First Coalition, War of the
1792 CE to 1797 CE
The First Coalition is the traditional name of the wars that several European powers fight between 1792 and 1797 against the French First Republic as the first major concerted effort to contain Revolutionary France.
Despite the collective strength of these nations compared with France, they are not really allied and fight without much apparent coordination or agreement.
Each power has its eye on a different part of France they want to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurs.
The coalition takes shape after the French Revolutionary Wars have already begun.
After the stated aim of the National Convention to export revolution, the guillotining of Louis XVI of France (January 1793) and the French opening of the Scheldt, a military coalition is formed against France.
These powers initiate a series of invasions of France by land and sea, with Prussia and Austria attacking from the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhine, and Great Britain supporting revolts in provincial France and laying siege to Toulon.
France suffers reverses (Battle of Neerwinden, March 18, 1793) and internal strife (Revolt in the Vendée), and responds with extreme measures: the Committee of Public Safety forms (April 6, 1793) and the levée en masse drafts all potential soldiers aged eighteen to twenty-five (August 1793).
The new French armies counter-attack, repel the invaders, and move beyond France.
French arms establish the Batavian Republic as a satellite state (May 1795) and gain the Prussian Rhineland by the first Treaty of Basel.
Spain makes a separate peace accord with France (second Treaty of Basel) and the French Directory carries out plans to conquer more of Germany and northern Italy (1795).
North of the Alps, Archduke Charles of Austria redresses the situation in 1796, but Napoleon carries all before him against Sardinia and Austria in northern Italy (1796–1797) near the Po Valley, culminating in the peace of Leoben and the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797).
The First Coalition collapses, leaving only Britain in the field fighting against France.
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A Prussian army invades France later in August 1792.
Parisians, infuriated by the Prussian army capturing Verdun and counter-revolutionary uprisings in the west of France, murder between one thousand and fifteen hundred prisoners by raiding the Parisian prisons in early September; the Assembly and the Paris city council seem unable to stop this bloodshed.
The National Convention, chosen in the first elections under male universal suffrage on September 20, 1792, succeeds the Legislative Assembly and on September 21 abolishes the monarchy by proclaiming the French First Republic.
Ex-king Louis XVI is convicted of treason and guillotined in January 1793.
France had declared war on England and the Dutch Republic in November 1792 and does the same to Spain in March 1793; in the spring of 1793, Austria, Great Britain and the Dutch Republic invade France; in March, France creates a "sister republic" in the "Republic of Mainz".
Meanwhile, France's external wars in 1794 are prospering, for example in what will become Belgium.
In 1795, the government seems to return to indifference towards the desires and needs of the lower classes concerning freedom of (Catholic) religion and fair distribution of food.
Until 1799, politicians, apart from inventing a new parliamentary system (the 'Directory'), busy themselves with dissuading the people from Catholicism and from royalism.
A factionalist feud in the National Convention, smoldering ever since October 1791, comes to a climax with the group of the 'Girondins' being forced to resign and leave the Convention on June 2, 1793.
The counter-revolution, begun in March 1793 in the Vendée, had spread to Brittany, Normandy, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Toulon, and Lyon by July.
The Convention government of Paris between October and December 1793 manages to subdue most internal uprisings with brutal measures at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
Some historians consider the civil war to have lasted until 1796 with a toll of possibly four hundred and fifty thousand lives.
France abolishes slavery in its American colonies in February 1794, but will later reintroduce the insititution.
In addition to the ideological differences between revolutionary France and the monarchical powers of Europe, disputes have continued over the status of Imperial estates in Alsace, and the French authorities have become concerned about the agitation of émigré nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and in the minor states of Germany.
In the end, France declares war on Austria first, with the Assembly voting for war on April 20, 1792, after the presentation of a long list of grievances by the newly appointed foreign minister Dumouriez.
Dumouriez prepares an invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expects the local population to rise against Austrian rule.
However, the revolution has thoroughly disorganized the French army, which has insufficient forces for the invasion.
