Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, converted to Calvinism in 1560, possibly due to the influence of Theodore de Beze. This performance helped make his reputation as a capable tactician, and it fueled his meteoric rise to military and political power. The French Revolutionary Wars ( French: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution.

Leopold had initially looked on the Revolution with equanimity, but became more and more disturbed as the Revolution became more radical, although he still hoped to avoid war.By 1797 the French had defeated the First Coalition, occupied the Low Countries, the west bank of the Rhine, and Northern Italy, objectives which had defied the Valois and Bourbon dynasties for centuries.

In Italy, the Austrians under General Michael von Melas attacked first, and by the third week in April had advanced to the Var, with Masséna and half his army in Genoa besieged by land, by the Austrians and under tight blockade by the Royal Navy. France had had a military alliance with Russia since 1894, designed primarily to neutralize the German threat to both countries.The Liberal government of Britain was pacifistic, and also extremely legalistic, so that German violation of Belgium neutrality – treating it like a scrap of paper – helped mobilize party members to support the war effort. The most important dimension of French military assistance was the shipment of weapons to Biafra, which had severe shortages of not only heavy weapons, but also small arms and ammunition. Traditionally, European armies left major command positions to those who could be trusted, namely, the aristocracy. Levy, and William Mulligan, "Shifting power, preventive logic, and the response of the target: Germany, Russia, and the First World War.