Franco-Austrian alliance

The Franco-Austrian Alliance was a diplomatic and military alliance between France and Austria that was first established in 1756 after the First Treaty of Versailles. It lasted for much of the remainder of the century until it was abandoned during the French Revolution.

The alliance had its heyday during the Seven Years' War, when France and Austria joined forces to fight their mutual enemy, Prussia. After the allies' defeat, the intimacy of the alliance weakened, and by the 1780s, the alliance had become something closer to a formality. Austria even briefly considered the idea of entering the American War of Independence on Britain's side against France. During the French Revolution, when France first declared itself a constitutional monarchy and then overthrew and executed its king, the alliance had collapsed entirely. Austria actively tried to restore the French monarchy by going to war with the new French Republic.