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Of all of Napoleon's errors the Egypt expedition seems to have been the most harebrained. The backround to the expedition was that following France's victory in the war of the First Coalition over it's continential enemies it found itself still facing Britain.

Napoleon concluded, probably correctly, that the French navy could not pull out an unmentionable sea mammal and that an expedition to Ireland was a dead end. Then he came to the conclusion that by taking over Egypt, and thereby adding the Ottoman Empire to France's LONG list of enemies, he would be able to sever the portage route between India and Britain and thereby support Tippu against the Brits in India... presumably by marching across the Mashriq and Persia. How was the French navy, which Napoleon correctly identified as incapable of defeating the royal navy to sustain the line of supplies and reinforcements to hte expeditionary force? Napoleon apprantly didn't think this was a problem.

Of course, the main incentive for the expedition was not the French national interest, but that of Napoleon. The stalemate Vs Britain and the absence of warfare against AUstria deprived him of his favorite and most popularity generating activity and he wanted the glory of conquering Egypt and then emulating Alexander the Great to burnish his credential in Paris with the asssembly and the mob- and, of course, the loot such an expedition might generate.

But what if events elsewhere drew his attention to targets closer to home?

The most likely targets seem to be Sardina, Naples and Switzerland. All of them were experiencing internal unrest between pro French Republicans and Royalists and different classes (and different confessions in Switzerland). The latter was the sprak which touched off the War of the Second Coalition. What if the unrest reached a critical mass earlier, prompting French intervention headed by Napoleon and a resumption of warfare Vs Austria?

The reorganized Austrian army, backed by Suvorov and subsidised by Britain, handed the French an embarresing string of defeats OTL in the opening battles of the second coalition. If war breaks out earlier, and if Napoleon is in Europe to face the less prepared Austrians, perhaps he can achieve an earlier, and more decisive, victory over them, cementing French control of it's Italian, Swiss, Dutch and German client states before a change of goverment in Britain opens a window of opportunity for peace of Amiens type arrangement (perhaps he gets himself declared president of these republics before, rather than after the peace), Napoleon's control of France... and denying the British Malta as a trigger for restarting the war before the French can rebuild their navy.

The war of the Third coalition probably breaks out as OTL, but perhaps later, with Naploeon better prepared to face Britain, and with Austria even weaker than it was OTL.
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