Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars

The Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars turned the poor, neglected Army of Italy into the theatre that made Bonaparte's reputation. Taking command in March 1796, he split the Austrian and Piedmontese armies, forced Piedmont out of the war within weeks, and then beat larger Austrian forces at Lodi, Castiglione, Arcole and Rivoli while four successive relief armies marched to raise the siege of Mantua. Speed, concentration and living off the country did the work; the lightning advance cost about six thousand French casualties against more than twenty-five thousand allied losses. After Rivoli crushed the last Austrian field army early in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio handed France the left bank of the Rhine and much of northern Italy. The young general returned to Paris as a public hero, with an army tested and loyal to his hand. For the first time a French general had made his own peace with a great power, a precedent that would shape everything Bonaparte later did.