Bonaparte's Leoben Negotiations

Bonaparte and his austrian counterparts agreed on april eighteenth to what we now call the leobin peace preliminaries. Austria ceded belgium and the west bank of the rhine to france, recognized the new independent republics napoleon was creating in italy. But at leoven, bonaparte included a controversial enticement to get the austrian say yes to the deal. He offered them sovereignty over the heretofore neutral republic of venice, minus some of their strategic territories.