French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1795
|
|
The French Revolutionary Wars continued from 1794 between France and the First coalition.
The year opened with French forces in the process of attacking Holland in the middle of winter. The Dutch people rallied to the French call for revolution, and city after city was occupied by the French. The Dutch fleet was captured, and the stadtholder fled to be replaced by a popular Batavian Republic, which supported the French cause and signed the treaty of Paris, ceding the territories of Brabant and Maastricht to France on May 16.
With the Netherlands falling, Prussia also decided to leave the coalition, signing a peace at Basel on April 6, ceding the left bank of the Rhine to France. This freed Prussia to finish the occupation of Poland.
The French army in Spain advanced, advancing in Catalonia while taking Bilbao and Vitoria and marching toward Castile. By July 10, Spain also decided to make peace, recognizing the revolutionary government and ceding the territory of Santo Domingo, but returning to the pre-war borders in Europe. This left the armies on the Pyrenees free to march east and reinforce the armies on the Alps, and the combined army overran Piedmont.
Meanwhile, Britain's attempt to reinforce the rebels in the Vendée at Quiberon failed, and a conspiracy to overthrow the republican government from within ended when Napoleon Bonaparte fired cannon to disperse the mob and the Directory was established.
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 Mayence by Jourdan. This was a moderate setback to the position of the French.
See also: