The salient features of this treaty were therefore the cession of Belgium; the annihilation of Venice; the settlement of the Cisalpine Republic as a powerful dependency of France; the strengthening of the latter as a Mediterranean state by the gain of the Ionian Islands; and, finally, the loosing of her hands against Great Britain, which now stood without a strong ally in all Europe. Bonaparte justified his action to his critics on these grounds, but especially on account of the necessity of dealing with Great Britain single-handed. "When the Cisalpine has the best military frontier in Europe, when France gains Mayence and the Rhine, when she has in the Levant Corfu, extremely well fortified, and the islands, what more would you wish? To scatter our force, in order that England may continue to take from us, from Spain, from Holland, our colonies, and postpone yet further the restoration of our trade and our navy?... Either our government must destroy the English monarchy, or must expect itself to be destroyed by the corruption and intrigue of those active islanders. The present moment offers us a fine game. Let us concentrate all our activity upon the navy, and destroy England. That done, Europe is at our feet."[166] Thus did Bonaparte demonstrate that the scene of strife was to be transferred to the sea.
The Directory at once ratified the Treaty of Campo Formio, and named Bonaparte one of three plenipotentiaries to the Congress of Rastadt. The general remained in Italy for a month longer, organizing the new state, and distributing the army with a view to support the interests of France, while withdrawing some thirty thousand men for the intended army of England. On the 17th of November he left Milan, and on the 25th arrived at Rastadt. He remained there, however, but a week; and then, apparently at the call of the Directory,[167] started for Paris, which he reached on the 5th of December. He was avowedly to command the army of England, and during the two following months his correspondence betrays no sign of any other purpose; his orders to various subordinates, and especially to Berthier, his celebrated chief-of-staff, at the time commanding in Italy, abound with dispositions and instructions to transfer troops thence towards the Channel. Particularly significant of such intention were the orders sent from him to Admiral Brueys, commanding the French division in Corfu, to start for Brest,[168]—a mission which would make his force inaccessible for the Egyptian expedition. Too much stress, however, cannot be laid upon such indications coming from so crafty a nature; and the first intimation of a change of purpose has more the appearance of stripping off a mask than of awakening from a dream. "Make what efforts we will," wrote he to the Directory, on February 23, 1798, "we shall not for many years acquire the control of the seas. To make a descent upon England, without being master of the sea, is the boldest and most difficult operation ever attempted."[169] Most true, but not new. Nor was the veil under which he covered his change of attitude very difficult to pierce. On the 7th of February, 1798, he wrote to the Minister of War that he was about to visit the Channel coast, near Dunkirk, sending Kleber and Desaix to Havre and Brest. On the 12th from Dunkirk he sends engineers to examine Boulogne, Etaples, Ambleteuse, and Calais,—ports on which he, five years later, based his more serious projects of invasion; and at the same time two others are dispatched to Holland to demand help of various kinds. The very next day, February 13, he sends orders to Toulon, in the name of the Directory, not only to hold on to the ships ordered for Brest, but to send despatch vessels in every direction to recall to Toulon all ships-of-war cruising in the Mediterranean.[170] Returning to Paris, he addressed a letter to the government, setting forth what needed to be done by the month of April in order to make the attempt upon Great Britain even possible,—a long array of requirements, which only he, if his heart were in the matter, was capable of accomplishing. He concluded by saying there were but three ways of reaching England. One was by direct invasion; the second, by an attempt upon Hanover and Hamburg,—the continental centres of her trade; the last, by an expedition to the Levant.