The Italian Campaign of 1796-97
Just days after his marriage, Napoleon took command of the French "Army of Italy" and led it on a successful invasion of Italy. At the Lodi, he gained the nickname "The Little Corporal", a term that reflected his camaraderie with the ordinary soldiers. He drove the Austian forces out of Lombardy and defeated the army of the Papal States. However, he ignored the Directory's order to march into Rome and dethrone the Pope. In early, 1797, Napoleon led his army into Austria and forced that power to sue for peace. The result was the Treaty of Campo Formia, which gave France control of most of northern Italy, along with the Low Countries and Rhineland, but a secret clause promised Venice to Austria. Napoleon then marched in to Venice and forced its surrender, ending over 1000 years of independence. Later in 1797, Napoleon organized many of the French-dominated territories in Italy into the Cisalpine Republic.
Napoleon was a brilliant military strategist. He was able to absorb military knowledge and apply it to real-world circumstances of his era. Although Napoleon was known for his creative use of artillery in a mobile role, he owed much of his greatness not to innovation, but rather to his encyclopedic knowledge and application of military thought. He quoted, "I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning." He was an artillery officer by training and as a result he devised new tactics and employed his artillery as a mobile force to support infantry attacks. Napoleon was an aggressive commander who enjoyed the loyalty of highly motivated soldiers. He was also a master of both intelligence and deception, who used spies to gather information about opposing forces while seeking to conceal his own deployments and often won battles by concentrating his forces on an unsuspecting enemy.
While campaigning in Italy, Napoleon became increasingly influential in French politics. He published two newspapers, and the elections in mid-1797 gave the royalist party increased power, ultimately alarming the Directory. The royalists in turn began attacking Napoleon for looting Italy and overstepping his authority in dealings with the Austrians. As a result, Napoleon sent General Augereau to Paris to lead a coup d'etat and purge the royalists. This left the Directory in control again, but dependent on Napoleon's "sword" to stay there. Napoleon himself proceeded to the peace negotiations with Austria, then returned to Paris in December as the conquering hero and the dominant force in the government, far more popular than any of the Directors.
The Egyptian Expedition of 1798–99
In 1798, Napoleon proposed an expedition to colonize Egypt, which was than a province of the Ottoman Empire. This was to protect the French trade interests and undermine Britain's access to India. The Directory readily agreed to the plan in order to remove Napoleon from the center of power.
One unusual aspect of the Egyptian expedition was the inclusion of a large group of scientists, which discovered the Rosetta stone. Also, Napoleon's expedition seized Malta and then landed successfully on Alexandria. Although Bonaparte had massive success against the native Mamluk army (his 25,000 man strong invading force defeated a 100,000 man army), his fleet was largely destroyed by Nelson at The Battle of the Nile, so that Bonaparte became land-bound. His goal of strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean Sea was thus frustrated, but his army nonetheless succeeded in consolidating power in Egypt, although it faced repeated nationalist uprisings.
In early 1799 he led the army into the Ottoman province of Syria, now modern Israel, and defeated numerically superior Ottoman forces in several battles, but his army was weakened by disease and poor supplies. He was unable to reduce the fortress of Acre, and was forced to retreat to Egypt in May. On July 25, he defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir.