French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1799

By 1799, the French Revolutionary Wars had resumed after a period of relative peace in 1798. The Second Coalition had organized against France, with Great Britain allying with Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and several of the German and Italian states. While Napoleon's army was still embroiled in Egypt, the allies prepared campaigns in Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

Napoleon had consolidated his control of Egypt for the time being. Soon after the beginning of the year, he mounted an invasion of Syria, capturing El Arish and Jaffa. On 17 March, he laid siege to Acre, and defeated an Ottoman effort to relieve the city at the Battle of Mount Tabor on 17 April. However, his repeated assaults on Acre were driven back by Ottoman and British forces under the command of Jezzar Pasha and Sir Sidney Smith. By May, with plague rampant in his army and no sign of success against the city, Napoleon was forced to retreat into Egypt.

In July, Turkey, with the help of the British navy, mounted an invasion by sea from Rhodes. Napoleon attacked the Turkish beachheads and annihilated their army at Aboukir.

In August, Napoleon decided to return to Europe, hearing of the political and military crisis in France. Leaving his army behind with Kléber in command, he sailed through the British blockade to return to Paris and resolved to take control of the government there in a coup.

In August, the allies mounted an invasion of the Netherlands (which at that time was a French vassal state, the Batavian Republic) with a combined Anglo-Russian army under the Duke of York, who landed at the northern tip of Holland. This army fought a series of battles ending in the defeat at Castricum on 6 October. That town passed from British-Russian to Batavian-French hands several times until the former finally fled, losing 2536 men and 11 guns; the Batavian-French losses stood at 1382.

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