French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution.

Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East.

Anticipating an attack, France declared war on Prussia and Austria in the spring of 1792 and they responded with a coordinated invasion that was eventually turned back at the Battle of Valmy in September. The invasion continued, but at Valmy on 20 September, the invaders came to a stalemate against Dumouriez and Kellermann in which the highly professional French artillery distinguished itself.

The Battle of Valmy was the first major victory by the army of France during the Revolutionary Wars that followed the French Revolution.

They pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia and several other monarchies.

A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which occurred during the British war with revolutionary France.

A hitherto unknown general named Napoleon Bonaparte began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796.

The Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) were a series of conflicts fought principally in Northern Italy between the French Revolutionary Army and a Coalition of Austria, Russia, Piedmont-Sardinia, and a number of other Italian states.

The French suffered additional defeats in the remainder of the year and these difficult times allowed the Jacobins to rise to power and impose the Reign of Terror to unify the nation.

In 1792–1793 the Girondins were more prominent in leading France, the period when France declared war on Austria and on Prussia, overthrew the monarchy and set up the Republic.

Another crushing French triumph at Hohenlinden in Bavaria forced the Austrians to seek peace for a second time, leading to the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801.

The Battle of Hohenlinden was fought on 3 December 1800, during the French Revolutionary Wars.

However, the Royal Navy had won the Battle of the Nile in 1798, further strengthening British control of the Mediterranean.

Bonaparte sought to invade Egypt as the first step in a campaign against British India, part of a greater effort to drive Britain out of the French Revolutionary Wars.

However, the lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, and the Napoleonic Wars began over a year later with the formation of the Third Coalition, continuing the series of Coalition Wars.

The wars stemmed from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and its resultant conflict.

With Austria and Russia out of the war, the United Kingdom found itself increasingly isolated and agreed to the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleon's government in 1802, concluding the Revolutionary Wars.

The Treaty of Amiens (French: la paix d'Amiens) temporarily ended hostilities between France and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars.

The war began well for the Allies in Europe, where they gradually pushed the French out of Italy and invaded Switzerland – racking up victories at Magnano, Cassano and Novi along the way.

The battle occurred during the War of the Second Coalition which was part of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The reply was evasive, and the Assembly voted for war on 20 April 1792 against Francis II (who succeeded Leopold II), after a long list of grievances presented by foreign minister Charles François Dumouriez.

Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez (26 January 1739 – 14 March 1823) was a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars.

In 1794, the situation improved dramatically for the French as huge victories at Fleurus against the Austrians and at the Black Mountain against the Spanish signaled the start of a new stage in the wars.

The Battle of Fleurus, on 26 June 1794, was an engagement between the army of the First French Republic, under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan and the Coalition Army (Britain, Hanover, Dutch Republic, and Habsburg Monarchy), commanded by Prince Josias of Coburg, in the most significant battle of the Flanders Campaign in the Low Countries during the French Revolutionary Wars.

The war began well for the Allies in Europe, where they gradually pushed the French out of Italy and invaded Switzerland – racking up victories at Magnano, Cassano and Novi along the way.

This action was fought during the War of the Second Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The duke then issued a proclamation called the Brunswick Manifesto (July 1792), written by the French king's cousin, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, the leader of an émigré corps within the Allied army, which declared the Allies' intent to restore the king to his full powers and to treat any person or town who opposed them as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law.

The Army of Condé (Armée de Condé) was a French field army during the French Revolutionary Wars.

However, the lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, and the Napoleonic Wars began over a year later with the formation of the Third Coalition, continuing the series of Coalition Wars.

The term encompasses both the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, though, strictly speaking, it excludes conflicts like the French invasion of Switzerland that did not pit France against a coalition of powers.

The war began well for the Allies in Europe, where they gradually pushed the French out of Italy and invaded Switzerland – racking up victories at Magnano, Cassano and Novi along the way.

The action took place during the War of the Second Coalition during the larger conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars.

However, the lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, and the Napoleonic Wars began over a year later with the formation of the Third Coalition, continuing the series of Coalition Wars.

Europe had been embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars since 1792.

Nonetheless, the Coalition allies launched a determined drive to invade France during the Flanders Campaign.

The Flanders Campaign (or Campaign in the Low Countries) was conducted from 6 November 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the French Revolutionary Wars.

A hitherto unknown general named Napoleon Bonaparte began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796.

Napoléon Bonaparte (, ; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars.

France drafted hundreds of thousands of men, beginning a policy of using mass conscription to deploy more of its manpower than the autocratic states could manage to do (first stage, with a decree of 24 February 1793 ordering the draft of 300,000 men, followed by the general mobilization of all the young men able to be drafted, through the famous decree of 23 August 1793).

The concept originated during the French Revolutionary Wars, particularly for the period following 16 August 1793, when able-bodied men aged 18 to 25 were conscripted.

A series of victories by the new French armies abruptly ended with defeat at Neerwinden in the spring of 1793. Lazare Carnot, a scientist and prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety, organized the fourteen armies of the Republic, and was then nicknamed the Organizer of the Victory.

The French Revolutionary Army (Armée révolutionnaire française) was the French force that fought the French Revolutionary Wars from 1792 to 1802.

Lazare Carnot, a scientist and prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety, organized the fourteen armies of the Republic, and was then nicknamed the Organizer of the Victory.

He was known as the Organizer of Victory in the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars.

The invasion continued, but at Valmy on 20 September, the invaders came to a stalemate against Dumouriez and Kellermann in which the highly professional French artillery distinguished itself.

Marshal Kellermann served in varying roles throughout the entirety of two epochal conflicts, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

As early as 1791, the other monarchies of Europe looked with outrage at the revolution and its upheavals; and they considered whether they should intervene, either in support of King Louis XVI, to prevent the spread of revolution, or to take advantage of the chaos in France.

His disastrous flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention.

Dumouriez prepared an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected the local population to rise against Austrian rule as they had earlier in 1790.

The Austrian reestablishment was short-lived, however, and the territory was soon overrun by the French during the French Revolutionary Wars.