The War of the First Coalition was the first major effort of multiple European
monarchies to defeat Revolutionary France. France declared war on the
Habsburg monarchy of Austria on 20 April 1792, and the Kingdom of Prussia joined
the Austrian side a few weeks later. These powers initiated 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 suffered reverses and
internal strife, and responded with extreme measures: the Committee of
Public Safety formed and the levée en masse drafted all potential soldiers
aged 18 to 25. The new French armies counter-attacked, repelled the invaders,
and moved beyond France. French arms established the Batavian Republic as a
satellite state and gained the Prussian Rhineland by the first Treaty of Basel.
With the Treaty of Campo Formio, the Holy Roman Empire ceded the Austrian
Netherlands to France and Northern Italy was turned into several French "Sister
Republics". Spain made a separate peace accord with France and the French
Directory carried out plans to conquer more of the Holy Roman Empire of the
German Nation. North of the Alps, Archduke Charles of
Austria redressed the situation in 1796, but General Bonaparte carried all before
him against Sardinia and Austria in northern Italy near the Po Valley,
culminating in the peace of Leoben and the Treaty of Campo Formio. The First
Coalition collapsed, leaving only Britain in the field fighting against
France. Revolutionary violence in France
As early as 1791 the other monarchies of Europe watched with alarm the
developments in France, and considered whether they should intervene, either in
support of Louis XVI or to take advantage of the chaos in France. The
key figure, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, brother to the French Queen
Marie Antoinette, had initially looked on the Revolution calmly. He became more
and more disturbed as the Revolution became more radical, although he still
hoped to avoid war. On 27 August 1791, Leopold and King Frederick William II of
Prussia, in consultation with emigrant French nobles, 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 saw the Pillnitz Declaration as
a way of taking action that would enable him to avoid actually doing anything
about France, at least for the moment, Paris saw the Declaration as a serious
threat, and the revolutionary leaders denounced it.
In addition to the ideological differences between France and the
monarchical powers of Europe, disputes continued over the status of Imperial
estates in Alsace, and the French authorities started to become concerned
about the agitation of emigré nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian
Netherlands and in the minor states of Germany. In the end, France declared war
on Austria first, with the Assembly voting for war on 20 April 1792, after
the presentation of a long list of grievances by the newly appointed
foreign minister Dumouriez. Early setbacks for France
Dumouriez prepared an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he
expected the local population to rise against Austrian rule. However, the
revolution had thoroughly disorganized the French army, which had insufficient
forces for the invasion. The soldiers fled at the first sign of battle,
deserting en masse, and in one case murdering Théobald Dillon, their
general. While the revolutionary government
frantically raised fresh troops and reorganized its armies, an allied army
under Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick assembled at Koblenz on the
Rhine. In July 1792 the invasion commenced. Brunswick's army, composed
mostly of Prussian veterans, took the fortresses of Longwy and Verdun. The
Duke then issued a declaration on 25 July 1792, which had been written by the
brothers of Louis XVI, that declared his [Brunswick's] 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. This motivated the
revolutionary army and government to oppose the invaders by any means
necessary, and led almost immediately to the overthrow of the King by a crowd
which stormed the Tuileries Palace. Tide turns in France's direction
The invaders continued, but at Valmy on 20 September 1792 they came to a
stalemate against Dumouriez and Kellermann in which the highly
professional French artillery distinguished itself. Although the
battle was a tactical draw, it gave a great boost to French morale.
Furthermore, the Prussians, facing a campaign longer and more costly than
predicted, decided against the cost and risk of continued fighting, and
determined to retreat from France to preserve their army.
Meanwhile, the French had been successful on several other fronts,
occupying Savoy and Nice in Italy, while General Custine invaded Germany,
capturing Speyer, Worms and Mainz along the Rhine, and reaching as far as
Frankfurt. Dumouriez went on the offensive in Belgium once again, winning
a great victory over the Austrians at Jemappes on 6 November 1792, and
occupying the entire country by the beginning of winter.
1793 On 21 January the revolutionary
government executed Louis XVI after a trial. This united all European
governments, including Spain, Naples, and the Netherlands against the
Revolution. France declared war against Britain and the Netherlands on 1
February 1793 and soon afterwards against Spain. In the course of the year
1793 the Empire, the kings of Portugal and Naples and the grand-duke of Tuscany
declared war against France. Thus the First Coalition was formed.
