The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797 initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that succeeded it. They were only loosely allied and fought without much apparent coordination or agreement; each power had its eye on a different part of France it wanted to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurred.
Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez was a French military officer, minister of Foreign Affairs, minister of War in a Girondin cabinet and army general during the French Revolutionary War. Dumouriez is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 3.
The Battle of Jemappes took place near the town of Jemappes in Hainaut, Austrian Netherlands, near Mons during the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. One of the first major offensive battles of the war, it was a victory for the armies of the infant French Republic, and saw the French Armée du Nord, which included many inexperienced volunteers, defeat a substantially smaller regular Austrian army.
The Battle of Valmy, also known as the Cannonade of Valmy, was the first major victory by the army of France during the Revolutionary Wars that followed the French Revolution. The battle took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris. Generals François Kellermann and Charles Dumouriez stopped the advance near the northern village of Valmy in Champagne-Ardenne.
The Battle of Neerwinden saw a Republican French army led by Charles François Dumouriez attack a Coalition army commanded by Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. The Coalition army of the Habsburg monarchy together with a small contingent of allied Dutch Republic troops repulsed all French assaults after bitter fighting and Dumouriez conceded defeat, withdrawing from the field. The French position in the Austrian Netherlands swiftly collapsed, ending the threat to the Dutch Republic and allowing Austria to regain control of its lost province. The War of the First Coalition engagement was fought at Neerwinden, located 57 kilometres (35 mi) east of Brussels in present-day Belgium.
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other monarchies. They are divided in two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and the Rhineland. French success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.
The French Revolutionary Wars began on 20 April 1792 when the French Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria. This launched the War of the First Coalition.
The Army of the North or Armée du Nord is a name given to several historical units of the French Army. The first was one of the French Revolutionary Armies that fought with distinction against the First Coalition from 1792 to 1795. Others existed during the Peninsular War, the Hundred Days and the Franco-Prussian War.
The French Revolutionary Army was the French land force that fought the French Revolutionary Wars from 1792 to 1804. These armies were characterised by their revolutionary fervour, their poor equipment and their great numbers. Although they experienced early disastrous defeats, the revolutionary armies successfully expelled foreign forces from French soil and then overran many neighboring countries, establishing client republics. Leading generals included Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, André Masséna and Jean Victor Marie Moreau.
Auguste Marie Henri Picot de Dampierre, styled the Marquis de Dampierre and usually known as Dampierre, was a French general during the time of the French Revolution. He served in many of the early battles of the War of the First Coalition, and was killed in action in 1793. His name is among those inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe.
The Low Countries theatre of the War of the First Coalition, in British historiography better known as the Flanders campaign, was a series of campaigns in the Low Countries conducted from 20 April 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the War of the First Coalition. As the French Revolution radicalised, the revolutionary National Convention and its predecessors broke the Catholic Church's power (1790), abolished the monarchy (1792) and even executed the deposed king Louis XVI of France (1793), vying to spread the Revolution beyond the new French Republic's borders, by violent means if necessary. The First Coalition, an alliance of reactionary states representing the Ancien Régime in Central and Western Europe – Habsburg Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Hanover and Hesse-Kassel – mobilised military forces along all the French frontiers, threatening to invade Revolutionary France and violently restore the monarchy. The subsequent combat operations along the French borders with the Low Countries and Germany became the primary theatre of the War of the First Coalition until March 1796, when Napoleon took over French command on the Italian front.
Several military units have been known as the Belgian Legion. The term "Belgian Legion" can refer to Belgian volunteers who served in the French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, Revolutions of 1848 and, more commonly, the Mexico Expedition of 1867.
The siege of Lille saw a Republican French garrison under Jean-Baptiste André Ruault de La Bonnerie hold Lille against an assault by a Habsburg army commanded by Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen. Though the city was fiercely bombarded, the French successfully withstood the Austrian attack in the action. Because the Austrians were unable to completely encircle the city, the French were able to continuously send in reinforcements. After news of the French victory over the Prussians at Valmy, Albert withdrew his troops and siege cannons. The next battle was at Jemappes in November. The Column of the Goddess monument was completed in 1845 to commemorate the siege.
At the Battle of Schliengen, the French Army of the Rhine and Moselle under the command of Jean-Victor Moreau and the Austrian army under the command of Archduke Charles of Austria both claimed victories. The village of Schliengen lies in the present-day Kreis Lörrach close to the border of present-day Baden-Württemberg (Germany), the Haut-Rhin (France), and the Canton of Basel-Stadt (Switzerland).
At the Battle of Emmendingen, on 19 October 1796, the French Army of Rhin-et-Moselle under Jean Victor Marie Moreau fought the First Coalition Army of the Upper Rhine commanded by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen. Emmendingen is located on the Elz River in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 9 miles (14 km) north of Freiburg im Breisgau. The action occurred during the War of the First Coalition, the first phase of the larger French Revolutionary Wars.
The Battle of Raismes, also known as the Battle of Condé or St. Amand, saw the French Republican army led by Auguste Marie Henri Picot de Dampierre attack the Allied Coalition army of Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. The French intended to raise the Siege of Condé, but were defeated by Coalition forces. The battle was fought during the Flanders Campaign in the War of the First Coalition. After hard fighting, the French were driving back a Prussian force when British reinforcements arrived to stabilize the situation. Dampierre was fatally wounded while leading a final unsuccessful assault. The Allies recaptured the lost ground two days later.
Events from the year 1792 in France.
The Battle of Marquain was a conflict between Austria and the Kingdom of France during the War of the First Coalition. It took place on 29 April 1792 and ended in a French defeat.
The Four Days of Ghent refers to a battle in Ghent, the capital of Flanders, 13–16 November 1789, in which the Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire was driven out of the city. It was a crucial event during the Brabant Revolution: the Patriots received a major boost by taking this first large city, and the authority of the Austrian Netherlands was beginning to disintegrate. Within two weeks, the Treaty of Union was drafted, which established the independent republic of the United Belgian States on 11 January 1790. On 4 January 1790, Flanders declared its independence from the Habsburg monarchy by the Manifesto of the Province of Flanders.
Joseph Miaczinski or Józef Miączyński (1743/1751-1793) was a Polish-Lithuanian general who joined the French Army of the North on 25 July 1792, the day Brunswick Manifesto was published. He supported General Dumouriez, defending France against the Prussian and Austrian armies, occupying the Austrian Netherlands and the duchy of Limburg. Dumouriez, unsatisfied with the chaos in the Defence department caused by the Jacobins, preferred a constitutional monarchy. After Dumouriez's dismissal from the High Command Miaczinski agreed to participate in the preparation of a military coup against the National Convention. Early April 1793 Miaczinsky was arrested, accused of criminal and counter-revolutionary activities, trialled and executed.
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