6. CHAPTER VI
THE ARMIES OF THE REVOLUTION
1. The Revolutionary Assemblies and the
Armies.
IF nothing were known of the revolutionary Assemblies, and
notably of the Convention, beyond their internal dissensions,
their weakness, and their acts of violence, their memory would
indeed be a gloomy one.
But even for its enemies this bloodstained epoch must
always retain an undeniable glory, thanks to the success of its
armies. When the Convention dissolved France was already the
greater by Belgium and the territories on the left bank of the
Rhine.
Regarding the Convention as a whole, it seems equitable to
credit it with the victories of the armies of France, but if we
analyse this whole in order to study each of its elements
separately their independence will at once be obvious. It is at
once apparent that the Convention had a very small share in the
military events of the time. The armies on the frontier and the
revolutionary Assemblies in Paris formed two separate worlds,
which had very little influence over one another, and which
regarded matters in a very different light.
We have seen that the Convention was a weak Government,
which changed its ideas daily, according to popular impulse; it
was really an example of the
profoundest anarchy. It directed nothing, but was itself
continually directed; how, then, could it have commanded armies?
Completely absorbed in its intestine quarrels, the
Assembly had abandoned all military questions to a special
committee, which was directed almost single-handed by Carnot, and
whose real function was to furnish the troops with provisions and
ammunition. The merit of Carnot consisted in the fact that
besides directing over 752,000 men at the disposal of France,
upon points which were strategically valuable, he also advised
the generals of the armies to take the offensive, and to preserve
a strict discipline.
The sole share of the Assembly in the defence of the
country was the decree of the general levy. In the face of the
numerous enemies then threatening France, no Government could
have avoided such a measure. For some little time, too, the
Assembly had sent representatives to the armies instructed to
decapitate certain generals, but this policy was soon abandoned.
As a matter of fact the military activities of the
Assembly were always extremely slight. The armies, thanks to
their numbers, their enthusiasm, and the tactics devised by their
youthful generals, achieved their victories unaided. They fought
and conquered independently of the Convention.
2. The Struggle of Europe against the
Revolution.
Before enumerating the various psychological factors which
contributed to the successes of the revolutionary armies, it will
be useful briefly to recall the origin and the development of the
war against Europe.
At the commencement of the Revolution the foreign
sovereigns regarded with satisfaction the difficulties of the
French monarchy, which they had long regarded as a rival power.
The King of Prussia, believing France to be greatly enfeebled,
thought to enrich himself at her expense, so he proposed to the
Emperor of Austria to help Louis on condition of receiving
Flanders and Alsace as an indemnity. The two sovereigns signed
an alliance against France in February, 1792. The French
anticipated attack by declaring war upon Austria, under the
influence of the Girondists. The French army was at the outset
subjected to several checks. The allies penetrated into
Champagne, and came within 130 miles of Paris. Dumouriez'
victory at Valmy forced them to retire.
Although 300 French and 200 Prussians only were killed in
this battle, it had very significant results. The fact that an
army reputed invincible had been forced to retreat gave boldness
to the young revolutionary troops, and everywhere they took the
offensive. In a few weeks the soldiers of Valmy had chased the
Austrians out of Belgium, where they were welcomed as liberators.
But it was under the Convention that the war assumed such
importance. At the beginning of 1793 the Assembly declared that
Belgium was united to France. From this resulted a conflict with
England which lasted for twenty-two years.
Assembled at Antwerp in April, 1793, the representatives
of England, Prussia, and Austria resolved to dismember France.
The Prussians were to seize Alsace and Lorraine; the Austrians,
Flanders and Artois; the English, Dunkirk. The Austrian
ambassador
proposed to crush the Revolution by terror, “by exterminating
practically the whole of the party directing the nation.” In
the face of such declarations France had perforce to conquer or
to perish.
During this first coalition, between 1793 and 1797, France
had to fight on all her frontiers, from the Pyrenees to the
north.
At the outset she lost her former conquests, and suffered
several reverses. The Spaniards took Perpignan and Bayonne; the
English, Toulon; and the Austrians, Valenciennes. It was then
that the Convention, towards the end of 1793, ordered a general
levy of all Frenchmen between the ages of eighteen and forty, and
succeeded in sending to the frontiers a total of some 750,000
men. The old regiments of the royal army were combined with
battalions of volunteers and conscripts.
The allies were repulsed, and Maubeuge was relieved after
the victory of Wattigny, which was gained by Jourdan. Hoche
rescued Lorraine. France took the offensive, reconquering
Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine. Jourdan defeated the
Austrians at Fleurus, drove them back upon the Rhine, and
occupied Cologne and Coblentz. Holland was invaded. The allied
sovereigns resigned themselves to suing for peace, and recognised
the French conquests.
The successes of the French were favoured by the fact that
the enemy never put their whole heart into the affair, as they
were preoccupied by the partition of Poland, which they effected
in 1793-5. Each Power wished to be on the spot in order to
obtain more territory. This motive had already caused the
King of Prussia to retire after the battle of Valmy in 1792.
The hesitations of the allies and their mutual distrust
were extremely advantageous to the French. Had the Austrians
marched upon Paris in the summer of 1793, “we should,”
said General Thiébault, “have lost a hundred times for
one. They alone saved us, by giving us time to make soldiers,
officers, and generals.”
After the treaty of Basle, France had no important
adversaries on the Continent, save the Austrians. It was then
that the Directory attacked Austria in Italy. Bonaparte was
entrusted with the charge of this campaign. After a year of
fighting, from April, 1796, to April, 1797, he forced the last
enemies of France to demand peace.
