After Revolutionary France had declared war on Prussia and Austria in April 1792, its armies had invaded and eventually consolidated their hold over the Austrian Netherlands and the rest of the left bank of the Rhine by the end of 1794. By then, the French leaders had already resolved more or less openly to annex those lands to the Republic as soon as circumstances permitted. Persuading the German states and princes that were fated to lose their possessions west of the Rhine to come to terms with what amounted to massive French spoliation of German land by compensating themselves with land on the right bank became a constant objective of the French revolutionaries and later Napoleon Bonaparte. Moreover, given that the German Catholic clergy at all levels were the most implacable enemies of the "godless" Republic, and had actually provided the first cause of war between France and the Holy Roman Empire through provocative action such as allowing émigré French nobles to carry on counterrevolutionary activities from their land, the French leaders estimated that the ecclesiastical rulers and other clerics – who collectively were the ones who were losing the most on the left bank – should be excluded from any future compensation. On the other hand, the secular rulers entitled to compensation should be compensated with secularized ecclesiastical land and property located on the right bank.