[18] They were only loosely allied and fought without much apparent coordination or agreement; each power had its eye on a different part of France it wanted to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurred.

France counterattacked with the victory at Valmy (20 September) and two days later the National Convention, which had replaced the Legislative Assembly, proclaimed the French Republic.

With the Treaty of Campo Formio, Austria ceded the Austrian Netherlands to France and Northern Italy was turned into several French sister republics.

Spain made a separate peace accord with France (Second Treaty of Basel) and the French Directory annexed more of the Holy Roman Empire.

North of the Alps, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen defeated the invading armies during the Rhine campaign, but Napoleon Bonaparte succeeded against Sardinia and Austria in northern Italy (1796–1797) near the Po Valley, culminating in the Peace of Leoben and the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797).

The key figure, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, brother of the French Queen Marie Antoinette, had initially looked on the Revolution calmly.

[20] In addition to the ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers of Europe, disputes continued over the status of Imperial estates in Alsace,[20] and the French authorities became concerned about the agitation of émigré nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and in the minor states of Germany.

[21] This motivated the revolutionary army and government to oppose the Prussian invaders by any means necessary,[21] and led almost immediately to the overthrow of the King by a crowd which stormed the Tuileries Palace.

[18] Meanwhile, the French had been successful on several other fronts, occupying the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice until the Massif de l'Authion, while General Custine invaded Germany, capturing Speyer, Worms and Mainz along the Rhine, and reaching as far as Frankfurt.

In the course of the year 1793 the Holy Roman Empire (on 23 March), the kings of Portugal and Naples, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany declared war against France.

The Girondin faction of the French government sent Citizen Genet to the United States to encourage them to enter the war on France's side.

The newly formed nation refused, and the Washington administration's 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality threatened legal action against any citizen providing assistance to any side in the conflict.

[31][32] On the Rhine frontier, General Pichegru, negotiating with the exiled Royalists, betrayed his army and forced the evacuation of Mannheim and the failure of the siege of Mainz by Jourdan.

[33] The French prepared a great advance on three fronts, with Jourdan and Jean Victor Marie Moreau on the Rhine and the newly promoted Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy.

Bonaparte defeated successive Austrian armies sent against him under Johann Peter Beaulieu, Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser and József Alvinczi while continuing the siege.

Austria signed the Treaty of Campo Formio in October,[35] ceding Belgium to France and recognizing French control of the Rhineland and much of Italy.