1797
Treaty of Campo Formio
Napoleon, unauthorized by Paris, signed the peace with Austria himself - dictating terms from Italian villas. France gained the Austrian Netherlands and Lombardy; Venice, a thousand-year republic, was traded to Austria as consolation. The First Coalition was broken. A young general was now a diplomat too. The extinction of Venice, the oldest republic in Europe, shocked contemporaries and became a symbol of revolutionary ruthlessness.
XYZ Affair
Three American envoys to Paris were approached by French agents (coded X, Y, and Z in dispatches) demanding bribes before negotiation could begin. 'Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute,' Charles Pinckney allegedly replied. The affair inflamed American opinion and brought the new republic to the edge of war with its old ally.
Haydn's Emperor's Hymn
Commissioned to give Austria an answer to the Marseillaise, Joseph Haydn composed 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser' - a melody so luminous it became, with new words, the German national anthem and remains so today. Haydn played it on the clavier in his last illness. He considered it his finest tune.
Spithead Mutiny
Royal Navy sailors at Spithead, underpaid for decades and underfed for years, refused to sail. They ran their grievances with parliamentary discipline. Pitt's government, afraid of revolutionary contagion, gave in - higher pay, better food, pardon. A second mutiny at the Nore soon afterward was put down by hangings. The Spithead settlement quietly improved conditions for a generation of sailors whose loyalty would be tested at Trafalgar.
Battle of Camperdown
In the North Sea, Admiral Duncan's British fleet smashed the Dutch battle line off the Texel, capturing eleven ships. It eliminated the last fleet that might have contested the Channel. Nelson was still a year away from the Nile; Duncan's was the year's greater victory at sea. Britain now stood supreme on every ocean.