Declaration of Pillnitz

The Declaration of Pillnitz on 27 August 1791, was a statement issued at Pillnitz Castle in Saxony (south of Dresden) by the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and Frederick William II of Prussia. Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, & Russia band against the French Revolution, saying they will fight against it if necessary.

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 also went 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 interpreted it to mean that Leopold was going to declare war; radical Frenchmen who called for war, such as Jacques Pierre Brissot, used it as a pretext to gain influence, and declare war on 20 April 1792, leading to the French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1792.

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