The August 1798 battle falls in the awkward gap between the formal coalition wars. Britain and France remained at war while the continental powers paused, rearmed, and reconsidered their alliances. The conflict had grown from the French Revolution, emigre appeals for intervention, and France's invasion of the Austrian Netherlands. The battle is usually grouped with the Second Coalition even though its campaign grew directly out of the First. The coalition labels organize the chronology, but they do not mark a clean break in Anglo-French operations.
Chapter · 10:44-18:34
Why the Battle of the Nile sits between coalition wars
The battle occurred after the First Coalition formally ended but before the Second began, making it part of a continuing Anglo-French struggle rather than a clean peacetime interval.