War of the Second Coalition
| War of the Second Coalition | |||||||||
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| Part of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Coalition Wars | |||||||||
Click an image to load the appropriate article. Left to right, top to bottom: Battles of the Pyramids, the Nile, Zurich, Marengo, Hohenlinden, the Haitian Revolution | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Second Coalition: United Kingdom Co-belligerent: United States (Quasi-War until 1800) |
French Republic | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
John Adams |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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200,000 killed and wounded |
75,000 killed in combat 140,000 captured | ||||||||
The War of the Second Coalition (French: Guerre de la Deuxième Coalition) (1798/9 – 1801/2, depending on periodisation) was the second war targeting revolutionary France by many European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria, and Russia and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and various German monarchies. Prussia did not join the coalition, while Spain supported France.
The overall goal of Britain and Russia was to contain the expansion of the French Republic and to restore the monarchy in France, while Austria – weakened and in deep financial debt from the War of the First Coalition – sought primarily to recover its position and come out of the war stronger than when it had entered. The first half of the war saw the Coalition manage to drive the French back in Italy, Germany, and Holland, but they were not able to seriously threaten an invasion of France, nor defeat the French decisively in battle. The second half of the war saw Napoleon Bonaparte and General Moreau inflict major defeats, forcing the Coalition to surrender, which resulted in the status quo from the previous war being upheld. In large part because of the difference in strategy among the three major allied powers, the Second Coalition failed to overthrow the revolutionary government, and French territorial gains since 1793 were confirmed. In the Franco–Austrian Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801, France held all of its previous gains and obtained new lands in Tuscany, in Italy. Austria was granted Venetia and the former Venetian Dalmatia. Most other allies also signed separate peace treaties with the French Republic in 1801. Britain and France signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, followed by the Ottomans in June 1802, which brought an interval of peace in Europe that lasted several months until Britain declared war on France again in May 1803. The renewed hostilities culminated in the War of the Third Coalition.