Early career

Nationalist Corsican leader Pasquale Paoli. 1798 portrait by Richard Cosway.

Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment.^{[8][note 4]} He served on garrison duty in Valence, Drôme and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, though he took nearly two years' leave in Corsica and Paris during this period. A fervent Corsican nationalist, Bonaparte wrote to the Corsican leader Pasquale Paoli in May 1789: "As the nation was perishing I was born. Thirty thousand Frenchmen were vomited on to our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood. Such was the odious sight which was the first to strike me."^[18]
He spent the early years of the Revolution in Corsica, fighting in a complex three-way struggle between royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He supported the revolutionary Jacobin faction, gained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and command over a battalion of volunteers. After he had exceeded his leave of absence and led a riot against a French army in Corsica, he was somehow able to convince military authorities in Paris to promote him to captain in July 1792.^[19] He returned to Corsica once again and came into conflict with Paoli, who had decided to split with France and sabotage a French assault on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena, where Bonaparte was one of the expedition leaders.^[20] Bonaparte and his family had to flee to the French mainland in June 1793 because of the split with Paoli.^[21]

Siege of Toulon

Main article: Siege of Toulon

In July 1793, he published a pro-republican pamphlet, Le Souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire), which gained him the admiration and support of Augustin Robespierre, younger brother of the Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre. With the help of fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti, Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican forces at the siege of Toulon. The city had risen against the republican government and was occupied by British troops.^[22] He adopted a plan to capture a hill that would allow republican guns to dominate the city's harbour and force the British ships to evacuate. The assault on the position, during which Bonaparte was wounded in the thigh, led to the capture of the city and his promotion to Brigadier General at the age of 24. His actions brought him to the attention of the Committee of Public Safety, and he was put in charge of the artillery of France's Army of Italy.^[23] Whilst waiting for confirmation of this post, Napoleon spent time as inspector of coastal fortifications on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille. He devised plans for attacking Piedmont as part of France's campaign against the First coalition and was then sent on a mission, by Augustin, to the Republic of Genoa, to understand that country's intentions towards France.^[24]

13 Vendémiaire

Main article: 13 Vendémiaire

Journée du 13 Vendémiaire. Artillery fire in front of the Église Saint-Roch, Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris

Following the fall of the Robespierres in the July 1794 Thermidorian Reaction, Bonaparte was put under house arrest at Nice for his association with the brothers.^{[note 5]} He was released within two weeks and due to his technical skills was asked to draw-up plans to attack Italian positions in the context of France's war with Austria. He also took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by the Royal Navy.^[26]
Bonaparate became engaged to Désirée Clary, whose sister, Julie Clary, married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph; the Clarys were a wealthy merchant family from Marseilles.^[27] In April 1795, he was assigned to the Army of the West, which was engaged in the War in the Vendée—a civil war and royalist counter-revolution in Vendée, a region in west central France, on the Atlantic Ocean. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general - for which the army already had a full quota - and he pleaded poor health to avoid the posting.^[28] He was moved to the Bureau of Topography of the Committee of Public Safety and sought, unsuccessfully, to be transferred to Constantinople in order to offer his services to the Sultan.^[29] During this period he wrote a romantic novella, Clisson et Eugénie, about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Désirée.^[30] On 15 September, Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in regular service for his refusal to serve in the Vendée campaign. He now faced a difficult financial situation and reduced career prospects.^[31]
On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention after they were excluded from a new government, the Directory.^[32] One of the leaders of the Thermidorian Reaction, Paul Barras, knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and gave him command of the improvised forces in defence of the Convention in the Tuileries Palace. Bonaparte had witnessed the massacre of the King's Swiss Guard there three years earlier and realised artillery would be the key to its defence.^[8] He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat, to seize large cannons and used them to repel the attackers on 5 October 1795—13 Vendémiaire An IV in the French Republican Calendar. One thousand four hundred royalists died, and the rest fled.^[32] He had cleared the streets with "a whiff of grapeshot", according to the 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle in The French Revolution: A History.^[33]
The defeat of the Royalist insurrection extinguished the threat to the Convention and earned Bonaparte sudden fame, wealth, and the patronage of the new Directory; Murat would become his brother-in-law and one of his generals. Bonaparte was promoted to Commander of the Interior and given command of the Army of Italy.^[21] Within weeks he was romantically attached to Barras's former mistress, Joséphine de Beauharnais, whom he married on 9 March 1796 after he had broken off his engagement to Désirée Clary.^[34]

