Part 26

For a complete concordance of the Gregorian and the republican calendars see Stokvis, _Manuel d'histoire_, tome iii. (Leiden, 1889); also G. Villain, "Le Calendrier republicain," in _La Revolution Francaise_ for 1884-1885. (A. W. H.*)

FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS (1792-1800), the general name for the first part of the series of French wars which went on continuously, except for some local and temporary cessations of hostilities, from the declaration of war against Britain in 1792 to the final overthrow of Napoleon in 1815. The most important of these cessations--viz. the peace of 1801-1803--closes the "Revolutionary" and opens the "Napoleonic" era of land warfare, for which see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS, PENINSULAR WAR and WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. The naval history of the period is divided somewhat differently; the first period, treated below, is 1792-1799; for the second, 1799-1815, see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS.

France declared war on Austria on the 20th of April 1792. But Prussia and other powers had allied themselves with Austria in view of war, and it was against a coalition and not a single power that France found herself pitted, at the moment when the "emigration," the ferment of the Revolution, and want of material and of funds had thoroughly disorganized her army. The first engagements were singularly disgraceful. Near Lille the French soldiers fled at sight of the Austrian outposts, crying _Nous sommes trahis_, and murdered their general (April 29). The commanders-in-chief of the armies that were formed became one after another "suspects"; and before a serious action had been fought, the three armies of Rochambeau, Lafayette and Luckner had resolved themselves into two commanded by Dumouriez and Kellermann. Thus the disciplined soldiers of the Allies had apparently good reason to consider the campaign before them a military promenade. On the Rhine, a combined army of Prussians, Austrians, Hessians and _emigres_ under the duke of Brunswick was formed for the invasion of France, flanked by two smaller armies on its right and left, all three being under the supreme command of the king of Prussia. In the Netherlands the Austrians were to besiege Lille, and in the south the Piedmontese also took the field. The first step, taken against Brunswick's advice, was the issue (July 25) of a proclamation which, couched in terms in the last degree offensive to the French nation, generated the spirit that was afterwards to find expression in the "armed nation" of 1793-4, and sealed the fate of Louis XVI. The duke, who was a model sovereign in his own principality, sympathized with the constitutional side of the Revolution, while as a soldier he had no confidence in the success of the enterprise. After completing its preparations in the leisurely manner of the previous generation, his army crossed the French frontier on the 19th of August. Longwy was easily captured; and the Allies slowly marched on to Verdun, which was more indefensible even than Longwy. The commandant, Colonel Beaurepaire, shot himself in despair, and the place surrendered on the 3rd of September. Brunswick now began his march on Paris and approached the defiles of the Argonne. But Dumouriez, who had been training his raw troops at Valenciennes in constant small engagements, with the purpose of invading Belgium, now threw himself into the Argonne by a rapid and daring flank march, almost under the eyes of the Prussian advanced guard, and barred the Paris road, summoning Kellermann to his assistance from Metz. The latter moved but slowly, and before he arrived the northern part of the line of defence had been forced. Dumouriez, undaunted, changed front so as to face north, with his right wing on the Argonne and his left stretching towards Chalons, and in this position Kellermann joined him at St Menehould on the 19th of September.

Valmy.

Brunswick meanwhile had passed the northern defiles and had then swung round to cut off Dumouriez from Chalons. At the moment when the Prussian manoeuvre was nearly completed, Kellermann, commanding in Dumouriez's momentary absence, advanced his left wing and took up a position between St Menehould and Valmy. The result was the world-renowned Cannonade of Valmy (September 20, 1792). Kellermann's infantry, nearly all regulars, stood steady. The French artillery justified its reputation as the best in Europe, and eventually, with no more than a half-hearted infantry attack, the duke broke off the action and retired. This trivial engagement was the turning-point of the campaign and a landmark in the world's history. Ten days later, without firing another shot, the invading army began its retreat. Dumouriez's pursuit was not seriously pressed; he occupied himself chiefly with a series of subtle and curious negotiations which, with the general advance of the French troops, brought about the complete withdrawal of the enemy from the soil of France.

Jemappes.

Meanwhile, the French forces in the south had driven back the Piedmontese and had conquered Savoy and Nice. Another French success was the daring expedition into Germany made by Custine from Alsace. Custine captured Mainz itself on the 21st of October and penetrated as far as Frankfurt. In the north the Austrian siege of Lille had completely failed, and Dumouriez now resumed his interrupted scheme for the invasion of the Netherlands. His forward movement, made as it was late in the season, surprised the Austrians, and he disposed of enormously superior forces. On the 6th of November he won the first great victory of the war at Jemappes near Mons and, this time advancing boldly, he overran the whole country from Namur to Antwerp within a month.

