Why did Ludwig van Beethoven never return to Bonn after 1792?

Ludwig van Beethoven left Bonn in the autumn of 1792 to study with Joseph Haydn in Vienna. He never returned to his hometown primarily because the political landscape of the region shifted drastically due to the French Revolutionary Wars.12

By 1794, French forces had occupied the Rhineland, including Bonn. As a result, the archbishop-elector—Beethoven’s patron—fled the city, which led to the termination of the financial subsidy that had supported Beethoven’s career. With his patron gone and his home territory under French control, Beethoven remained in Vienna, where he successfully established himself as a pianist and composer under the support of new aristocratic patrons, such as Prince Lichnowsky.2