Army of Condé

The Army of Condé (French: Armée de Condé) was a French field army during the French Revolutionary Wars. One of several émigré field armies, it was the only one to survive the War of the First Coalition; others had been formed by the Comte d'Artois (brother of King Louis XVI) and Mirabeau-Tonneau. The émigré armies were formed by aristocrats and nobles who had fled from the violence in France after the August Decrees. The army was commanded by Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, the cousin of Louis XVI of France. Among its members were Condé's grandson, the Duc d'Enghien and the two sons of Louis XVI's younger brother, the Comte d'Artois, and so the army was sometimes also called the Princes' Army.

Financial difficulties forced Condé to appeal to foreign courts for support. Although the Army of Condé fought in conjunction with the Austrian army, many of the generals in Habsburg service distrusted Louis Joseph, and policy makers in Vienna considered the army and its officers unreliable. Furthermore, conflicting goals of the French royalists and the Habsburgs frequently placed Louis Joseph at odds with the Habsburg military leadership.