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Welcome to the Age of Napoleon.

Episode 44 Ali Bonaparte.

Thanks for joining me.

We left off last time at the beginning of August, 1798. Napoleon's expedition to Egypt had just

suffered a terrible blow. A British fleet under Horatio Nelson triumphed at the Battle of

the Nile. French naval power in the Mediterranean was all

but destroyed. Bonaparte and his men were practically marooned in Egypt with little hope of

reinforcement or resupply.

Napoleon vowed to press on, but with Nelson's victory, the odds of success shrank considerably.

I'd like to start out this episode by talking about another French setback.

It wasn't as dramatic as the Battle of the Nile, but the consequences would be nearly as grave.

It occurred in the field of geopolitics. A powerful diplomatic

backlash was forming against the French invasion, far beyond even the worst predictions

of the policy makers in Paris. To understand this backlash we need to

zoom out and talk about what was going on back in Europe. By late summer there were rumors

swirling of another general war between the great powers.

After less than a year of peace, there were already secret negotiations

underway between the old regimes about forming a new coalition against France.

This isn't quite as surprising as it might seem at first glance.

As we've discussed in past episodes, the peace that ended the war of the first coalition was

not built to last.

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