1797
The fall of the Republic of Venice was a series of events that culminated on 12 May 1797 in the dissolution and dismemberment of the Republic of Venice at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte and Habsburg Austria.
In 1796, the young general Napoleon had been sent by the newly-formed French Republic to confront Austria, as part of the French Revolutionary Wars. He chose to go through Venice, which was officially neutral. Reluctantly, the Venetians allowed the formidable French army to enter their country so that it might confront Austria. However, the French covertly began supporting Jacobin revolutionaries within Venice, and the Venetian senate began quietly preparing for war. The Venetian armed forces were depleted and hardly a match for the battle-hardened French or even a local uprising. After the capture of Mantua on 2 February 1797, the French dropped any pretext and overtly called for revolution among the territories of Venice. By 13 March, there was open revolt, with Brescia and Bergamo breaking away. However, pro-Venetian sentiment remained high, and France was forced to reveal its true goals after it had provided military support to the underperforming revolutionaries.
On 25 April, Napoleon openly threatened to declare war on Venice unless it democratised. The Venetian Senate acceded to numerous demands, but facing increasing rebellion and the threat of foreign invasion, it abdicated in favor of a transitional government of Jacobins (and thus the French). On 12 May, Ludovico Manin, the last doge of Venice, formally abolished the Most Serene Republic of Venice after 1,100 years of existence.
Napoleon's aggression was not without cause. The French and the Austrians had secretly agreed on 17 April in the Treaty of Leoben that in exchange for providing Venice to Austria, France would receive Austria's holdings in the Netherlands. France provided an opportunity for the population to vote on accepting the now public terms of the treaty that yielded them to Austria. On 28 October, Venice voted to accept the terms since it preferred Austria to France. Such preferences were well founded: the French proceeded to thoroughly loot Venice. They further stole or sank the entire Venetian Navy and destroyed much of the Venetian Arsenal, a humiliating end for what had once been one of the most powerful navies in Europe.
On 18 January 1798, the Austrians took control of Venice and ended the plunder. Austria's control was short-lived, however, as Venice would be back under French control by 1805. It then returned to Austrian hands in 1815 as the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia until its incorporation into the Kingdom of Italy in 1866.
PRINCIPLALS
FRANCESCO II = Francis II ( 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor (from 1792 to 1806) Archduchy of Austria.
-GENERALE MELAS =Michael Friedrich Benedikt Baron von Melas
Melas (12 May 1729 – 31 May 1806) was a Transylvanian-born field marshal for the Austrian Empire during the Napoleonic Wars.
He was born in Radeln, Transylvania (nowadays Roadeș, part of Bunești commune, Brașov County, Romania) in 1729 and joined the Austrian Army at age 17. He served in the Seven Years' War as aide de camp for Leopold Josef Graf Daun. He was promoted to colonel in 1781. He fought on the lower Rhine in 1794 and the middle Rhine in 1795.
Von Melas later led the Austrian Army in Italy during Napoleon Bonaparte's campaigns in Italy, part of the War of the Second Coalition. Serving under Russian field marshal Alexander Suvorov, who commanded Second Coalition forces, he commanded Austrian forces in victories at the battles of Cassano, Trebbia, Novi, Genola, and the Siege of Genoa, and came near to another victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo before making the mistake of handing over command to a subordinate for what he thought was the pursuit from the field of a beaten foe. A stand made by the French forces further down the road, and a subsequent counter-attack by the French General Louis Desaix led to a defeat for von Melas' forces. The day after the battle he was compelled to sign the Convention of Alessandria, which gave the rule of Italy up to the Mincio River to Napoleon, the Habsburg Crown's authority being in consequence forced out of Italy.
Von Melas was later a Habsburg commander in Bohemia. He retired in 1803. He died in 1806 at Týnec nad Labem, in Bohemia