Revolutionary France was invaded, by a number of other nations looking to take advantage of the turmoil as well as to attempt a reversal of the revolutionary policies. Sometimes hostile action against revolutionary France came as a response to France's own aggressive manoeuvres.

The principal examples of this are the invasion by combined Holy Roman Empire and Prussian Army led by the Duke of Brunswick. The invasion was the end result of a number of events such as the mistreatment of the French royal family (especially the Queen who was the sister of Leopold II, the Holy Roman Emperor), a failed invasion of the Austrian Netherlands by a poorly organised French Army and the storming of the Tuileries palace by French revolutionaries who detained the royal family. The combined army led by the Duke of Brunswick invaded French territory on 19 August 1792. The army advanced steadily for a time until it came up against renewed French resistance and the French artillery, probably the most professional arm of the French army and the one that had largely escaped the mass emigrations by French nobles that had afflicted the other arms. At Valmy, the invasion came to a stand still and in the face of stiffer resistance and the approach of winter, the Duke and his army withdrew.

The other notable foreign invasion of French soil was conducted by the British who and occupied the port city after French Royalists evicted the revolutionaries and Jacobins. The Royalists proclaimed King Louis XVI's son king and welcomed the British fleet into the city. The British were eventually expelled from the port during an action known as the Siege of Toulon which also represented the first major action by Napoleon who coordinated the French artillery during the siege.