Its soldiers flee at the first sign of battle, deserting en masse, in one case murdering General Théobald Dillon.
While the revolutionary government frantically raises fresh troops and reorganizes its armies, an allied army under Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, assembles at Koblenz on the Rhine. The invasion commences in July 1792.
Brunswick's army, composed mostly of Prussian veterans, takes the fortresses of Longwy and Verdun.
The Duke no issues a declaration on 25 July 1792, which had been written by the brothers of Louis XVI, that declare his [Brunswick's] intent to restore the French King to his full powers, and to treat any person or town who opposes him as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law.
This motivates the revolutionary army and government to oppose the Prussian invaders by any means necessary, and leads almost immediately to the overthrow of the King by a crowd that storms the Tuileries Palace.
The invaders continue on, but at the Battle of Valmy on September 20, 1792, they come to a stalemate against Dumouriez and Kellermann in which the highly professional French artillery distinguishes itself.
Allthough the battle is a tactical draw, it buys time for the revolutionaries and gives a great boost to French morale.
Furthermore, the Prussians, facing a campaign longer and more costly than predicted, decide against the cost and risk of continued fighting, and determine to retreat from France to preserve their army.
Meanwhile, the French have been successful on several other fronts, occupying Savoy and Nice in Italy, while General Custine invades Germany, capturing Speyer, Worms and Mainz along the Rhine, and reaching as far as Frankfurt.
Dumouriez goes on the offensive in Belgium once again, winning a great victory over the Austrians at Jemappes on November 6, 1792, and occupying the entire country by the beginning of winter.
Other monarchies in Europe had been watching the developments in France with alarm as early as 1791, and have considered intervening, either in support of Louis XVI or to take advantage of the chaos in France.
The ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers of Europe are compounded by continuing disputes over the status of Imperial estates in Alsace, and the French are becoming concerned about the agitation of émigré nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and the minor states of Germany.
In the end, France, charging Austria with sponsoring counterrevolutionary agitation, declares war on Austria first, with the Assembly voting for war on April 20, 1792, after the presentation of a long list of grievances by Charles François Dumouriez, who had joined the French Revolution following army service under the monarchy and become foreign minister in March.
Louis XVI, hoping for Austrian intervention, vetoes emergency measures.
Thomas Paine, undeterred by the government campaign to discredit him, issues his Rights of Man, Part the Second, Combining Principle and Practice in February 1792.
It details a representative government with enumerated social programs to remedy the numbing poverty of commoners through progressive tax measures.
Radically reduced in price to ensure unprecedented circulation, it is sensational in its impact and gives birth to reform societies.
Leopold had initially looked on the Revolution with equanimity, but has become more and more disturbed as the Revolution becomes more radical, although he still hopes to avoid war.
On August 27, Leopold and King Frederick William II of Prussia, in consultation with emigrant French nobles, had issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe in the well-being of Louis and his family, and threatened vague but severe consequences if anything should befall them.
Although Leopold sees the Pillnitz Declaration as a non-committal gesture to placate the sentiments of French monarchists and nobles, it is seen in France as a serious threat and is denounced by the revolutionary leaders.
France eventually issues an ultimatum demanding that the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria under Leopold II, who also is Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, renounce any hostile alliances and withdraw its troops from the French border.
The reply is evasive and the Assembly votes for war on April 20. 1792 against Francis II (who has succeeded Leopold II), after a long list of grievances presented by foreign minister Dumouriez.
However, the revolution has thoroughly disorganized the army, and the forces raised are insufficient for the invasion.
Following the declaration of war, French soldiers desert en masse and, in one case, murder their general, Théobald Dillon, after losing skirmish with Austrian forces outside the city of Lille.
The troops apparently believed that their defeat by the Austrians was the result of a conspiracy on the part of Dillon, whom they called a "traitor and aristocrat."
War, as a consequence of the French Revolution and the formation of the First Coalition against France, is declared between French Saint-Domingue and ...