Fall of the Republic of Venice Fall of the Republic of Venice The Fall of the Republic of Venice was a series of events in 1797 that led to the dissolution and dismemberment of the Republic of Venice at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte and Habsburg Austria. The Fall of the ancient Republic of Venice was the result of a sequence of events that followed the French Revolution (Fall of the Bastille, 14 July 1789), and the subsequent French Revolutionary Wars that pitted the First French Republic against the monarchic powers of Europe, allied in the First Coalition (1792), particularly following the execution of Louis XVI
Causes of the French Revolution have lagged slightly behind the Low Countries, and possibly Switzerland, in per capita wealth, the sheer size of the French economy made it the premier economic power of continental Europe. Historian John Shovlin states, "It is a truism that the French Revolution was touched off by the near bankruptcy of the state." It was the burden of the national debt that led this to the long-running financial crisis of the French government. Before the revolution, the French debt had risen from 8 billion to 12 billion livres. Extravagant expenditures on luxuries by Louis XVI, whose rule began in 1774, were