Biography of french revolutionary wars 1792

In any event, the new constitution was suspended until France was at peace. In early , royalist planters from Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue formed an alliance with Britain. White planters loyal to the republic sent representatives to Paris to convince the Jacobin controlled Convention that those calling for the abolition of slavery were British agents and supporters of Brissot, hoping to disrupt trade.

In June, the commissioners in Saint-Domingue freed 10, slaves fighting for the republic. As the royalists and their British and Spanish supporters were also offering freedom for slaves willing to fight for their cause, the commissioners outbid them by abolishing slavery in the north in August, and throughout the colony in October. Representatives were sent to Paris to gain the approval of the convention for the decision.

The Convention voted for the abolition of slavery in the colonies on 4 February and decreed that all residents of the colonies had the full rights of French citizens irrespective of colour. The army recruited former slaves and eventually numbered 11,, capturing Guadeloupe and other smaller islands. Abolition was also proclaimed on Guyane.

In republican controlled areas from to , freed slaves were required to work on their former plantations or for their former masters if they were in domestic service. They were paid a wage and gained property rights. Newspapers and pamphlets played a central role in stimulating and defining the Revolution. Prior to , there have been a small number of heavily censored newspapers that needed a royal licence to operate, but the Estates-General created an enormous demand for news, and over newspapers appeared by the end of the year.

Most lasted only a matter of weeks but they became the main communication medium, combined with the very large pamphlet literature. Newspapers were read aloud in taverns and clubs, and circulated hand to hand. There was a widespread assumption that writing was a vocation, not a business, and the role of the press was the advancement of civic republicanism.

To illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbols. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics.

These revised symbols were used to instil in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic. It acquired its nickname after being sung in Paris by volunteers from Marseille marching on the capital. The song is the first example of the "European march" anthemic style, while the evocative melody and lyrics led to its widespread use as a song of revolution and incorporation into many pieces of classical and popular music.

De Lisle was instructed to 'produce a hymn which conveys to the soul of the people the enthusiasm which it the music suggests. The guillotine remains "the principal symbol of the Terror in the French Revolution. It was celebrated on the left as the people's avenger, for example in the revolutionary song La guillotine permanente , [ ] and cursed as the symbol of the Terror by the right.

Its operation became a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. Vendors sold programmes listing the names of those scheduled to die. Many people came day after day and vied for the best locations from which to observe the proceedings; knitting women tricoteuses formed a cadre of hardcore regulars, inciting the crowd.

Parents often brought their children. By the end of the Terror, the crowds had thinned drastically. Repetition had staled even this most grisly of entertainments, and audiences grew bored. Cockades were widely worn by revolutionaries beginning in Camille Desmoulins asked his followers to wear green cockades on 12 July The Paris militia, formed on 13 July, adopted a blue and red cockade.

Blue and red are the traditional colours of Paris, and they are used on the city's coat of arms. Cockades with various colour schemes were used during the storming of the Bastille on 14 July. The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap , or pileus , is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. It reflects Roman republicanism and liberty, alluding to the Roman ritual of manumission , in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty.

Despite this, the and constitutions denied them political rights and democratic citizenship. In , the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women campaigned for strict price controls on bread, and a law that would compel all women to wear the tricolour cockade. Although both demands were successful, in October the male-dominated Jacobins who then controlled the government denounced the Society as dangerous rabble-rousers and made all women's clubs and associations illegal.

Organised women were permanently shut out of the French Revolution after 30 October At the same time, especially in the provinces, women played a prominent role in resisting social changes introduced by the Revolution. This was particularly so in terms of the reduced role of the Catholic Church; for those living in rural areas, closing of the churches meant a loss of normality.

Olympe de Gouges was an author whose publications emphasised that while women and men were different, this should not prevent equality under the law. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen she insisted women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children.

Madame Roland , also known as Manon or Marie Roland, was another important female activist whose political focus was not specifically women but other aspects of the government. A Girondist, her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join.

