War of the First Coalition

### Location

Low Countries, Mediterranean Sea, Carinthia, Austria, Spain, Dalmatia, Bohemia, Prussia

### Result

Continental Alliance victory* Peace of Basel
	+ French and Batavian Republics formally recognized by Austria and Prussia
	+ Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire
* Revolts break out in Spanish America
* France and the Batavian Republic enabled to establish "sister republics" in Italy and Germany
* Saxony and Bavaria join the Continental Alliance
* Formation of the Second Coalition in 1810
* Hostilities resume in 1812

### Territorial Changes

* Dutch annexation of the Austrian Netherlands, Breisgau, and Swabia

## Belligerents

### Aggressor(s)

**First Coalition:*** Habsburg monarchy
* Prussia

**Supported by:**

* United Kingdom (from 1802)

### Defender(s)

**Continental Alliance:*** France
* Batavian Republic
* Spain

## Commanders and Leaders

### Aggressors

* Francis II
* Archduke Charles
* Count von Wurmser
* Prince of Hohenlohe
* Frederick William III

### Defenders

* Nicolas de Condorcet
* Jacques Pierre Brissot
* Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière
* Pierre Victurnien Verginaud
* Maximilien Robespierre
* Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Etienne
* Pieter Paulus
* Johannes Lambertus Huber
* Jan Bernd Bicker
* Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck
* Jacob Abraham de Mist
* Pieter Vreede
* Charles IV

## Meta

### Timeline

Earth 3

The **War of the First Coalition**, known contemporaneously as the the **French Revolutionary War** was fought between 1799 and 1804 by a coalition consisting of Austria and Prussia against the Continental Alliance of Revolutionary France, the Batavian Republic, and Spain. The war was the first in a series of wars fought for the defense and expansion of the French and Batavian Revolutions, collectively known as the Continental Wars. The war was a long and highly mobile conflict which saw certain territory change hands several times over its course. Due to the loss of confidence in the Habsburg monarchy by Prussia and the other German states, the decision of the United Kingdom not to directly intervene, and a wave of British-backed revolts in Spanish America; both sides were exhausted by 1804, leading to what were viewed by some as premature peace negotiations. Though it did not constitute what the Continental Alliance hoped to achieve from a "complete" victory, the resulting Peace of Basel shattered the status quo in Europe by dissolving the Holy Roman Empire and forcing Austria and Prussia to recognize the revolutionary governments in Paris and the Hague for at least eight years.

Though most of Europe's monarchies were greatly alarmed by the onset of the French Revolution in 1799, the British invasion of the Netherlands during the Anglo-Dutch War the previous year had caused much of Europe to view Great Britain as the main threat to peace on the continent. Despite Papal condemnation of the revolution and family ties to the French monarch through the Bourbon dynasty, Spain maintained its alliance with France even after the deposing and imprisonment of King Louis XVI - it was the view of Spain's King Charles IV that Great Britain had grown far too powerful in the past decades, and that no true balance of power could exist in Europe unless most of the continent stood against Britain. For the Habsburg monarchy and Prussia, however, the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty in France posed an existential threat to both the diplomatic order of Europe and their own monarchical institutions. Despite having generally adversarial relationship over the past few decades, the Habsburg monarchy and Prussia formed an alliance almost immediately after recieving the news that France had become a republic.

The Spanish diplomatic ministry knew that if the Habsburgs were willing to form an alliance with Prussia it was also very likely they would be willng to set aside their dislike of the British in order to form a stronger anti-French coalition. It was thus essential for France and Spain to secure an alliance with the Netherlands, which had recently concluded a peace treaty with Britain, before any hostilities could begin. With Britain having gained a reputation for being dishonorable following its attack on the Netherlands just five years after annulling the an alliance with the United Provinces, the Spanish calculated that the British would not be able to justify breaking their truce with the Dutch. Having already rejected Spanish offers of an alliance before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the Dutch Statdtholder William V was even less keen on siding with France and Spain initially. However, the Netherlands' disastrous defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War the previous year had made William extremely unpopular, strengthening the liberal Patriot movement against him. Desperate to bring the Netherlands into the Franco-Spanish sphere, Charles IV set aside his personal disgust of liberalism and ordered his diplomats to frighten William into resigning by warning the Stadtholder that the longer he tried to cling to power the more likely his murder at the hands of revolutionaries would become, citing news of widespread mob violence in France as evidence of this. Eventually the Stadtholder relented, resigning his office on January 19, 1799 and fleeing to Prussia. In his absence, the Batavian Republic was proclaimed, and the new Patriot government was friendly to France and eagerly accepted Spanish proposals to establish a Continental Alliance consisting of France, Spain, and the Netherlands. For France and Spain, the cooperation of the Dutch came not a moment too soon. Not long after the formation of the Austro-Prussian Alliance, Austria had sent an ultimatum to France demanding that the former king Louis and his family be released from prison and allowed safe passage out of the country. With many in France wishing for the king to be prosecuted on suspicion that he was conspiring against the revolution, Paris suspected the Austrian ultimatum was merely the first step in a plot to restore the Bourbon monarchy and sent no reply. The very same day that the French National Convention ratified the Continental Alliance, Austria and Prussia issued a joint declaration of war against France, officially launching the War of the First Coalition.

