on the coast of France between Toulon and Nice.

CHAPTER V.

NELSON'S SERVICES WITH THE FLEET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN UNDER ADMIRAL
HOTHAM.--PARTIAL FLEET ACTIONS OF MARCH 13 AND 14, AND JULY
13.--NELSON ORDERED TO COMMAND A DETACHED SQUADRON CO-OPERATING WITH
THE AUSTRIAN ARMY IN THE RIVIERA OF GENOA.

JANUARY-JULY, 1795. AGE, 36.

From the naval point of view, as a strategic measure, the acquisition
of Corsica by the British was a matter of great importance. It was,
however, only one among several factors, which went to make up the
general military and political situation in the Mediterranean at the
end of the year 1794. Hitherto the exigencies of the well-nigh
universal hostilities in which France had been engaged, and the
anarchical internal state of that country, had prevented any decisive
operations by her on the side of Italy, although she had, since 1792,
been formally at war with the Kingdom of Sardinia, of which Piedmont
was a province.

At the close of 1794 the conditions were greatly modified. In the
north, the combined forces of Great Britain, Austria, and Holland had
been driven out of France and Belgium, and the United Provinces were
on the point of submission. On the east, the Austrians and Prussians
had retreated to the far bank of the Rhine, and Prussia was about to
withdraw from the coalition, which, three years before, she had been
so eager to form. On the south, even greater success had attended the
French armies, which had crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, driving
before them the forces of the enemy, who also was soon to ask for
peace. It was therefore probable that operations in Italy would assume
greatly increased activity, from the number of French soldiers
released elsewhere, as well as from the fact that the Austrians
themselves, though they continued the war in Germany, had abandoned
other portions of the continent which they had hitherto contested.

The political and military conditions in Italy were, briefly, as
follows. The region north of the Maritime Alps and in the valley of
the Po was, for the most part, in arms against France,--the western
province, Piedmont, as part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose capital
was at Turin, and, to the eastward of it, the duchies of Milan and
Mantua, as belonging to Austria. The governments of the numerous small
states into which Northern and Central Italy were then
divided--Venice, Genoa, Tuscany, the States of the Church, and
others--symp