She too was executed in November The government seized the foundations that had been set up starting in the 13th century to provide an annual stream of revenue for hospitals, poor relief, and education. The state sold the lands but typically local authorities did not replace the funding and so most of the nation's charitable and school systems were massively disrupted.

Between and , industrial and agricultural output dropped, foreign trade plunged, and prices soared, forcing the government to finance expenditure by issuing ever increasing quantities assignats. When this resulted in escalating inflation, the response was to impose price controls and persecute private speculators and traders, creating a black market.

The assignats were withdrawn in but inflation continued until the introduction of the gold-based Franc germinal in The French Revolution had a major impact on western history, by ending feudalism in France and creating a path for advances in individual freedoms throughout Europe. The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarising politics for more than a century.

The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. The revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived. Hanson suggests the French underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by intrinsic human rights.

According to Paul Hanson, "Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option. The Revolution meant an end to arbitrary royal rule and held out the promise of rule by law under a constitutional order. Napoleon as emperor set up a constitutional system and the restored Bourbons were forced to retain one. However, there were no efforts by the Bourbons, Vichy or any other government to restore the privileges that had been stripped away from the nobility in France permanently became a society of equals under the law.

Agriculture was transformed by the Revolution. With the breakup of large estates controlled by the Church and the nobility and worked by hired hands, rural France became more a land of small independent farms. Harvest taxes were ended, such as the tithe and seigneurial dues. Primogeniture was ended both for nobles and peasants, thereby weakening the family patriarch, and led to a fall in the birth rate since all children had a share in the family property.

Economic historians are divided on the economic impact of the Revolution. One suggestion is the resulting fragmentation of agricultural holdings had a significant negative impact in the early years of 19th century, then became positive in the second half of the century because it facilitated the rise in human capital investments.

In the cities, entrepreneurship on a small scale flourished, as restrictive monopolies, privileges, barriers, rules, taxes and guilds gave way. However, the British blockade virtually ended overseas and colonial trade, hurting the cities and their supply chains. Overall, the Revolution did not greatly change the French business system, and probably helped freeze in place the horizons of the small business owner.

The typical businessman owned a small store, mill or shop, with family help and a few paid employees; large-scale industry was less common than in other industrialising nations. Historians often see the impact of the Revolution as through the institutions and ideas exported by Napoleon. Robinson the French Revolution had long-term effects in Europe.

They suggest that "areas that were occupied by the French and that underwent radical institutional reform experienced more rapid urbanization and economic growth, especially after There is no evidence of a negative effect of French invasion. The Revolution sparked intense debate in Britain. Edmund Burke responded in November with his own pamphlet, Reflections on the Revolution in France , attacking the French Revolution as a threat to the aristocracy of all countries.

Conversely, two seminal political pieces of political history were written in Price's favour, supporting the general right of the French people to replace their State. Wollstonecraft's title was echoed by Thomas Paine 's Rights of Man , published a few months later. In Christopher Wyvill published Defence of Dr. Price and the Reformers of England , a plea for reform and moderation.

In Ireland, the effect was to transform what had been an attempt by Protestant settlers to gain some autonomy into a mass movement led by the Society of United Irishmen involving Catholics and Protestants. It stimulated the demand for further reform throughout Ireland, especially in Ulster. The upshot was a revolt in , led by Wolfe Tone , that was crushed by Britain.

German reaction to the Revolution swung from favourable to antagonistic. At first it brought liberal and democratic ideas, the end of guilds, serfdom and the Jewish ghetto. It brought economic freedoms and agrarian and legal reform. Above all the antagonism helped stimulate and shape German nationalism. France invaded Switzerland and turned it into the " Helvetic Republic " — , a French puppet state.