Despite the conflict being called the French Revolutionary War at the time, the bulk of the fighting was done by the Dutch and Spanish; the French military being bogged down in containing civil unrest for most of the war. The first battles of the war in 1799 were fought in the Austrian Netherlands, a territory long coveted by the Dutch even before the Patriots came to power. Viewing the war with the Habsburg monarchy as the perfect opportunity to seize it, the Hague ordered an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands upon the war's outbreak, and by the end of 1799 only Limburg and a few surrounding towns remained in Austrian hands, the rest having either been captured or encircled by the invading Dutch forces. While the Batavian Republic seized Austria's northernmost territories, Spain invaded the main Habsburg realm, sailing up the Adriatic Sea and landing in Trieste. The Spanish capture of the city allowed for an early assault on Vienna, but the first Spanish siege of the city failed, leading the Spanish to instead establish another stronghold in Zagreb. Caught off guard by the Spanish invasion, the Austrians were able to capture Zagreb but failed to drive the Spanish from Trieste despite an extended siege. In the north, the Prussians launched a counterattack against the Batavian Republic, capturing the fortified city of Zwolle and occupying the eastern half of the Netherlands by the end of 1799, allowing them control of the Netherlands' principal port and a position right at the doorstep of the Hague - though not without sustaining heavy casualties.

In the spring of 1800, the Dutch launched a counterattack against the Prussians. Despite Dutch efforts to sabotage the defenses of Zwolle by having spies destroy its fortifications, the Prussians were able to hold on to the city, repelling the Dutch in a long and bloody siege. Fearing the possibility of the Prussians capturing the Hague, Spain sent an army to reinforce the Batavian Republic. This Spanish force, with Dutch aid, was able to liberate Zwolle and Groningen and capture the last holdout of the Austrian Netherlands in Limburg. These victories came at a cost, however, as Spain was unable to reinforce its army in Trieste, allowing the Austrians to recapture the city. The situation only worsened from there, as the a Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean was soon defeated by the Austrian Navy, leading to the Austrian capture of Barcelona and the construction of fortifications Catalonia which allowed the Austrians a position even further west, not far from Madrid. Despite Austrian gains, however, the Prussians continued to suffer defeats the north, losing a not insiginifcant portion of their army in an attempt to recapture Zwolle from the Dutch and Spanish.

With the Coalition forces driven from the Low Countries, by 1801 the Dutch had a free hand to push into enemy territory. With the aid of the Spanish forces present in the Netherlands, the Dutch captured Prussian East Frisia. That same year, a Dutch force also attempted to help the Spanish drive the Austrians from Barcelona, but this campaign failed. A few months later, however, the Spanish were able to recapture key positions from the Austrians in Barcelona and Girona, driving the Coalition forces from Iberia. Spanish agents were then ordered to cause severe damage to the harbor in Trieste, preventing the Austrians from launching another naval invasion that year. Hoping to reverse Continental gains in the Netherlands, the Prussians launched yet another attack on Zwolle, but this resulted only in more casualties for the Coalition forces. By 1802, Prussia was seriously considering withdrawing from the war, but was dissuaded from doing so by British promises of aid to the Coaltion. Though the British could not justify an immediate military intervention, they gave the Prussians and Austrians their assurances that they would go to war with the Continental Alliance as soon as the expiration date of Britain's peace treaty with the Netherlands had arrived. More immediately, the British worked weaken the Continetnal Alliance by agitating Spain's colonies in the Americas to rebellion. The Prussians and Austrians were also emboldened by the possibilty of aid from the other German states, which were greatly alarmed by the Batavian Republic's 1802 annexation of Liege. Unfortunately, even the three most powerful Imperial princes: the electors of Bavaria, Saxony, and Cologne - proved both logistically unable and diplomatically unwilling to aid the increasingly hopeless Prusso-Austrian war effort before the war's end. Though the Dutch initially failed to capture Breisgau, the Spanish were able to briefly establish a new foothold in Carinthia, recapturing Trieste and using their agents to sabotage Austrian fortifcations in Dalmatia. Though the Austrians were able to drive the Spanish from Carinthia once again, they failed to secure another landing on the Iberian peninsula. In the North, the Prussians fared even worse launching another disastrous attempt to capture Zwolle. Though Prussian agents were able to sabotage the city's fortifications, Dutch reinforcements allowed the city's mostly Spanish defenders to repel the Prussians.

