Treaty of Campo Formio

The Treaty of Campo Formio, signed on 17th October 1797, ended the War of the First Coalition between France and Austria and was Napoleon Bonaparte's first great diplomatic triumph. Negotiated by the twenty-eight-year-old general after his victorious Italian campaign, it gave France the Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium) and the Ionian Islands, while Austria received Venice and its mainland, ending eleven centuries of Venetian independence. Secret clauses partitioned German ecclesiastical states to compensate princes dispossessed on the Rhine. The treaty made Bonaparte the most famous man in France and proved he could win peace as well as battles. Its gains were confirmed and extended at Lunéville in 1801. Campo Formio set the pattern for Napoleon's later settlements: decisive victory on the battlefield translated directly into a redrawing of the map at the negotiating table. Bonaparte returned to Paris a hero, met Talleyrand, and took command of the Army of England for a planned invasion that never sailed.