Campaigns of 1792 in the French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars began on 20 April 1792 when the French Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria. This launched the War of the First Coalition. Background From 1789 to early 1792, the French Revolution gradually radicalised, breaking with old institutions and practices as it went, and targeting defenders of the Ancien Régime. Some of these defenders, or people who were unintentionally caught in the crossfire, emigrated from France to avoid persecution. King Louis XVI himself attempted to escape with his family to Varennes in June 1791, but he was caught. The French king was put under surveillance, and increasingly suspected of conspiring with other European monarchs, who wished to preserve the House of Bourbon in France and restore its pre-revolutionary authority. This was explicitly stated in the Declaration of Pillnitz (17 August 1791) by king Frederick William II of Prussia and emperor Francis II (Austria, Hungary and Bohemia), who called on all monarchs in Europe to 'liberate' Louis. Leading radical revolutionaries called for the complete abolition of the monarchy, but the republican movement was dealt a severe blow in the July 1791 Champs de Mars Massacre. Although this cleared the way for the establishment of the constitutional monarchy in