French Revolutionary Wars

On April 20, 1792, France declared war on Austria; on March 25, 1802, the first consul Napoleon Bonaparte signed the Peace of Amiens, which ended a decade of permanent wars between the young French Republic and most of the European monarchies. This decade of war radically changed the way policy, administration, and governance was thought and practiced. At the military level, it also changed how war was waged while some key tactical innovations explained both the succession of impressive victories and crushing defeats. In general, war altered the Revolution and its course: It radicalized it, caused or increased revolutionary crises. It adjusted the economy to its military needs and justified the political evolution from the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety in 1793–1794 to ...