The beginning of the end of the War of the Second Coalition came in 1803, when after covertly sabotaging Austrian defenses in Carinthia the Dutch landed in Trieste and launched a rapid grand offensive aganst the Austrians, capturing Vienna and Prague in just the span of a few weeks and digging in for defense. Having lost two major cities, the Austrians had no choice but to captiulate, leaving Prussia to fight the Continental Alliance alone. Though the tide of the war had turned in favor of the Continental Alliance, the outbreak of a British-backed rebellion in New Spain led the Spanish to begining raising the possibility of a peace treaty to the Dutch. Though Austria was at this point willing to make peace on just about any terms, the Dutch wanted Prussia to them pay war reparations - a peace term that the Hague knew Prussia would not yet be willing to accept. Despite Spain's light protests, the Batavian Republic elected to continue the war. Ultimately, Charles IV decided that the capitulation of Prussia was a greater priority than the restoration of control over New Spain and had his agents sabotage the fortifications of Stettin and the harbor in Königsburg. The Spanish then launched a naval invasion of Prussia through the Baltic Sea, but they failed to secure Stettin, and suffered heavy casualties in the process. Emboldened, the Prussians soon launched a campaign against the Dutch army stationed in Prague, driving them back to Carinthia and liberating both Prague and Vienna in the process, allowing the Austrians to come back into the conflict. With their most important gains having been reversed, the Dutch gave up on trying to secure reparations and finally offered peace to the Coalition on only four conditions: that the Holy Roman Empire be dissolved, that the Dutch annexation of the Austrian Netherlands and formerly Prussian East Frisia be recognized, and that Prussia and Austria recognize the legitimacy of the French and Batavian Republics. Francis II, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy, did not want to accept this deal, but with Prague and Vienna essentially under Prussian occupaton he was at the mercy of King Frederick William III, who, having lost confidence in the Austrians and secretly desiring to see the Holy Roman Empire dissolved anyway, agreed to all of the terms *except* for the Dutch annexation of East Frisia. Stubborn, the Dutch ignored the protests of their Spanish allies and declared that the war would continue. By 1804, however, New Granada and Peru had also rebelled against Spain, and the Mexican insurgents had captured Spanish Florida. These developments, combined with Spanish diplomatic intelligence revealing that it would be possible to persuade Saxony and Bavaria to enter into the Continental Alliance should the Holy Roman Empire be dissolved convincd the Dutch to revise their peace offer into what would become the Peace of Basel. The new offer was nearly identical to the one that had been forwarded in 1803, except in that East Frisia would be returned to Prussia and Austria would instead cede Breisgau and Swabia to the Batavian Republic. The minmum length of the truce was also extended from five years to eight years to allow the Continental Alliance time to prepare for an inevitable second conflict.

Though deeply insulted by peace offer, since Frederick William III of Prussia was willing to accept it Francis II of Austria had effectively no choice. With the conclusion of the Peace of Basel in 1804, the War of the Second Coalition came to an official end. The war's effects were numerous: the quest of Spain's American colonies for indpendence began, the survival of the French and Batavian Republics was ensured, and perhaps most importantly the politics of central Europe were forever changed with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The secular electors were forced to adopt new royal titles of kings, the Habsburg monarchy was reorganized into the Austrian Empire, and the legitimacy of the ecclesiastic princes was called into question. Within months of the signing of the Basel treaty, Bavaria and Saxony joined the Continental Alliance in exchange for control of Breisgau and Swabia and promises of the restoration of a Wettin-ruled Polish state respectively. With Britain still bound by treaty to remain at peace with the Netherlands and Prussia and Austria temporarily neutralized, the Continental Alliance had a free hand to consolidate its power. 1806 saw the Spanish American Rebellions of 1803 crushed, and the French conquest of much of Italy, including the Papal States, leading to the establishment of the Roman Republic as a sister republic of France. Of the three original members of the Continental Alliance, the Batavian Republic gained the most from the War of the First Coalition, having entered as the revolutionary aftermath of a failed state and emerged as a major power in Europe, adopting a new constitution which it soon exported with its conquest of Cologne in 1807 and the establishment of the Republic of Westphalia as a sister republic. Ultimately, however, all of these gains only set the stage for another major war, as the small states which had time to react to the French and Dutch invasions of their neighbors - namely Switzerland, Venice, and Sardinia-Piedmont formed the Second Coalition alongside Prussia and Austria, leading eventually to the resumption of hostilities in 1812.