French interference with localism and traditions was deeply resented in Switzerland, although some reforms took hold and survived in the later period of restoration. During the Revolutionary Wars, the French invaded and occupied the region now known as Belgium between and The new government enforced reforms, incorporating the region into France.

Resistance was strong in every sector, as Belgian nationalism emerged to oppose French rule. The French legal system, however, was adopted, with its equal legal rights, and abolition of class distinctions. The Kingdom of Denmark adopted liberalising reforms in line with those of the French Revolution. Reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders.

Much of the initiative came from well-organised liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century. The Constitution of Norway of was inspired by the French Revolution, [ ] and was considered to be one of the most liberal and democratic constitutions at the time. Initially, most people in the Province of Quebec were favourable toward the revolutionaries' aims.

The Revolution took place against the background of an ongoing campaign for constitutional reform in the colony by Loyalist emigrants from the United States. Only a limited number of artisans, professionals, and religious emigres were allowed to settle in the region during this period. In , as war broke out in Europe, the Democratic-Republican Party led by former American minister to France Thomas Jefferson favored revolutionary France and pointed to the treaty that was still in effect.

George Washington and his unanimous cabinet, including Jefferson, decided that the treaty did not bind the United States to enter the war. Washington proclaimed neutrality instead. The first writings on the French revolution were near contemporaneous with events and mainly divided along ideological lines. By the mid-nineteenth century, more scholarly histories appeared, written by specialists and based on original documents and a more critical assessment of contemporary accounts.

Dupuy identifies three main strands in nineteenth century historiography of the Revolution. The first is represented by reactionary writers who rejected the revolutionary ideals of popular sovereignty, civil equality, and the promotion of rationality, progress and personal happiness over religious faith. The second stream is those writers who celebrated its democratic, and republican values.

Jules Michelet was a leading 19th-century historian of the democratic republican strand, and Thiers , Mignet and Tocqueville were prominent in the liberal strand. The broad distinction between conservative, democratic-republican and liberal interpretations of the Revolution persisted in the 20th-century, although historiography became more nuanced, with greater attention to critical analysis of documentary evidence.

Socio-economic analysis and a focus on the experiences of ordinary people dominated French studies of the Revolution from the s. Alfred Cobban challenged Jacobin-Marxist social and economic explanations of the revolution in two important works, The Myth of the French Revolution and Social Interpretation of the French Revolution He argued the Revolution was primarily a political conflict, which ended in a victory for conservative property owners, a result which retarded economic development.

From the s, Western scholars largely abandoned Marxist interpretations of the revolution in terms of bourgeoisie-proletarian class struggle as anachronistic. However, no new explanatory model has gained widespread support. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version.

In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikibooks Wikiquote Wikidata item. Revolution in France from to For other uses, see French Revolution disambiguation. The Storming of the Bastille , 14 July Part of a series on the. Middle Ages. Early modern. Long 19th century. Main article: Causes of the French Revolution. Financial and political crisis.

Main article: Estates General of in France. Constitutional monarchy July — September Main article: Storming of the Bastille. Creating a new constitution. By class. Bourgeois Communist Counter-revolutionary Democratic Proletarian. By other characteristic. The Revolution and the Church. Main article: Flight to Varennes. First Republic — Proclamation of the First Republic.

Main article: National Convention. Political crisis and fall of the Girondins. Main article: Reign of Terror. Main article: Thermidorian Reaction. The Directory — Main article: French Directory. Anti-monarchism Anti-corruption Civic virtue Civil society Consent of the governed Democracy Democratization Liberty as non-domination Mixed government Political representation Popular sovereignty Public participation Republic Res publica Rule of law Self-governance Separation of powers Social contract Social equality.

Theoretical works. Republic c. National variants. Related topics. French Revolutionary Wars. Main article: French Revolutionary Wars. Main article: Symbolism in the French Revolution. Main article: La Marseillaise. La Marseillaise. The French national anthem La Marseillaise ; text in French. Problems playing this file? See media help.

