Fox of France

All the actions of Emperor Leopold were regarded by the French, at least most of the French, as an expression of fear of France. So the little roosters' self-confidence suddenly exploded. In this way, Robespierre, who opposed war, and Lafayette, who advocated a cautious approach to war, were regarded as cowards.

After voluntarily withdrawing from this parliamentary election, Robespierre's reputation was once very good. For a person like Robespierre who does not have much power, the loss of reputation is quite heavy. In fact, after such a loss, Robespierre has no room for change, and he can almost only rely on the bottom support.

Lafayette also suffered heavy losses, a general whose strength and prestige was largely derived from his victories. Today he is widely regarded as a lack of guts. For a general, this is almost intolerable. So Lafayette was also greatly weakened. And the Paris Commune, which is now controlled by the Republicans, took the opportunity to join the infiltration of the National Self-Defense Forces-in theory, the National Self-Defense Forces were managed by the Paris City Government. When the commune was in the hands of Bai, of course, this problem did not exist, but now, the situation is different.

Both those who opposed the war were weakened, and the pace of the war naturally accelerated.

Emperor Leopold, on the other hand, was not idle either. He negotiated bilaterally with Prussia in an attempt to forge an alliance against France. Knowing the plight of the emperor, the Prussians were naturally happy to take the opportunity to open their mouths, and the two sides continued to bargain. But at the same time, the warlike tone in France was getting louder and louder.

In order to suppress the adventurous impulse of France, the emperor Leopold issued another manifesto just after the new year. Intimidate France, declaring that if France is not honest, they will be crushed. At the same time, he proposed to France that France must ensure that the legal status of the king was not threatened, and France should expel those extreme republicans from the parliament.

Of course, this statement only played a negative role. In response, the French Parliament immediately proposed to form three legions for the war against Austria. The king and his wife, who are eager for war, will naturally not veto such a decision. What's more, this decision also means that they can kick Lafayette, who has always hated them, from Paris.

As Lafayette, he would naturally be appointed as the commander of the army. If it was a year ago, he would definitely have become the commander-in-chief of the French army, but now he is only appointed as the commander of one of the three legions, leading the troops to the border of France and Belgium. But the most important position of commander-in-chief fell into the hands of a newcomer, Dimouriez.

Dumouriez served in the Seven Years' War and was promoted to colonel. Later, he entered the diplomatic service and engaged in some diplomatic activities. In 1790, he joined the "Friends of the Constitution" club and was a good friend of Mirabeau. In his correspondence with the royal family, Mirabeau also recommended him to the king, saying that he was loyal and brave enough to replace Lafayette.

On the night the Friends of the Constitution split, he stood firmly against Lafayette. But he was not on Robespierre's side, and soon he became Brissot's close friend.

So at this time, apart from Lafayette, Di Mourier can get support from almost all sides. At this time, he almost immediately became a pivotal role in the entire French political arena.

Seeing that the French were coming for real, Emperor Leopold hurriedly made concessions to Prussia, so the two sides reached an alliance to jointly protect the Rhine region. According to this alliance, the two countries will each send 50,000 troops. to resist possible French aggression.

But Emperor Leopold still didn't want to go to war with France, because the risk of going to war was too great. So he is still trying to solve the problem through diplomacy, and did not immediately issue a mobilization order.

It is said that the emperor said to his close ministers: "Did the French suffer in the war against the Catholic countries?"

However, the emperor's health has always been poor, and suddenly fell ill during such labor, and was soon summoned by God and became the first emperor. The new emperor Francois II had long been very dissatisfied with the cowardice of the former emperor. As soon as he took the throne, the mobilization order was issued almost immediately.

Although the mobilization order has been issued, it will take time for the army to truly mobilize. As soon as the French got the news of Austria's mobilization, they immediately passed a resolution calling for a declaration of war on Austria.

For this resolution, the king and queen have long been eager to see through. Naturally, he signed it without hesitation. Then on March 16, Louis XVI delivered a speech in Parliament and officially declared war on Austria.

At this time, Prussia had not had time to mobilize, and only Austria was directly facing France. In order to protect itself, Austria transferred the 50,000 troops originally used to attack France to Belgium in accordance with its agreement with Prussia to defend against the French attack, and re-mobilized a group of troops to attack France.

