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Welcome to the Age of Napoleon.

Episode 28, The Liberation of Lombardy.

Thanks for joining me.

We left off last time in mid-May of 1796.

Napoleon and the Army of Italy were at Lodi, just east of the city of Milan,

where they had won a dramatic victory over the Austrians, capping off another short brilliant campaign that had seen the Habsburgs evicted from the heart of Lombardy.

Legends were already being built around the Battle of Lodi, but in reality it was little more than a spiteful parting shot at a beaten enemy that had slipped Napoleon's grasp.

By the skin of his teeth, Austrian General Johann Bolieu had saved his army from destruction.

Lodi was a messy, unnecessary battle. It was more important to Napoleon as a political milestone

than a military one. The battle gave him the perfect headline-grabbing story to

burnish his public profile.

However, the very night after his victory, Bonaparte received a dispatch from Paris

that must have instantly taken the wind out of his sails.

It contained new orders from the directory. Rather than continuing to push

east up the Poe Valley against the Austrians, Bonaparte was ordered to divide the army of Italy, sending around half to reinforce the small army of the Alps under General Francois-Kelermann.

Then Napoleon and Kelmerman were to take their armies south, where they would plunder and extort from the smaller

states of Central Italy, finally striking at the biggest piggy bank on the peninsula, Rome, and the wealth of the Vatican.

The financial impetus for the campaign had always been more important to the directory

than any strategic motivations.

And now they were effectively ordering Bonaparte to abandon his military objectives entirely,

and focus solely on sending more loot back to Paris.

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