Main article: Guillotine. Cockade, tricolore , and liberty cap. Main article: Influence of the French Revolution. Main article: Historiography of the French Revolution. Hippolyte Taine , conservative historian of the French Revolution. Georges Lefebvre , Marxist historian of the French Revolution. Archived from the original on 15 June Retrieved 16 July Department of History.

Archived from the original on 29 January Retrieved 25 January British Museum. Archived from the original on 9 April Retrieved 9 April The text is from the French original, but Newton invented the images of the dancing soldiers himself. History Press. ISBN OL M. Alexander, ed. Cambridge Core. June American Economic Review. ISSN S2CID Archived PDF from the original on 12 December Princeton University Press.

French History. Archived from the original on 29 July Retrieved 29 July The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Archived from the original on 14 August Retrieved 3 January European Review of History. Andress, David Farrar Straus Giroux. Andress, David, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Baker, Keith Michael Journal of Modern History. JSTOR In Van Kley, Dale K. Stanford University Press. OL W. Barton, HA French Historical Studies. Behrens, Betty Bell, David A. Critical Review. Betros, Gemma History Today Archived from the original on 18 March Retrieved 19 October Blanning, Timothy C. The French Revolutionary Wars: — Hodder Arnold.

Brezis, Elise S. Journal of European Economic History. Brown, Howard G. University of Virginia Press. Oxford University Press. Cerulo, Karen A. Sociological Forum. Censer, Jack; Hunt, Lynn Pennsylvania State University Press. Chanel, Gerri Studia Historica Gedansia. Archived from the original on 21 September Retrieved 20 September Chapman, Jane Chisick, Harvey History of European Ideas.

Wurmser's only sortie was late and ineffectual. This prevented the Spanish fleet from rendezvousing with the French, removing a threat of invasion to Britain. However, the British fleet was weakened over the rest of the year by the Spithead and Nore mutinies, which kept many ships in port through the summer. They were met by a quickly assembled group of around 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 February 23, Tate was forced into an unconditional surrender by February In Italy, Napoleon 's armies were laying siege to Mantua at the beginning of the year. A second attempt by Austrians under Joseph Alvinczy to raise the siege was driven off at the Battle of Rivoli, where the French scored a decisive victory.

Finally, on February 2, Wurmser surrendered Mantua and 18, troops. The Papal forces sued for peace, which was granted at Tolentino on February Napoleon was now free to attack the Austrian heartland. Archduke Charles of Austria hurried from the German front to defend Austria, but he was defeated at the Tagliamento on March Napoleon proceeded into Austria, occupying Klagenfurt and preparing for a rendezvous with Joubert in front of Vienna.

In Germany, the armies of Hoche and Moreau crossed the Rhine again in April after the previous year's failure. The victories of Napoleon had frightened the Austrians into making peace, and they concluded the Peace of Leoben in April, ending hostilities. However, his absence from Italy had allowed the outbreak of the revolt known as the Veronese Easters on April 17, which was put down eight days later.

Although Britain remained at war with France, this effectively ended the First Coalition. Austria and France also partitioned Venice between them. With only Britain left to fight and not enough of a navy to fight a direct war, Napoleon conceived of an invasion of Egypt in , which satisfied his personal desire for glory and the Directory's desire to have him far from Paris.

The military objective of the expedition is not entirely clear, but may have been to threaten British dominance in India. Napoleon sailed from Toulon to Alexandria , taking Malta on the way, landing in June. Marching to Cairo , he won a great victory at the Battle of the Pyramids ; however, his fleet was sunk by Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, stranding him in Egypt.

Napoleon spent the remainder of the year consolidating his position in Egypt. The French government also took advantage of internal strife in Switzerland to invade, establishing the Helvetic Republic and annexing Geneva. An expeditionary force was sent to County Mayo, in Ireland, to assist in the rebellion against Britain in the summer of It had some success against British forces, most notably at Castlebar, but was ultimately routed while trying to reach Dublin.

