War of the First Coalition
France declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792, and the conflict quickly expanded: Prussia joined Austria in July, and after the Republic's execution of Louis XVI in January 1793, Britain, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, and Naples all entered the war, forming the First Coalition. Initial French campaigns were chaotic; the regular army had been disrupted by the emigration of royalist officers, and the revolutionary enthusiasm of new volunteers could not compensate for lack of training and coordination. By the summer of 1792 Prussian forces had crossed into France and the fall of Paris seemed imminent — the atmosphere that produced the September Massacres and the overthrow of the monarchy. The unexpected French victory at Valmy on 20 September halted the Prussian advance, and France's subsequent recovery was remarkable: the levée en masse of August 1793 mobilised some 750,000 men, the largest army Europe had seen, and French forces advanced into the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), the left bank of the Rhine, and northern Italy. The war would not end until the Treaty of Campo Formio with Austria in 1797 — but it transformed both France and Europe, creating the mass citizen army and the nationalist military energy that would define the Napoleonic era.
- Year: 1792 CE
- Category: Military