3. Psychological and Military Factors which determined
the Success of the Revolutionary Armies.
To realise the causes of the success of the revolutionary
armies we must remember the prodigious enthusiasm, endurance, and
abnegation of these ragged and often barefoot troops. Thoroughly
steeped in revolutionary principles, they felt that they were the
apostles of a new religion, which was destined to regenerate the
world.
The history of the armies of the Revolution recalls that
of the nomads of Arabia, who, excited to fanaticism by the ideals
of Mohammed, were transformed into formidable armies which
rapidly conquered a portion of the old Roman world. An analogous
faith endowed the Republican soldiers with a heroism and
intrepidity which never failed
them, and which no reverse could shake When the Convention gave
place to the Directory they had liberated the country, and had
carried a war of invasion into the enemy's territory. At this
period the soldiers were the only true Republicans left in
France.
Faith is contagious, and the Revolution was regarded as a
new era, so that several of the nations invaded, oppressed by the
absolutism of their monarchs, welcomed the invaders as
liberators. The inhabitants of Savoy ran out to meet the troops.
At Mayence the crowd welcomed them with enthusiasm planted trees
of liberty, and formed a Convention in imitation of that of
Paris.
So long as the armies of the Revolution had to deal with
peoples bent under the yoke of absolute monarchy, and having no
personal ideal to defend, their success was relatively easy. But
when they entered into conflict with peoples who had an ideal as
strong as their own victory became far more difficult.
The new ideal of liberty and equality was capable of
seducing peoples who had no precise convictions, and were
suffering from the despotism of their masters, but it was
naturally powerless against those who possessed a potent ideal of
their own which had been long established in their minds. For
this reason Bretons and Vendéeans, whose religious and
monarchical sentiments were extremely powerful, successfully
struggled for years against the armies of the Republic.
In March, 1793, the insurrections of the Vendée and
Brittany had spread to ten departments. The
Vendéeans in Poitou and the Chouans in Brittany put 80,000
men in the field.
The conflicts between contrary ideals—that is, between
beliefs in which reason can play no part—are always pitiless,
and the struggle with the Vendée immediately assumed the
ferocious savagery always observable in religious wars. It
lasted until the end of 1795, when Hoche finally
“pacified” the country. This pacification was the simple
result of the practical extermination of its defenders.
“After two years of civil war,” writes Molinari,
“the Vendée was no more than a hideous heap of ruins.
About 900,000 individuals—men, women, children, and aged
people—had perished, and the small number of those who had
escaped massacre could scarcely find food or shelter. The fields
were devastated, the hedges and walls destroyed, and the houses
burned.”
Besides their faith, which so often rendered them
invincible, the soldiers of the Revolution had usually the
advantage of being led by remarkable generals, full of ardour and
formed on the battle-field.
The majority of the former leaders of the army, being
nobles, had emigrated so that a new body of officers had to be
organised. The result was that those gifted with innate military
aptitudes had a chance of showing them, and passed through all
the grades of rank in a few months. Hoche, for instance, a
corporal in 1789, was a general of division and commander of an
army at the age of twenty-five. The extreme youth of these
leaders resulted in a spirit of aggression to which the armies
opposed to them were not accustomed. Selected only according
to merit, and hampered by no traditions, no routine, they quickly
succeeded in working out a tactics suited to the new necessities.
Of soldiers without experience opposed to seasoned
professional troops, drilled and trained according to the methods
in use everywhere since the Seven Years' War, one could not
expect complicated manœuvres.
Attacks were delivered simply by great masses of troops.
Thanks to the numbers of the men at the disposal of their
generals, the considerable gaps provoked by this efficacious but
barbarous procedure could be rapidly filled.
Deep masses of men attacked the enemy with the bayonet,
and quickly routed men accustomed to methods which were more
careful of the lives of soldiers. The slow rate of fire in those
days rendered the French tactics relatively easy of employment.
It triumphed, but at the cost of enormous losses. It has been
calculated that between 1792 and 1800 the French army left more
than a third of its effective force on the battle-field (700,000
men out of 2,000,000).
Examining events from a psychological point of view, we
shall continue to elicit the consequences from the facts on which
they are consequent.
A study of the revolutionary crowds in Paris and in the
armies presents very different but readily interpreted pictures.
We have proved that crowds, unable to reason, obey simply
their impulses, which are always changing, but we have also seen
that they are readily capable of heroism, that their altruism is
often highly
developed, and that it is easy to find thousands of men ready to
give their lives for a belief.
Psychological characteristics so diverse must naturally,
according to the circumstances, lead to dissimilar and even
absolutely contradictory actions. The history of the Convention
and its armies proves as much. It shows us crowds composed of
similar elements acting so differently in Paris and on the
frontiers that one can hardly believe the same people can be in
question.
In Paris the crowds were disorderly, violent, murderous,
and so changeable in their demands as to make all government
impossible.
In the armies the picture was entirely different. The
same multitudes of unaccustomed men, restrained by the orderly
elements of a laborious peasant population, standardised by
military discipline, and inspired by contagious enthusiasm,
heroically supported privations, disdained perils, and
contributed to form that fabulous strain which triumphed over the
most redoubtable troops in Europe.
These facts are among those which should always be invoked
to show the force of discipline. It transforms men. Liberated
from its influence, peoples and armies become barbarian hordes.
This truth is daily and increasingly forgotten. Ignoring
the fundamental laws of collective logic, we give way more and
more to shifting popular impulses, instead of learning to direct
them. The multitude must be shown the road to follow; it is not
for them to choose it.
