Declaration of Pillnitz

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The Declaration of Pillnitz on August 27, 1791, was a statement issued at the Castle of Pillnitz in Saxony (south of Dresden) by the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and Frederick William II of Prussia. Calling on European powers to intervene if Louis XVI of France was threatened, this declaration was intended to serve as a warning to the French revolutionaries not to infringe further on the rights of Louis XVI and to allow his restoration to power. The statement helped begin the French Revolutionary Wars. (The Pillnitz Conference itself dealt mainly with the Polish Question and the war of Austria against the Ottoman Empire.)

The declaration stated that Austria would go to war if and only if all the other major European powers would also go to war with France. Leopold chose this wording so that he would not be forced to go to war; he knew William Pitt, prime minister of Great Britain, did not support war with France. Leopold merely issued the declaration to satisfy the French emigres taking refuge in his nation who called for foreign interference in their homeland. The National Assembly of France misunderstood this document, interpreting it to mean that Leopold was going to declare war; radical Frenchmen who called for war, such as Jacques Pierre Brissot, gained influence thereafter.

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