French ships sent to assist them were captured by the Royal Navy off County Donegal. The French were also under pressure in the Southern Netherlands and Luxembourg, where the local people revolted against conscription and anti-religious violence Peasants' War. The French had taken this territory in , but it was officially theirs in due to a treaty with Austria.

The French forces easily handled the Peasants' rebellion in the Southern Netherlands, and were able to put down the revolting forces in under 2 months. Britain and Austria organized a new coalition against France in , including for the first time the Russian Empire, although no action occurred until except against the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The Allies took the opportunity presented by the French effort in the Middle East to regain territories lost from the First Coalition. The war began well for the Allies in Europe. They gradually pushed the French out of Italy and invaded Switzerland — racking up victories at Magnano, Cassano and Novi. However, their efforts largely unraveled with the French victory at Zurich in September , forcing Russia to drop out of the war.

These victories in Egypt further enhanced Napoleon's popularity back in France. He returned in triumph in the autumn of , although the Egyptian Campaign ultimately ended in failure. In addition, the Royal Navy had won the Battle of the Nile in , further strengthening British control of the Mediterranean and weakening the French Navy. Napoleon's arrival from Egypt led to the fall of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, with Napoleon installing himself as Consul.

Napoleon then reorganized the French army and launched a new assault against the Austrians in Italy during the spring of This brought a decisive French victory at the Battle of Marengo in June , after which the Austrians withdrew from the peninsula once again. With Austria and Russia out of the war, Britain found itself increasingly isolated and agreed to the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleon's government in , concluding the 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. In Egypt, Napoleon had consolidated his control of the country. Soon after the beginning of the year, he mounted an invasion of Syria, capturing El Arish and Jaffa.

By May, with plague rampant in his army and no sign of success against the city, Napoleon was forced to retreat into Egypt. In July, Turkey, with the help of the British navy, mounted an invasion by sea from Rhodes. Napoleon attacked the Turkish beachheads and scored a crushing victory at the Battle of Abukir, capturing and killing the entire enemy army.

In August, Napoleon decided to return to Europe, hearing of the political and military crisis in France. The following day, it was renamed the Army of the Danube. This column eventually became the left flank. The major part of the imperial army, under command of the Archduke Charles, had wintered immediately east of the Lech, which Jourdan knew, because he had sent agents into Germany with instructions to identify the location and strength of his enemy.

This was less than 64 kilometers 40 mi distant. Any passage over the Lech was facilitated by available bridges, both of permanent construction and temporary pontoons and a traverse through friendly territory. In March , the Army of the Danube engaged in two major battles, both in the southwestern German theater. At the second battle, in Stockach, on March 27, , the Austrian army achieved a decisive victory over the French forces, and again pushed the French army west.

Jourdan instructed his generals to take up positions in the Black Forest. He established a base at Hornberg. From there, General Jourdan relegated command of the army to his chief of staff, Jean Augustin Ernouf, and traveled to Paris to ask for more and better troops and, ultimately, to request a medical leave. Following the reorganization and change in command, the Army participated in several skirmishes and actions on the eastern part of the Swiss Plateau, including the Battle of Winterthur.

In late summer, , Charles was ordered to support imperial activities in the middle Rhineland. Although the highly capable Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze remained in support, his 15, men were not able to counter Korsakov's poor defensive arrangements. This left Massena in control of northern Switzerland, and forced Suvorov into an arduous three-week march into the Vorarlberg, where his troops arrived in mid-October, starving and exhausted.

Napoleon himself invaded Syria from Egypt, but after a failed siege of Acre retreated to Egypt, repelling a British-Turkish invasion. Alerted to the political and military crisis in France, he returned, leaving his army behind. He used his popularity and army support to mount a coup that made him First Consul, the head of the French government.

