| War of the First Coalition | |||||||||
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| Part of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Coalition Wars | |||||||||
 Click an image to load the appropriate article. Left to right, top to bottom: Battles of Valmy, Toulon, Fleurus, Quiberon, Arcole and Mantua | |||||||||
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First Coalition:
 Papal States (until 1797)[7] Parma (until 1796) Portugal Prussia (until 1795)[5] Sardinia (until 1796)[8] Spain (until 1795)[5] Naples (until 1796) Other Italian states[9] |
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| Strength | |||||||||
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
 94,000 soldiers killed in combat[16]~282,000 died of disease 220,000 captured 100,000 wounded[17] |
 100,000 soldiers killed in combat~300,000 died of disease 150,000 captured[17][16] | ||||||||
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The War of the First Coalition (French: Guerre de la Première 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.[18] 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.[19]
Relations between the French revolutionaries and neighbouring monarchies had deteriorated following the Declaration of Pillnitz in August 1791. Eight months later, following a vote of the revolutionary-led Legislative Assembly, France declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792; Prussia, having allied with Austria in February, declared war on France in June 1792. In July 1792, an army under the Duke of Brunswick and composed mostly of Prussians joined the Austrian side and invaded France. The capture of Verdun (2 September 1792) triggered the September massacres in Paris. France counterattacked with the victory at Valmy (20 September) and two days later the Legislative Assembly proclaimed the French Republic.
Subsequently, these powers made several invasions of France by land and sea, in association with Prussia and Austria attacking from the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhine, and Great Britain supporting revolts in provincial France and laying siege to Toulon in October 1793. France suffered reverses (Battle of Neerwinden, 18 March 1793) and internal strife (War in the Vendée) and responded with draconian measures. The Committee of Public Safety was formed (6 April 1793) and the levée en masse drafted all potential soldiers aged 18 to 25 (August 1793). The new French armies counterattacked, repelled the invaders, and advanced beyond France.
The French established the Batavian Republic as a sister republic (May 1795) and gained Prussian recognition of French control of the Left Bank of the Rhine by the first Peace of Basel. With the Treaty of Campo Formio, Austria ceded the Austrian Netherlands to France and Northern Italy was turned into several French sister republics. Spain made a separate peace accord with France (Second Treaty of Basel) and the French Directory annexed more of the Holy Roman Empire.
North of the Alps, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen defeated the invading armies during the Rhine campaign, but Napoleon Bonaparte succeeded against Sardinia and Austria in northern Italy (1796–1797) near the Po Valley, culminating in the Peace of Leoben and the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797). The First Coalition collapsed, leaving only Britain in the field fighting against France.
- ^ Left the war after signing the Treaty of The Hague (1795) with France.
- ^ https://www.britannica.com/event/Wars-of-the-Vendee Archived 2024-01-19 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Including the Army of Condé
- ^ Nominally the Holy Roman Empire, under Austrian rule, also encompassed many other Italian states, such as the
Duchy of Modena and the 
Duchy of Massa. Left the war after signing the Treaty of Campo Formio with France.
- ^ a b c Left the war after signing the Peace of Basel with France.
- ^ a b Left the war after signing the Peace of Paris with France.
- ^ Left the war after signing the Treaty of Tolentino with France.
- ^ Left the war after signing the Treaty of Paris with France.
- ^ Virtually all of the Italian states, including the neutral
Republic of Genoa and the 
Republic of Venice, as well the 
Grand Duchy of Tuscany, were conquered following Napoleon's invasion in 1796 and became French satellite states. The 
Principality of Monaco had been annexed in 1793. Even 
Switzerland began to be involved into the conflict through its associated Three Leagues that lost the Val Telline.
- ^ Including the Polish Legions formed in French-allied Italy in 1797, following the abolition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Third Partition in 1795.
- ^ The French Revolutionary Army and Dutch revolutionaries overthrew the Dutch Republic and established the Batavian Republic as a puppet state in its place.
- ^ Various conquered Italian states, including the Cisalpine Republic from 1797
- ^ Re-entered the war against Britain as an ally of France after signing the Second Treaty of San Ildefonso.
- ^ The coalition was prepared by Emperor Leopold II: "The French Revolution, 1789–1799". Archived from the original on 2024-05-27. Retrieved 2023-02-20.; "Austria's Leopold II on the French Revolution (1791)". 30 March 2015. Archived from the original on 27 May 2024. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
- ^ Lynn, John A. (2018). "Recalculating French Army Growth During the Grand Siede, 1610–1715". In Rogers, Clifford J. (ed.). The Military Revolution Debate. Vol. 18 (2 ed.). Routledge. pp. 117–148. doi:10.4324/9780429496264-6. ISBN 978-0-429-49626-4. Only counting frontline army troops, not naval personnel, militiamen, or reserves; the National Guard alone was supposed to provide a reserve of 1,200,000 men in 1789.
- ^ a b "Victimario Histórico Militar Capítulo IV Guerras de la Revolución Francesa (1789 a 1815)". Archived from the original on 2015-04-30. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
- ^ a b Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and armed conflicts: a statistical encyclopedia of casualty and other figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-4766-2585-0.
- ^ Holland 1911, Battle of Valmy.
- ^ (in Dutch) Shusterman, Noah (2015). De Franse Revolutie (The French Revolution). Veen Media, Amsterdam. (Translation of: The French Revolution. Faith, Desire, and Politics. Routledge, London/New York, 2014.) Chapter 7, pp. 271–312: The federalist revolts, the Vendée and the beginning of the Terror (summer–fall 1793).
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