French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts fought between the French Revolution ary government and several European states from 1792 to 1802 . Marked by French revolutionary fervour and military innovations , the campaigns saw the French Revolutionary Armies defeat a number of opposing coalitions . They resulted in expanded French control to the Low Countries , : Italy , and the Rhineland . The wars depended on extremely high numbers of soldiers , recruited by modern mass conscription . The French Revolutionary Wars are usually divided between those of the First Coalition ( 1792 – 1797 ) and the Second Coalition ( 1798 – 1801 ) . France was at war with Great Britain continuously from 1793 to 1802 . Hostilities with Great Britain ceased with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 , but conflict soon started up again with the Napoleonic Wars . The Treaty of Amiens is usually reckoned to mark the end of the French Revolutionary Wars ; however , historians have proposed other events before and after 1802 as the starting point of the Napoleonic Wars . War of the First Coalition . 1791 – 1792 . As early as 1791 , the other monarchies of Europe looked with concern at the revolution and its upheavals , and considered whether they should intervene , either in support of King Louis XVI , or to prevent the spread of revolution , or to take advantage of the chaos in France . The key figure was Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II , brother of Louis XVI ' s Queen Marie Antoinette . Leopold had initially looked on the Revolution with equanimity , but became more and more disturbed as the Revolution became more radical , although he still hoped to avoid war . On 27 August , Leopold and King Frederick William II of Prussia , in consultation with emigrant French nobles , issued the Declaration of Pillnitz , which declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe in the well - being of Louis and his family , and threatened vague but severe consequences if anything should befall them . Although Leopold saw the Pillnitz Declaration as a non - committal gesture to placate the sentiments of French monarchists and nobles , it was seen in France as a serious threat and was denounced by the revolutionary leaders . In addition to the ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers of Europe , there were continuing disputes over the status of Imperial estates in Alsace , and the French were becoming concerned about the agitation of émigré nobles abroad , especially in the Austrian Netherlands and the minor states of Germany . France declared war on Austria first , with the Assembly voting for war on 20 April 1792 , after a long list of grievances presented by foreign minister Dumouriez . Dumouriez prepared an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands , where he expected the local population to rise against Austrian rule . However , the revolution had thoroughly disorganized the army , and the forces raised were insufficient for the invasion . Following the declaration of war , French soldiers deserted en masse and , in one case , murdered their general , Théobald Dillon . While the revolutionary government frantically raised fresh troops and reorganized its armies , a mostly Prussian allied army under Charles William Ferdinand , Duke of Brunswick assembled at Koblenz on the Rhine . In July , the invasion commenced , with Brunswick ' s army easily taking the fortresses of Longwy and Verdun . The duke then issued a proclamation called the Brunswick Manifesto , written by the French king ' s cousin , Louis Joseph de Bourbon , Prince de Condé , the leader of an émigré corps within the allied army , which declared the Allies ' intent to restore the king to his full powers and to treat any person or town who opposed them as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law . This , however , had the effect of strengthening the resolve of the revolutionary army and government to oppose them by any means necessary . On 10 August , a crowd stormed the Tuileries Palace , where Louis and his family had been staying . The invasion continued , but at Valmy on 20 September , the invaders came to a stalemate against Dumouriez and Kellermann in which the highly professional French artillery distinguished itself . Although the battle was a tactical draw , it gave a great boost to French morale . Further , the Prussians , finding that the campaign had been longer and more costly than predicted , decided that the cost and risk of continued fighting was too great and , with winter approaching , they decided to retreat from France to preserve their army . The next day , the monarchy was formally abolished as the First Republic was declared . Meanwhile , the French had been successful on several other fronts , occupying Savoy and Nice which were parts of the Kingdom of Sardinia , while General Custine invaded Germany , occupying several German towns along the Rhine , and reaching as far as Frankfurt . Dumouriez went on the offensive in Belgium once again , winning a great victory over the Austrians at Jemappes on 6 November , and occupying the entire country by the beginning of winter . 