nto a Parthenopean Republic at the close of the
previous year, and the French supremacy extended over the whole
peninsula, the descent of an Austrian army from the Tyrol at the end of
March, and a victory of the Russian and Austrian forces at Cassano,
compelled the French army to evacuate Southern Italy and Lombardy,
while a fresh defeat at Novi flung it back on the Maritime Alps. A
campaign conducted with more varying success drove the armies which
advanced into Germany back over the Rhine. In Switzerland however the
stubborn energy of Massena enabled his soldiers to hold their ground
against the combined attack of Russian and Austrian forces; and the
attempt of a united force of Russians and English to wrest Holland from
its French masters was successfully repulsed. Twelve of the thirty
thousand men who formed this army consisted of English troops; and Sir
Ralph Abercromby succeeded in landing at their head, in seizing what
remained of the Dutch fleet at the Texel, and in holding General Brune
at bay when he advanced with superior forces. But Abercromby was
superseded in his command by the Duke of York; and in another month the
new leader was glad to conclude a convention by which the safe
withdrawal of his troops was secured.

[Sidenote: Buonaparte in Syria.]

In the East however England was more successful. Even had Buonaparte not
been baffled in his plans of a descent on Southern India from the basis
of Egypt by the battle of the Nile, they would have been frustrated by
the energy of Lord Wellesley. Mysore was invaded, its capital stormed,
and Tippoo slain, before a French soldier could have been despatched to
its aid. But foiled as were his dreams of Indian conquest the daring
genius of the French general plunged into wilder projects. He conceived
the design of the conquest of Syria and of the creation of an army among
its warlike mountaineers. "With a hundred thousand men on the banks of
the Euphrates," he said years afterwards, "I might have gone to
Constantinople or India, I might have changed the face of the world."
Gaza was taken, Jaffa stormed, and ten thousand French soldiers advanced
under their young general on Acre. Acre was the key of Syria, and its
reduction was the first step in these immense projects. "Once possessed
of Acre," wrote Napoleon, "the army would have gone to Damascus and the
Euphrates. The Christians of Syria, the Druses, the Armenians, would
have joined us. The provinces of the Ottoman