Treaty of Amiens

The Treaty of Amiens, signed on 25th March 1802, ended the Revolutionary Wars between France and Britain and gave Europe a brief, uneasy peace. Britain agreed to return most of its colonial conquests, keeping only Ceylon and Trinidad, while France evacuated Naples and the Papal States. For Bonaparte, then First Consul, the peace was a triumph that confirmed his authority: he celebrated it with the Concordat, an amnesty for émigrés, and a plebiscite that made him consul for life. But neither side trusted the other. Britain refused to evacuate Malta as promised and protested French annexations in Italy and Switzerland, while Napoleon rebuilt his fleet and eyed Egypt again. The truce collapsed in May 1803 when Britain declared war, reopening a conflict that would last, with one short interruption, until 1815. Amiens remains the only general peace of the entire Napoleonic era. Both governments used the breathing space to prepare for the next round, so that when war returned it did so with greater bitterness than before.