France introduced a new levy of hundreds of thousands of men, beginning a French
policy of using mass conscription to deploy more of its manpower than the
other states could, and remaining on the offensive so that these mass armies
could commandeer war material from the territory of their enemies. The French
government sent Citizen Genet to the United States to encourage them into
entering the war on France's side. The newly formed nation refused and remained
neutral throughout the conflict. 1794
1794 brought increased success to the revolutionary armies. Although an
invasion of Piedmont failed, an invasion of Spain across the Pyrenees took San
Sebastián, and the French won a victory at the Battle of Fleurus, occupying all
of Belgium and the Rhineland. Action extended into the French colonies
in the West Indies. A British fleet successfully captured Martinique, St.
Lucia, and Guadeloupe, although a French fleet arrived later in the year and
recovered the latter. 1795
After seizing the Low Countries in a surprise winter attack, France
established the Batavian Republic as a puppet state. Even before the close of
1794 the king of Prussia retired from any active part in the war, and on the 5
April 1795 he concluded with France the Peace of Basel, which recognized
France's occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. The new French-dominated
Dutch government bought peace by surrendering Dutch territory to the
south of that river. A treaty of peace between France and Spain followed in
April. The grand duke of Tuscany had been admitted to terms in February. The
coalition thus fell into ruin and France proper would be free from invasion for
many years. Britain attempted to reinforce the
rebels in the Vendée by landing French Royalist troops at Quiberon, but failed,
and attempts to overthrow the government at Paris by force were foiled by the
military garrison led by Napoleon Bonaparte, leading to the establishment
of the Directory. On the Rhine frontier, General Pichegru,
negotiating with the exiled Royalists, betrayed his army and forced the
evacuation of Mannheim and the failure of the siege of Mainz by Jourdan.
1796 The French prepared a great advance on
three fronts, with Jourdan and Jean Victor Marie Moreau on the Rhine, and
Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy. The three armies were to link up in Tyrol and
march on Vienna. In the Rhine Campaign of 1796, Jourdan
and Moreau crossed the Rhine River and advanced into Germany. Jourdan advanced
as far as Amberg in late August while Moreau reached Bavaria and the edge of
Tyrol by September. However Jourdan was defeated by Archduke Charles, Duke of
Teschen and both armies were forced to retreat back across the Rhine.
Napoleon, on the other hand, was completely successful in a daring
invasion of Italy. In the Montenotte Campaign, he separated the armies of
Sardinia and Austria, defeating each one in turn, and then forced a peace on
Sardinia. Following this, his army captured Milan and started the Siege of
Mantua. Bonaparte defeated successive Austrian armies sent against him under
Johann Peter Beaulieu, Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser and József Alvinczi while
continuing the siege. The rebellion in the Vendée was also
finally crushed in 1796 by Louis Lazare Hoche. Hoche's subsequent attempt to
land a large invasion force in Munster to aid the United Irishmen was
unsuccessful. 1797
On 2 February Napoleon finally captured Mantua, with the Austrians surrendering
18,000 men. Archduke Charles of Austria was unable to stop Napoleon from
invading the Tyrol, and the Austrian government sued for peace in April. At
the same time there was a new French invasion of Germany under Moreau and
Hoche. On 22 February, a French invasion force
consisting of 1,400 troops from the La Legion Noire under the command of Irish
American Colonel William Tate landed near Fishguard in Wales. They were met
by a quickly assembled group of around 500 British reservists, militia and
sailors under the command of John Campbell, 1st Baron Cawdor. After brief
clashes with the local civilian population and Lord Cawdor's forces on
23 February, Tate was forced into an unconditional surrender by 24 February.
Austria signed the Treaty of Campo Formio in October, ceding Belgium to
France and recognizing French control of the Rhineland and much of Italy. The
ancient Republic of Venice was partitioned between Austria and France.
This ended the War of the First Coalition, although Great Britain and
France remained at war. See also
War of the Second Coalition Notes
References Hannay, David. "French Revolutionary
Wars". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press.
Holland, Arthur William. "French Revolution, The". In Chisholm, Hugh.
Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press.
External links