Meanwhile the tide of Austrian and Prussian invasion had been rolling away from France. After Valmy, Dumouriez had pursued the retreating foreigners across the Rhine and had carried the war into the Austrian Netherlands, where a large party regarded the French as deliverers. Dumouriez entered Brussels without serious resistance, and was speedily master of the whole country. It seemed as though the French would have an easy task in delivering the peoples of Europe from their old régime.
[Sidenote: France the Champion of the Revolution]
Emboldened by the ease with which its armies were overrunning the neighboring states, the National Convention proposed to propagate liberty and reform throughout Europe and in December, 1792, issued the following significant decree: "The French nation declares that it will treat as enemies every people who, refusing liberty and equality or renouncing them, may wish to maintain, recall, or treat with a prince and the privileged classes; on the other hand, it engages not to subscribe to any treaty and not to lay down its arms until the sovereignty and independence of the people whose territory the troops of the republic shall have entered shall be established, and until the people shall have adopted the principles of equality and founded a free and democratic government."
[Sidenote: Foreign Fears]
In thus throwing down the gauntlet to all the monarchs of Europe and in putting the issue clearly between democracy and the old régime, the French revolutionaries took a dangerous step. Although a large number of the neighboring peoples undoubtedly sympathized with the aims and achievements of the Revolution, the rulers and privileged classes in more distant countries, such as Russia, Austria, Prussia, and even Spain and Great Britain, were still deeply intrenched in the patriotism and unquestioning loyalty of their people.
[Sidenote: The "First Coalition" against France]
Then, too, the execution of Louis XVI in January, 1793, increased the bitterness of the approaching grave struggle. A royalist reaction in France itself precipitated civil war in La Vendée. Dumouriez, the ablest general of the day, in disgust deserted to the Austrians. And at this very time, a formidable coalition of frightened and revengeful monarchs was formed to overthrow the French Republic. To Austria and Prussia, already in the field, were added Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Sardinia.
[Sidenote: Military Endeavours of the Revolutionaries]
Once more France was placed on the defensive. Once more the allies occupied Belgium and the Rhine provinces, and took the roads toward Paris. The situation in the spring of 1793 appeared as critical as that in the preceding summer. But as the event proved, the republic was a far more effective government than the liberal monarchy, Revolutionary France now went gladly to war, singing the Marseillaise and displaying the banners of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." Bourgeois citizens, whose social and financial gains in the earlier stage of the Revolution would be threatened by the triumph of the foreign forces, now gave money and brains to the national defense. Artisans and peasants, who had won something and hoped to win more from the success of the Revolution, now laid down their lives for the cause. Heroism and devotion to a great ideal inspired the raw recruits that were rushed to the front.
[Sidenote: Carnot]