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French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1792


The French Revolutionary Wars began in 1792.

France declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792. Prussia and other powers had allied themselves with Austria in the expectation of conflict, and thus France faced a coalition and not a single power at the moment when the emigration of nobles, the ferment of the Revolution, and want of materiel and funds had thoroughly disorganised her army.

The army performed poorly in the first engagements. Near Lille (29 April), French soldiers fled at sight of the Austrian outposts and murdered their general Théobald Dillon, whom they accused of treason. The commanders-in-chief of the armies became political "suspects"; and before a serious action had been fought, the three armies commanded respectively by Rochambeau, Lafayette and Luckner had been reorganized into two commanded by Dumouriez and Kellermann. Thus the disciplined soldiers of the Allies had apparently good reason to expect an easy campaign.

On the Rhine, a combined army of Prussians, Austrians, Hessians and French émigrés under the Duke of Brunswick was formed for the invasion of France, flanked by two smaller armies on its right and left, all three being under the supreme command of King Frederick William II of Prussia. In the Southern Netherlands, plans called for the Austrians to besiege Lille, and in the south the Piedmontese also took the field.


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