French Assembly declares war on Austria
Citations (1)
- On War pp. 25-28 · open book
In the previous year the French legis- lative assembly had declared war on Austria, with whom Prussia had recently concluded a defensive alliance. The French action was caused less by considerations of national interest than by internal politics, but it opened twenty-three vears of conflict between revolutionary and later imperial France and the rest of Europe. Aside from the Duke of Bruns- wick’s initial invasion, which came to a halt at Valmy, the Prussians did reasonably well in a war to which they never committed more than part of their military resources. They defeated the French repeatedly in Alsace and the Saar, and captured thousands of prisoners; when the fighting ended in 1795, they controlled the line of the Rhine. But these achievements brought no political returns.