ABSTRACT
The French Revolutionary Wars were divided into two distinct periods, organized around the War of the First Coalition (1792–97) and that of the Second Coalition (1798–1802), each with its own combination of European powers. The fervor of revolutionary ideology in France, together with the revulsion that it inspired abroad, brought France into open conflict with Austria and Prussia, soon to be joined by various other states. The Allies expected a quick and decisive victory. Once across the Rhine they expected to brush aside the poorly equipped amateurish forces sent to meet them. At the end of a decade of continuous fighting, the French Revolutionary Wars left France in a far stronger position than she had begun them, controlling not only the so-called ‘natural’ frontiers of the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, but exercising considerable influence over her satellite states in the Low Countries, western Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. These achievements, though relatively swiftly attained, were made only after fighting on an unprecedented scale, in many separate theaters of war and under very different geographical conditions.