First Italian campaign

Main article: Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars

Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy and led it on a successful invasion of Italy. At the Battle of Lodi he defeated Austrian forces and drove them out of Lombardy.^[21] He was defeated at Caldiero by Austrian reinforcements, led by József Alvinczi, though Bonaparte regained the initiative at the crucial Battle of the Bridge of Arcole and proceeded to subdue the Papal States.^[35] Bonaparte argued against the wishes of Directory atheists to march on Rome and dethrone the Pope as he reasoned this would create a power vacuum which would be exploited by the Kingdom of Naples. Instead, in March 1797, Bonaparte led his army into Austria and forced it to negotiate peace.^[36] The Treaty of Leoben gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries, and a secret clause promised the Republic of Venice to Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender, ending 1,100 years of independence; he also authorised the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark.^[37]

Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole, by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, (ca. 1801), Musée du Louvre, Paris

His application of conventional military ideas to real-world situations effected his military triumphs, such as creative use of artillery as a mobile force to support his infantry. He referred to his tactics thus: "I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning. Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the last."^[38] He was adept at espionage and deception and could win battles by concealment of troop deployments and concentration of his forces on the 'hinge' of an enemy's weakened front. If he could not use his favourite envelopment strategy, he would take up the central position and attack two co-operating forces at their hinge, swing round to fight one until it fled, then turn to face the other.^[39] In this Italian campaign, Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons and 170 standards.^[40] The French army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics.^[41]
During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics; he founded two newspapers both for the troops in his army and also for circulation in France.^[42] The royalists attacked Bonaparte for looting Italy and warned he might become a dictator.^[43] Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to lead a coup d'état and purge the royalists on 4 September—Coup of 18 Fructidor. This left Barras and his Republican allies in control again but dependent on Bonaparte who proceeded to peace negotiations with Austria. These negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Campo Formio, and Bonaparte returned to Paris in December as a hero.^[44] He met with Talleyrand, France's new Foreign Minister—who would later serve in the same capacity for Emperor Napoleon—and they began to prepare for an invasion of England.^[21]

Egyptian expedition

Main article: French Campaign in Egypt and Syria

Bonaparte Before the Sphinx, (ca. 1868) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Hearst Castle

After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided France's naval power was not yet strong enough to confront the Royal Navy in the English Channel and proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India.^[21] Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with a Muslim enemy of the British in India, Tipu Sultan.^[45] Napoleon assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions."^[46] According to a February 1798 report by Talleyrand: "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez to India, to join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the English."^[46] The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to India.^[47]
In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. His Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists: mathematicians, naturalists, chemists and geodesists among them; their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone, and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809.^[48]
En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller. The two hundred Knights of French origin did not support the Grand Master, Prussian Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim, who had succeeded a Frenchman and made it clear they would not fight against their compatriots. Hompesch surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured a very important naval base with the loss of only three men.^[49]

Battle of the Pyramids, François-Louis-Joseph Watteau, 1798–1799

General Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and on 1 July landed at Alexandria.^[21] He fought the Battle of Chobrakit against the Mamluks, an old power in the Middle East and this helped the French practice their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids fought on 21 July, about 24 km from the pyramids. General Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of the Mamluks' cavalry, but he formed hollow squares with supplies kept safely inside. 29 French^[50] and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed; the victory boosted the morale of the French army.^[51]
On 1 August, the British fleet under Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two French vessels in the Battle of the Nile, and Bonaparte's goal of a strengthened French position in the Mediterranean was frustrated.^[52] His army had succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings.^[53] In early 1799, he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza and Jaffa, and Haifa.^[54] The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal: Bonaparte, on discovering many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, ordered the garrison and 1,400 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning to save bullets.^[52] Men, women and children were robbed and murdered for three days.^[55]
With his army weakened by disease—mostly bubonic plague—and poor supplies, Bonaparte was unable to reduce the fortress of Acre and returned to Egypt in May.^[52] To speed up the retreat, he ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned.^[56] (However, British eyewitness accounts later showed that most of the men were still alive and had not been poisoned.) His supporters have argued this was necessary given the continued harassment of stragglers by Ottoman forces, and indeed those left behind alive were tortured and beheaded by the Ottomans. Back in Egypt, on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir.^[57]