Recaps

Joseph’s forces defeated Austria in Italy while his diplomacy drew Sardinia and other Italian states closer to France, and he promoted economic influence over outright conquest. As France prepared further campaigns, Veronique’s scheme to provoke Perna failed, and Joseph and Camellia became lovers.

• Sean Hayes’s disguised troops captured Leuven, giving Joseph’s forces control of the route east from Brussels.
• Joseph arranged a Turin Agreement with Amedeo III, transferring Savoy to France and securing Sardinia’s withdrawal from the Anti-French Alliance.
• Carnot reprimanded Napoleon over his conduct but gave him reinforcements, and Napoleon prepared to attack Alexandria as Melas advanced across the Bormida.
• Napoleon’s troops fought Melas’s army at Marengo, held their lines through repeated attacks, and broke the Austrian advance with a counterattack.
• Amedeo III withdrew Sardinian troops under the Turin Agreement, and Napoleon defeated Melas, securing Austria’s surrender in Italy.
• Joseph’s diplomacy drew several Italian states toward France, and he proposed using loans, investment, industry, and propaganda to influence them without annexing their lands.
• Joseph learned that Matthew Bolton had contacted John Sander, ordered Sander summoned, and prepared for the Netherlands campaign while Camellia arrived in Brussels with a Flying Kitchen.
• Veronique tried to bring Camellia and Perna into conflict, but Perna left Joseph and Camellia alone, and the two confessed their love and spent the night together.

Joseph’s forces broke the Allied siege of Luxembourg, captured Duke of Brunswick, and secured a sweeping victory across the Rhine. Back in Paris, Joseph accepted an engagement to Alexandra of Russia and prepared to host the Iberian-Apennine Summit.

• Tugut secured military and logistical aid from nearly every South German state except Baden, while Prince Heinrich and Lord Grenville planned to concentrate Allied forces in Luxembourg.
• Catherine II agreed to consider a marriage between Alexandra and the French Crown Prince, and Alexandra eagerly anticipated the match.
• Massena rejected retreating into Luxembourg Fortress and positioned French forces on the Ardennes Plateau, then Joseph joined him and helped devise a plan to lure the Allies west.
• Joseph rallied the French troops, and Massena’s counterattack trapped the Allied army while Berthier broke the siege of Luxembourg and French forces seized Trier, Koblenz, and Mainz.
• The Allied retreat fell apart as Duke of York’s forces were defeated near Düren, and Massena captured Duke of Brunswick and more than forty thousand Prussian and Bavarian soldiers.
• Joseph accepted the Prussian surrender at Diekirch, then returned to Paris and rejected an invasion of Austria in favor of keeping Prussia as a counterweight.
• Queen Mary told Joseph that Catherine II had agreed to his marriage to Alexandra, and Joseph accepted the engagement with the wedding postponed until Alexandra was older.
• After celebrating his return and engagement, Joseph went to the Tuileries Palace for the summit rehearsal and saw delegations gathering from across Italy.

Joseph bound the Iberian and Italian states to France through a common market and security pact while Napoleon’s campaign trapped Würmser’s army in Mantua. As the alliance expanded into Tuscany, a run on France’s bank exposed a British scheme to attack the Franc using loans to German states.

• Joseph persuaded Spain and the Italian representatives to form a common market, a shared bank, and a security organization under strong French influence.
• The security organization’s members signed its founding agreement, established a peacekeeping force, and agreed to join a campaign against the Papal States and Austria.
• Prussia withdrew from the Anti-French Alliance and negotiated a ceasefire as French troops captured Cologne Fortress and reorganized along the Rhine.
• Joseph warned ministers against advancing too far into German territory and identified securing the Rhineland and weakening Austria in Italy as France’s practical aims.
• Napoleon drew Würmser’s forces away from Mantua, defeated Austrian columns near Limone and Idro, and trapped the remaining Austrian troops inside the fortress.
• Casanova returned to Tuscany with Hahn’s help, gathered soldiers in Modena, and challenged Ferdinand III as Tuscany applied to join the French-led organizations.
• Pius VI sent Archbishop Galdini to offer France the Marche region and compensation, while rumors of depleted bank reserves triggered a rush to redeem paper money for gold.
• Joseph ordered the bank to ease gold redemptions and investigated the attack, uncovering that Britain had used loans to German states to obtain paper money and short the Franc.

Joseph defeated the British attack on the Franc, expanded French influence across Italy and South Germany, and coordinated a military counteroffensive as Britain pursued peace and expanded its steam fleet. The arc ended with Moreau advancing toward Munich while Joseph’s agents sabotaged British naval preparations and manipulated the Bolton-Watt Company.

• Joseph secretly encouraged British short sellers to attack the Franc while France publicly defended it, and Italian gold purchases helped break the run as authorities arrested the conspirators.
• Talleyrand pressured Württemberg into joining the Rhine Trade Alliance, while Adrien reclaimed Florence and France negotiated with Pius VI over Ferrara and Bologna.
• Joseph promised Ferrara to Parma and other territories to Milan, Modena, and Genoa in return for their support and cooperation with French plans.
• Napoleon drew Alvinzi’s Austrian army toward Mantua while Moreau prepared to attack Bavaria across the Rhine, and Joseph coordinated French operations from Italy, the Rhine, and Portugal.
• Pitt the Younger turned toward an honorable ceasefire, while Joseph’s agents used Sander and Frank to expand the Bolton-Watt Company around a flawed engine design and recruit its dismissed technicians for Lyon Machinery.
• British officials ordered steam engines and bought Guaiac Wood for ship axles, unaware that Valdes had drilled the timber to make the axles fail.
• Moreau captured Ingolstadt and advanced toward Munich, prompting Karl Theodor to move troops north and send Pappenheim to Vienna for help.