“Do you hear in the fields
The howling of those fearsome soldiers?
They are coming into your midst
To slit the throats of your sons and consorts.
To arms, citizens!
Form up your battalions!
Let’s march, let’s march!
May impure blood soak our fields’ furrows!”
– English translation of “La Marseillaise” (1792), originally written in French during the French Revolution – now used as the national anthem of France
The French Revolution sucked much of Europe into a decade of bitter warfare
In 1789, a French mob stormed the Bastille on the 14th of July. This is the most famous date of the French Revolution, with its anniversary today celebrated in France as “Bastille Day.” This is actually the national holiday of France today, much as “Independence Day” is the national holiday of the United States. But there’s more to the story than this domestic revolution, although that is a critically important part of it. The French Revolution also sucked much of Europe into a decade of bitter warfare. The later years of the French Revolution were thus set against the backdrop of warfare. That is, there was an overlap between the later “French Revolution” and the early “French Revolutionary Wars.” This post will cover the often-forgotten conflicts that were associated with the French Revolution. I have saved my coverage of the Napoleonic Wars for another post, even though these two topics are intimately connected. Thus, I will instead be focusing here on the “French Revolutionary Wars,” which lasted for ten years in all. In so many ways, they were a great European cataclysm.
Storming of the Bastille, 1789