French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) carried the upheaval of the French Revolution across Europe, pitting revolutionary France in turn against Austria, Prussia, Britain, Spain, Russia and the other powers of two coalitions. Beginning with the declaration of war on Austria in April 1792 and the threatened invasion that radicalised the Revolution itself, the wars passed through the crisis of 1793, the mass levy that created Europe's largest army, and a decade of campaigning in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Italy, Egypt and the Caribbean. The War of the First Coalition collapsed by 1797 after Bonaparte's victories in Italy; the War of the Second Coalition ended with the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, which left France dominant on the continent. Peace lasted barely a year; the same quarrels resumed as the Napoleonic Wars, and the mass armies, the generals and the institutions forged between 1792 and 1802 would march and fight on until 1815.