Prussia immediately protested Austria's diversion of troops for other purposes, and declared that it would not mobilize for war until Austria's fifty thousand troops were in place. After consultations with Austria, Prussia lowered its demands and began military mobilization on May 4. However, by the time they are ready, it is estimated that it will be at least July. After all, the army of this era does not have the ability to "cold start", "barracks attack", or "quick response".

On the other hand, Austria still wants Sweden to be involved. However, this time God was on the side of France again. The Swedish king was assassinated and killed. Sweden was in chaos, and it no longer cared about interfering in France.

This series of events actually gave the French three months to perfect their military preparations. However, in the past three months, the French have not done anything decent.

The French field troops were exceptionally short and morale was low. As for the National Self-Defense Forces, although the above two problems do not exist, it has another problem, that is, the National Self-Defense Forces are militias from various places. They were established to defend their hometowns, so they are unwilling to leave their hometowns to fight .

But now that France intends to launch a pre-emptive attack, the National Self-Defense Forces are useless. The remaining French field army, with a total of more than 60,000 people, began to invade Belgium. Although the French army was more numerous than the Austrian defenders, the French army was disorganized, and the hope of victory was pinned on the Belgians to take the opportunity to launch an uprising against the feudal system. And what about the revolutionaries in Belgium? Hope to rely on the French army to defeat the Austrians, and then launch an uprising.

Everyone is counting on each other, and the result is naturally tragic. On April 29, the French army and the Austrian army met. As soon as the two sides came into contact, the French army discovered that the Belgians who were originally scheduled to come to meet them did not know where they had gone. The French army noticed that the Austrian army's defense was strong and thought that the attack was hopeless, so the commander ordered a retreat. Unexpectedly, due to the confusion of command, the retreat turned into a rout. The Austrians were inexplicably astonished, and stared dumbfounded at the sudden collapse of the superior French army. The French army was in a mess, and the battlefield was full of weapons and the white iris flag of the Kingdom of France. Commander Dillon also died inexplicably among the defeated troops.

When the news came, the nearby French general Carle immediately led his army to retreat. As soon as Carles retreated, Lafayette's flank was exposed. Then, Lafayette also had to retreat.

This failure made France ashamed, and the reputation of the commanders on the front line was completely ruined. If people mentioned Lafayette in the past, they still thought of the hero of the North American War, but now when they mention him, people will use a dismissive tone: "Oh, it's the one who hasn't had time to see the Austrians, just like a bird. You coward who came back running like a rabbit shot by an arrow!"

In fact, Carle ran earlier than Lafayette, but everyone concentrated their fire on Lafayette. Who made him more famous?

In order to save the crisis, the French government began printing coupons frantically, followed by staggering inflation. Inflation makes life harder for the citizens of the city. (By the way, Clavier seized this opportunity to play the previous trick again, and it was successful again. It can be seen that the level of human memory is not fundamentally different from that of fish. Of course, Joseph and Carnot took this opportunity to take another train for free.) Robespierre knew that his chance had come.

Robespierre, together with his friends Danton (whose pursuit was called off after Brissot came to power, returned), and Marat, began to make public opinion, they declared that the French army at the front The defeat was caused by domestic saboteurs, royalist elements colluding with the enemy. And directly accused the king of being the leader of these people, demanded that the king be tried and France turned into a republic.

Lafayette knew that the situation had reached the most dangerous time, and he decided to fight to the death. He sent envoys to discuss a truce with the Austrian general Mercy, so that he could take this army back to Paris to launch a military coup, rescue the king, and save the constitutional monarchy. However, one of Mercy's orders from the Emperor of Austria was to hold Lafayette back. He knew that the person whom the King of France least trusted was Lafayette. As a result, Lafayette's request for a truce was naturally ignored.

Lafayette left his troops and returned to Paris secretly alone, trying to mobilize the National Guard in the wealthy area west of the city to start a mutiny. However, the king objected to his approach, and he had no means of mobilizing this army without the co-operation of the court. In the end, he could only leave in dismay.

Dimouriez also left Paris almost at the same time as him. He knew that the revolution was imminent, so he resigned from the post of Minister of War, left Paris, and personally went to the northern front to serve as the front-line commander. But before leaving, he made this request:

"I want Joseph Bonaparte, the former commander-in-chief of the Red Army, and his brother Napoleon Bonaparte to go with me to the north and serve as my staff."