French invasion of Switzerland

French invasion of Switzerland
Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
The Battle of Grauholz. The Last Days of Old Bern. Painting by Friedrich Walthard (1818–1870).
Date 28 January – 17 May 1798 Location Old Swiss Confederacy Result Decisive French victory Switzerland becomes a French client state
Belligerents
Switzerland	French Republic Swiss rebels
Commanders and leaders
Karl Ludwig von Erlach	Guillaume Brune Alexis Schauenburg Philippe Romain Ménard

The French invasion of Switzerland (French: Campagne d'Helvétie, German: Franzoseneinfall) occurred from January until May 1798 as part of the French Revolutionary Wars. The independent Old Swiss Confederacy collapsed, both by this foreign invasion and simultaneous internal revolts, termed the "Helvetic Revolution". Its Ancien Régime institutions were abolished and replaced by the centralised pro-French Helvetic Republic.

Before 1798, the modern region of Vaud belonged to the Canton of Bern, to which it had a dependent status. Moreover, the majority of Francophone Catholic Vaudese felt oppressed by the German-speaking Protestant majority of Bern. Several Vaudese patriots such as Frédéric-César de La Harpe advocated for independence. In 1795, La Harpe called on his compatriots to rise up against the Bernese aristocrats, but his appeal fell to deaf ears, and he had to flee to Revolutionary France, where he resumed his activism.

In late 1797, French general Napoleon Bonaparte, who had just successfully conquered northern Italy and founded the Cisalpine Republic, pressed the French Directory to occupy Switzerland; soon 10,000 troops gathered near the city of Genève.Valtellina, Chiavenna and Bormio, dependencies of the Three Leagues, revolted and with French support seceded from the Confederacy to join the Cisalpine Republic on 10 October 1797. In December, the southern part of the Prince-Bishopric of Basel was occupied and annexed to France. The atmosphere inside Switzerland had changed significantly due to these developments, and many pro-French patriots hoped, and anti-French conservatives feared, that the Revolution would now spread to the rest of the Confederacy, with or without direct French military intervention. France used the dissatisfaction of the rural elites in the dependencies and the Enlightened citizenry in the cantons to stimulate revolutionary excitement.

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