Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Thus by the spring of 1793, the Revolution looked as if it were imploding. In the south the Spanish invaded Roussillon; in the east the Prussians went back on the offensive, driving the French out of the Rhineland; in the north the Austrians gained a great victory at Neerwinden on 18 March, reconquered Belgium and advanced on to French soil; in the north-west a British expeditionary force commanded by the Duke of York besieged Dunkirk; . . . It was as a response to this critical situation at home and abroad that on 23 August the National Convention finally completed the long transition to revolutionary war begun four years earlier. . . . This decree is usually referred to as instituting the ‘levée en masse’, but it was much more than that. It was also the first declaration of total war." [Blanning: Pursuit of Glory, p. 627-8]