In Italy, the Austrians under General Melas attacked first, and by the third week in April had advanced to the Var, with Massena and half his army in Genoa besieged by land by the Austrians, and under tight blockade by the Royal Navy. In response Berthier moved — not to the threatened frontier, but to Geneva — and Massena was instructed to hold Genoa until June 4.

The bulk of the army crossed by the Great St Bernard Pass, still under snow, and by May 24, 40, troops were in the valley of the Po. Artillery was man-hauled over with great effort and ingenuity, but an Austrian-held fort on the Italian side although bypassed by infantry and cavalry prevented most of the artillery reaching the plains of Northern Italy until the start of June.

Once over the Alps, Napoleon did not proceed directly to the relief of Genoa. Instead, he advanced on Milan , to improve his lines of communication via the Simplon and St Gotthard passes and to threaten Melas's lines of communication with Mantua and Vienna. He believed that this would cause Melas to raise the siege of Genoa. He entered Milan on June 2.

By crossing to the South bank of the Po he completely cut off Melas's communications. Taking up a strong defensive position at Stradella, he confidently awaited an attempt by the Austrian Army to fight its way out. Napoleon then faced the possibility that, thanks to the British command of the Mediterranean, far from falling back, the Austrians could instead take Genoa as their new base and be supplied by sea.

His defensive posture would not prevent it. He had to find and attack the Austrians before they could regroup. He advanced from Stradella towards Alessandria, where Melas apparently was doing nothing. Convinced that Melas was about to retreat, Napoleon sent strong detachments to block Melas's routes northwards to the Po, and southwards to Genoa.

At this point, Melas attacked, and for all the brilliance of the previous campaign, Napoleon found himself at a significant disadvantage in the consequent Battle of Marengo June Napoleon and the French came under huge pressure in the early hours of the battle. Melas believed he had already won and turned over delivery of the final blow to a subordinate.

Suddenly, the prompt return of a detached French force under Desaix and a vigorous French counter-attack converted the battle into a decisive French victory. The Austrians lost half of their army, but Desaix was one of the French victims. When the armistice ended, John advanced over the Inn towards Munich. His army was defeated in small engagements at the battles of Ampfing and Neuburg an der Donau , and decisively in the forests before the city at Hohenlinden on 3 December.

Moreau began a march on Vienna , and the Austrians soon sued for peace, ending the war on the continent. The exhausted French force in Egypt, however, surrendered in August. The naval war also continued, with the United Kingdom maintaining a blockade of France by sea. Non-combatants Russia, Prussia , Denmark-Norway , and Sweden joined to protect neutral shipping from British attacks, but were unsuccessful.

British Admiral Horatio Nelson defied orders and attacked the Danish fleet in harbour at the Battle of Copenhagen , destroying much of it. An armistice prevented him from continuing into the Baltic Sea to attack the Russian fleet at Reval Tallinn. Meanwhile, off Gibraltar , the outnumbered French squadron under Linois rebuffed a first British attack under Saumarez in the First Battle of Algeciras , capturing a line-of-battle ship.

In the Second Battle of Algeciras , four days later, the British captured a French ship and sank two others, killing around French for the loss of 12 British. In , the British and French signed the Treaty of Amiens , ending the war. The peace held for less than a year but still constituted the longest period of peace between the two countries during the period — The treaty is generally considered to be the most appropriate point to mark the transition between the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars , although Napoleon was not crowned emperor until The French Revolution transformed nearly all aspects of French and European life.

Eighteenth-century armies — with their rigid protocols, static operational strategy, unenthusiastic soldiers, and aristocratic officer classes — underwent massive remodeling as the French monarchy and nobility gave way to liberal assemblies obsessed with external threats. The fundamental shifts in warfare that occurred during the period have prompted scholars to identify the era as the beginning of "modern war".

In the Legislative Assembly passed the "Drill-Book" legislation, implementing a series of infantry doctrines created by French theorists because of their defeat by the Prussians in the Seven Years' War. Following the declaration of war in , an imposing array of enemies converging on French borders prompted the government in Paris to adopt radical measures.

