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However, the revolution had thoroughly disorganized the army, and the forces raised were insufficient for the invasion. Following the declaration of war, French soldiers deserted en masse and in one case murdered their general, Théobald Dillon. [10] Anonymous caricature depicting the treatment given to the Brunswick Manifesto by the French ...
They cite the fact that over the 100 years of struggle to impose republicanism upon France, the middle class were the primary beneficiaries. Nearly all the purchasers of former Church land were members of the bourgeoisie and very few peasants benefited from the confiscation and sales. [16]
France declared war on Austria in April 1792 and issued the first conscription orders, with recruits serving for twelve months. By the time peace finally came in 1815, the conflict had involved every major European power as well as the United States, redrawn the map of Europe and expanded into the Americas , the Middle East , and the Indian Ocean .
The French middle class watched changes in Britain with interest. When Britain's Reform Act 1832 extended enfranchisement to any man paying taxes of £10 or more per year (previously the vote was restricted to landholders), France's free press took interest. Meanwhile, economically, the French working class may perhaps have been slightly better ...
This is a list of wars involving modern France from the abolition of the French monarchy and the establishment of the French First Republic on 21 September 1792 until the current Fifth Republic. For wars involving the Kingdom of France (987–1792), see List of wars involving the Kingdom of France .
The War of Independence alone cost 1.3 billion livres, [37] [38] more than double the Crown's annual revenue, and in a single year—1781—227 million livres were spent on the campaign. The Seven Years' War was even more costly, at 1.8 billion livres, [39] and the war preceding that, the War of the Austrian Succession, cost another billion ...
In France many people desired war for various reasons. Narbonne trusted to find in it the means of restoring a certain authority to the crown and of limiting the Revolution. He contemplated a war with Austria only. The Girondins desired war in the hope that it would enable them to abolish monarchy altogether.
Religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion (1562–1598). The Wars of Religion crippled France, but triumph over Spain and the Habsburg monarchy in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent ...