After the conclusion of the war with Russia in 1792, Sultan Selim was most anxious to maintain peace and to keep out of the complications arising from the French Revolution. He was fully conscious of the necessity for reforms in every branch of the administration of his country, and especially in the constitution and training of the army. He regarded the Janissaries as a grave danger to the State. He initiated many great schemes of reform. But in 1798 these were nipped in the bud by a fresh outbreak of hostilities. War was forced upon him most unexpectedly, and without just cause or even pretext, by the Revolutionary Government of France, a country whose traditional policy had been to support the Ottoman Empire against that of Austria. France had recently become a near neighbour to Turkey. Under the treaty of Campo-Formio in 1797, after the great victories of General Bonaparte in Italy, the Republic of Venice ceased to exist. Venice itself, and much of its Italian territories, were subjected to the rule of Austria, and its possessions in the Adriatic, the Ionian Islands, and the cities on the mainland, such as Prevesa and Parga, were ceded to France. This change of masters was welcomed by the inhabitants of the islands, who were weary of the tyranny of the Venetians. The Directory, which then ruled in France, was filled with ambition for further extensions in the East. It was under the impression that the Ottoman Empire was on the point of complete dissolution. There was much, at the time, to justify this view. The central power of the State was almost paralysed. The pashas of many provinces, such as Ali of Janina, Passhwan Oghlou of Widdin, and Djezzar of Acre, had made themselves all but independent of the Sultan. Egypt was virtually ruled by the Mamelukes. Its pasha, appointed by the Porte, was without any authority. Serbia and Greece were seething with rebellion. Bonaparte, while commanding the army in Italy, sent emissaries to several of these provinces, and especially to Greece, holding out hopes of support in the event of open rebellion. It seemed at first as though his ambition was for extension of French dominion in Greece and other European provinces of the Porte. An army of forty thousand men, including the best of the veterans who had fought in Italy, was mobilized at Toulon. Two hundred transports were prepared to convey them to some unknown destination, and a powerful fleet of fifteen battleships and fifteen frigates was ordered to act as convoy. At the last moment the Directory, at the instance of Bonaparte, decided on the invasion of Egypt. A blow was to be struck there, not against the Porte, but against England, with whom France was at war. There were vague intentions or dreams, after the conquest of Egypt, of invading India and founding a great Eastern Empire for France on the ruins of the British Empire. It was pretended that the attack on Egypt was not an act of hostility to the Porte.