By summer of the following year, conscription made some , men available for service and the French began to deal blows to their European enemies. Armies during the Revolution became noticeably larger than their Holy Roman counterparts, and combined with the new enthusiasm of the troops, the tactical and strategic opportunities became profound. By the French had defeated the First Coalition , occupied the Low Countries, the west bank of the Rhine, and Northern Italy, objectives which had defied the Valois and Bourbon dynasties for centuries.

Unsatisfied with the results, many European powers formed a Second Coalition , but by this too had been decisively beaten. Another key aspect of French success was the changes wrought in the officer classes. Traditionally, European armies left major command positions to those who could be trusted, namely, the aristocracy. The hectic nature of the French Revolution, however, tore apart France's old army, meaning new men were required to become officers and commanders.

In addition to opening a flood of tactical and strategic opportunities, the Revolutionary Wars also laid the foundation for modern military theory. Later authors who wrote about "nations in arms" drew inspiration from the French Revolution, in which dire circumstances seemingly mobilized the entire French nation for war and incorporated nationalism into the fabric of military history.

Clausewitz correctly analyzed the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras to give posterity a thorough and complete theory of war that emphasized struggles between nations occurring everywhere, from the battlefield to the legislative assemblies, and to the very way that people think. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Biography of french revolutionary wars 1792

Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. French Revolutionary Wars. Anglo-French Wars. Geopolitical context [ edit ]. War of the First Coalition [ edit ]. Main article: War of the First Coalition. See also: List of battles of the War of the First Coalition.

See also: Campaigns of in the French Revolutionary Wars. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. April Learn how and when to remove this message. Capture of the Dutch fleet by the French hussars. This section needs additional citations for verification.

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. General Bonaparte and his troops crossing the bridge of Arcole. Napoleon Bonaparte defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Lodi. War of the Second Coalition [ edit ]. Main article: War of the Second Coalition. Influence [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. Footnotes [ edit ].

Notes [ edit ]. Many other Italian states, as well as other Habsburg ruled states such as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany , had close ties with the Habsburgs. Constitutional monarchy was suspended on 10 August following the assault on the Tuileries, and abolished 21 September References [ edit ]. Only counting frontline army troops, not naval personnel, militiamen, or reserves; the National Guard alone was supposed to provide a reserve of 1,, men in Retrieved 28 February The French Revolutionary Wars.

ISBN A history of England in the eighteenth century. University of California Libraries. London: Longmans, Green. The French Wars — OL M. Retrieved 18 July The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Soldiers of the French Revolution. The Art of War of Revolutionary France, — On War. Translated by Howard, Michael. David Campbell.

Napoleon in Egypt: The Greatest Glory. A Memoir of the operations of the army of the Danube under the command of General Jourdan, taken from the manuscripts of that officer. London: Debrett, Mal — Feier am Wochenende. Wie ein Dorf zum Kriegsschauplatz wurde. Mai Edinburg: Turnbull, , vol. Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon's Rise to Power. Life of Napoleon.

Napoleonic Wars Databook. London: Greenhill Press. Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict. The Campaigns of Napoleon. The Cambridge history of warfare. Princeton University Press. Works cited [ edit ]. Black, Jeremy British Foreign Policy in an Age of Revolutions, — Cambridge University Press. Blanning, T. The French Revolutionary Wars, — Clodfelter, M.

Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. Lefebvre, Georges The French Revolution. II: from to Further reading [ edit ]. In Chisholm, Hugh ed. The first total war: Napoleon's Europe and the birth of warfare as we know it Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Bertaud, Jean-Paul. Bryant, Arthur. Years of Endurance — ; on Britain Bryant, Arthur.

Years of victory, — ; on Britain Clausewitz, Carl von Napoleon's Italian Campaign. Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas.