Germany & Vienna in the French Revolution & the Napoleonic Era (1789 - 1815)

The French Revolution, 1789 - 1799

The causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians.  Following the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution (which Louis XVI helped finance), the French government was deeply in debt.  It attempted to restore its financial status through unpopular taxation schemes, which were heavily regressive.  Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy and the Catholic clergy of the established church.  Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette became symbols of unnecessary extravagance and failed leadership.

Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates General in May 1789.  During the first year of the Revolution, members of the Third Estate (commoners) took control, the Bastille was attacked on July 14th, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a document proclaiming universal human rights, was passed in August, and a women's march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October.  A central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. 

The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy against an invading Prussian intent on squashing the revolution.  In a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793.

External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution. The Revolutionary Wars beginning in 1792 ultimately featured French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had eluded previous French governments for centuries.

Internally, popular agitation radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins.  The dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror, from 1793 until 1794, established price controls on food and other items, abolished slavery in French colonies abroad, de-established the Catholic church (dechristianised society) and created a secular Republican calendar, religious leaders were expelled, and the borders of the new republic were secured from its enemies.  Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, with estimates ranging from 16,000 to 40,000, ranging from aristocrats to "suspected" enemies of the revolution.  An uprising against the revolution in the Vendée region south west of Paris was brutally repressed with tens of thousands losing their lives.

After the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. They suspended elections, repudiated debt - resulting in financial instability, persecuted the Catholic clergy, and made significant military conquests abroad.  Dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799.  Napoleon, who became the hero of the Revolution through his popular military campaigns, established the Consulate and later the First Empire, setting the stage for a wider array of global conflicts in the Napoleonic Wars.


The French Revolutionary Wars & the Napoleonic Wars

Within a couple years of the beginning of the French Revolution, the French Revolutionary Wars broke out on the continent beginning with Prussia's attempt (with Great Britain's and Austria's backing) to squash the revolution to keep it from spreading outside of France.  Prussia was involved in the First Coalition armies against France until 1795 when they ceded the west bank of the Rhine to France and backed out of the war.  The next year Napoleon Bonaparte first gained fame by winning numerous battles that drove the Austrians out of northern Italy.  

The Napoleonic Era began when Napoleon seized power in France in December, 1799.  He rekindled the European Wars in 1803.  In 1804 Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France, and Beethoven, who was writing his Third Symphony in honor of Napoleon, removed the dedication from the score.

Vienna was under siege by Napoleon's army in 1805 when Leonore was premiered in November.  The Viennese aristocrats had fled the city and a large amount of the small audience were Napoleon's officers.   In August, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria formed the Third Coalition and declared war on France.  Napoleon's army then left Vienna to fight in Germany.

In 1806, Prussia reentered the war against France joining Great Britain, Russia and Sweden while the German states of Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg formed the Confederation of the Rhine and joined the war on France's side.  Prussia was quickly defeated.

The War of the Fifth Coalition was fought in 1809 and once again the French army occupied Vienna.  The French took heavy losses on the Iberian peninsula in 1809.

Prussia again entered the Napoleonic Wars in 1813 and helped the Coalition Armies defeat Napoleon first in 1814, and again upon his return in 1815.  The War of the Sixth Coalition (1813-1814) is known in Germany as the War of German Liberation.