The Second Coalition - 1796-1801

1796

JANUARY

1st- Asia: In India, Madhavrao II, the Peshwa of the Maratta Empire, died - apparently committed suicide. He left no heirs and was succeeded by Baji Rao II, son of the overthrown Peshwa Raghunathrao.

12- France: Bonaparte had been commissioned by the Directory to fight the Jacobins. This day he ordered the arrest of Gracchus Babeuf, who escaped and went into hiding. Babeuf was one of the most acclaimed speakers in the Pantheon Club, which had been founded two months earlier and already had 2,000 members. It had been founded by prominent personalities of the time of terror who did not reject the moderate ideology of the new Constitution and demanded the application of the Constitution of Year I, which had never come into force.

20-Paris: The Irish Theobald Wolfe Tone left the United States to move to Paris. There he meets this afternoon with the Foreign Minister of the Board of Directors, requesting a French intervention in Ireland

EUROPEAN STRATEGIC SITUATION AT THE BEGINNING OF 1796

The Coalition and France have not signed any armistice and continue in war, but the recrudescence of winter interrupts the military campaigns. The armies camp in their positions, watching each other until spring and the thawing of the mountain passes allow them to resume hostilities. France deploys several contingents on its borders: the Armies of Sambre and Meuse, some 78,000 soldiers commanded by General Jourdan, and the Armies of the Rhine and Moselle, with 79,500 soldiers ...