1793 . On 21 January , the revolutionary government executed Louis XVI . Spain and Portugal entered the anti - French coalition in January 1793 , and , on 1 February , France declared war on Great Britain and the Dutch Republic . France drafted hundreds of thousands of men , beginning a policy of using mass conscription to deploy more of its manpower than the autocratic states could manage to do ( first stage , with a decree of 24 February 1793 ordering the draft of 300 , 000 men , then with the general mobilization of all the young men able to be drafted , through the famous decree of 23 August 1793 ) . This approach also allowed the French to maintain an offensive long enough that these vast armies might commandeer war material from territory taken from their enemies and , to a certain extent , " live off the fat of the land " . Nonetheless , the Coalition allies launched a determined drive to invade France during the Flanders Campaign . France suffered severe reverses at first . They were driven out of the Austrian Netherlands ( Belgium ) , and serious revolts flared in the west and south of France . One of these , at Toulon , was the first serious taste of action for an unknown young artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte . He contributed to the siege of the city and its harbor by planning an effective assault with well - placed artillery batteries raining projectiles down on rebel positions . This performance helped make his reputation as a capable tactician , and it fueled his meteoric rise to military and political power . Once the city was occupied , he participated in pacifying the rebelling citizens of Toulon with the same artillery that he first used to conquer the city . By the end of the year , large new armies and a fierce policy of internal repression had turned back foreign invaders and suppressed internal revolts . The French military was in the ascendant . Lazare Carnot , a scientist and prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety , organized the fourteen armies of the Republic , and was then nicknamed the Organizer of the Victory . 1794 . The year 1794 brought increased success to the revolutionary armies . Although an invasion of Piedmont failed , an invasion of Spain across the Pyrenees took San Sebastián , and the French won a victory at Fleurus , the French Aerostatic Corps use of the reconnaissance balloon " L ' Entreprenant " marked the first military use of an aircraft that had decisive influence on the outcome of the battle , and occupied all of Belgium and the Rhineland . At sea , the French and British fleets clashed on the First of June over a grain convoy arriving from the United States . Both sides claimed victory , since the British sank or captured a quarter of the French Atlantic Fleet with minimal losses of their own , but the vital convoy got through unharmed . 1795 . After seizing the Netherlands in a surprise winter attack France established the Batavian Republic as a puppet state . Now Prussia and Spain , and then Hessen - Kassel , each decided to make a separate peace . In the three parts of the 1795 Peace of Basel Prussia secretly ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France ; Spain withdrew from the War of the Pyrenees — freeing French armies from the Pyrenees front — and ceded the eastern two thirds of Hispaniola ( now the Dominican Republic ) . This ended the main crisis phase of the Revolution and France proper was free from invasion for many years . Britain attempted to reinforce the rebels in the Vendée , but failed , and attempts to overthrow the government at Paris by force were foiled by the military garrison led by Napoleon Bonaparte , leading to the establishment of the Directory . On the Rhine frontier , General Pichegru , negotiating with the exiled Royalists , betrayed his army and forced the evacuation of Mannheim and the failure of the siege of Mainz by Jourdan . 1796 . The French prepared a great advance on three fronts , with Jourdan and Moreau on the Rhine , and Bonaparte in Italy . The three armies were to link up in Tyrol and march on Vienna . Jourdan and Moreau advanced rapidly into Germany , and Moreau had reached Bavaria and the edge of Tyrol by September , but Jourdan was defeated by Archduke Charles , and both armies were forced to retreat back across the Rhine . Napoleon , on the other hand , was completely successful in a daring invasion of Italy . He separated the armies of Sardinia and Austria , defeating them in detail , and forced a peace on Sardinia while capturing Milan and besieging Mantua . He also had defeated successive Austrian armies sent against him under Wurmser and Alvintzy while continuing the siege . The rebellion in the Vendée was also finally crushed in 1796 by Hoche , but Hoche ' s attempt to land a large invasion force in Ireland was unsuccessful . 