did not agree with Bonaparte's assertion that the whole

war of the first coalition could be one in Italy. They still saw the southern front as a

sideshow to the main affair in Germany.

That begs the question, why did they adopt Napoleon's plan if they didn't accept the strategic

logic which underpinned it.

Well, they had a few reasons of their own to support an offensive into Italy.

First off, the war in Germany had entered a period of stalemate.

The directors believed that offensive in Italy might draw coalition resources away from Germany,

thus enabling a French breakthrough.

Even if Napoleon was defeated, the aggressive campaign he planned to fight

...