1797 . In February , the Battle of Cape St . Vincent saw the British block an attempt by a larger Spanish fleet to join the French at Brest . Napoleon finally captured Mantua by siege , and , in the process , the Austrians surrendered eighteen thousand men . Archduke Charles of Austria was unable to prevent Napoleon from invading the Tyrol , and the Austrian government sued for peace in April , at the same time that a new French invasion of Germany , under the generals , Moreau and Hoche , began . Austria signed the Treaty of Campo Formio in October , conceding Belgium to France and recognizing French control of the Rhineland and much of Italy . The ancient republic of Venice was partitioned between Austria and France . This ended the War of the First Coalition , although Great Britain remained a belligerent . 1798 . 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 1798 , 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 , and landing in June . Marching to Cairo , he won a great victory at the Battle of the Pyramids ; however , his fleet was destroyed 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 Helvetian Republic and annexing Geneva . French troops also deposed Pope Pius VI , establishing a republic in Rome . An expeditionary force was sent to County Mayo to assist in the rebellion against Britain in the summer of 1798 . 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 Belgium and Luxembourg where the local people revolted against conscription and anti - religious violence ( Peasants ' War ) . The French also fought an undeclared war at sea against the United States , that was known as the " Quasi - War " . War of the Second Coalition . Britain and Austria organized a new coalition against France in 1798 , including for the first time Russia , although no action occurred until 1799 except against Naples . 1799 . In Europe , the allies mounted several invasions , including campaigns in Italy and Switzerland and an Anglo - Russian invasion of the Netherlands . Russian general Aleksandr Suvorov inflicted a series of defeats on the French in Italy , driving them back to the Alps . However , the allies were less successful in the Netherlands , where the British retreated after a stalemate ( although they did manage to capture the Dutch fleet ) , and in Switzerland , where after initial victories a Russian army was completely defeated at the Second Battle of Zurich . This reverse , as well as British insistence on searching shipping in the Baltic Sea led to Russia withdrawing from the Coalition . Napoleon himself invaded Syria from Egypt , but after a failed siege of Acre retreated to Egypt , repelling a British - Turkish invasion . Hearing of a political and military crisis in France , he returned , leaving his army behind , and used his popularity and army support to mount a coup that made him First Consul , the head of the French government . 1800 . Napoleon sent Moreau to campaign in Germany , and went himself to raise a new army at Dijon and march through Switzerland to attack the Austrian armies in Italy from behind . Narrowly avoiding defeat , he defeated the Austrians at Marengo and reoccupied northern Italy . Moreau meanwhile invaded Bavaria and won a great battle against Austria at Hohenlinden . Moreau continued toward Vienna and the Austrians sued for peace . 1801 . The Austrians negotiated the Treaty of Lunéville , basically accepting the terms of the previous Treaty of Campo Formio . In Egypt , the Ottomans and British invaded and finally compelled the French to surrender after the fall of Cairo and Alexandria . Britain continued the war at sea . A coalition of non - combatants including Prussia , Russia , Denmark , and Sweden joined to protect neutral shipping from Britain ' s blockade , resulting in Nelson ' s surprise attack on the Danish fleet in harbor at the Battle of Copenhagen . 1802 . In 1802 , the British and French signed the Treaty of Amiens , ending the war . Thus began the longest period of peace during the period 1792 – 1815 . 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 1804 . Results . The First French Republic , starting from a position precariously near occupation and collapse , had defeated all its enemies ( bar Britain and the United States , whose inability to directly strike at France made this a moot point ) and produced a revolutionary army that would take the other powers years to emulate . With the conquest of the left bank of the Rhine and domination of the Netherlands , Switzerland , and Italy , the Republic had achieved nearly all the territorial goals that had eluded the Valois and Bourbon monarchs for centuries .