Such was the prelude of what is called the "Great War" in England and the "Epopee" in France. Before going further it is necessary to summarize the special features of the French army--in leadership, discipline, tactics, organization and movement--which made these campaigns the archetype of modern warfare.

At the outbreak of the Revolution the French army, like other armies in Europe, was a "voluntary" long-service army, augmented to some extent in war by drafts of militia.

The French army, 1792-1796.

One of the first problems that the Constituent Assembly took upon itself to solve was the nationalization of this strictly royal and professional force, and as early as October 1789 the word "Conscription" was heard in its debates. But it was decreed nevertheless that free enlistment alone befitted a free people, and the regular army was left unaltered in form. However, a National Guard came into existence side by side with it, and the history of French army organization in the next few years is the history of the fusion of these two elements. The first step, as regards the regular army, was the abolition of proprietary rights, the serial numbering of regiments throughout the Army, and the disbandment of the _Maison du roi_. The next was the promotion of deserving soldiers to fill the numerous vacancies caused by the emigration. Along with these, however, there came to the surface many incompetent leaders, favourites in the political clubs of Paris, &c., and the old strict discipline became impossible owing to the frequent intervention of the civil authorities in matters affecting it, the denunciation of generals, and especially the wild words and wild behaviour of "Volunteer" (embodied national guard) battalions.

When war came, it was soon found that the regulars had fallen too low in numbers and that the national guard demanded too high pay, to admit of developing the expected field strength. Arms, discipline, training alike were wanting to the new levies, and the repulse of Brunswick was effected by manoeuvring and fighting on the old lines and chiefly with the old army. The cry of _La patrie en danger_, after giving, at the crisis, the highest moral support to the troops in the front, dwindled away after victory, and the French government contented itself with the half-measures that had, apparently, sufficed to avert the peril. More, when the armies went into winter quarters, the Volunteers claimed leave of absence and went home.

But in the spring of 1793, confronted by a far more serious peril, the government took strong measures. Universal liability was asserted, and passed into law. Yet even now whole classes obtained exemption and the right of substitution as usual forced the burden of service on the poorer classes, so that of the 100,000 men called on for the regular army and 200,000 for the Volunteers, only some 180,000 were actually raised. Desertion, generally regarded as the curse of professional armies, became a conspicuous vice of the defenders of the Republic, except at moments when a supreme crisis called forth supreme devotion--moments which naturally were more or less prolonged in proportion to the gravity of the situation. Thus, while it almost disappeared in the great effort of 1793-1794, when the armies sustained bloody reverses in distant wars of conquest, as in 1799, it promptly rose again to an alarming height.

Universal service of the "Amalgam."

While this unsatisfactory general levy was being made, defeats, defections and invasion in earnest came in rapid succession, and to deal with the almost desperate emergency, the ruthless Committee of Public Safety sprang into existence. "The levy is to be universal. Unmarried citizens and widowers without children of ages from 18 to 25 are to be called up first," and 450,000 recruits were immediately obtained by this single act. The complete amalgamation of the regular and volunteer units was decided upon. The white uniforms of the line gave place to the blue of the National Guard in all arms and services. The titles of officers were changed, and in fact every relic of the old regime, save the inherited solidity of the old regular battalions, was swept away. This rough combination of line and volunteers therefore--for the "Amalgam" was not officially begun until 1794--must be understood when we refer to the French army of Hondschoote or of Wattignies. It contained, by reason of its universality and also because men were better off in the army than out of it--if they stayed at home they went in daily fear of denunciation and the guillotine--the best elements of the French nation. To some extent at any rate the political _arrivistes_ had been weeded out, and though the informer, here as elsewhere, struck unseen blows, the mass of the army gradually evolved its true leaders and obeyed them. It was, therefore, an army of individual citizen-soldiers of the best type, welded by the enemy's fire, and conscious of its own solidarity in the midst of the Revolutionary chaos.

After 1794 the system underwent but little radical change until the end of the Revolutionary period. Its regiments grew in military value month by month and attained their highest level in the great campaign of 1796. In 1795 the French forces (now all styled National Guard) consisted of 531,000 men, of whom 323,000 were infantry (100 3-battalion demi-brigades), 97,000 light infantry (30 demi-brigades), 29,000 artillery, 20,000 engineers and 59,000 cavalry. This novel army developed novel fighting methods, above all in the infantry. This arm had just received a new drill-book, as the result of a prolonged controversy (see INFANTRY) between the advocates of "lines" and "columns," and this drill-book, while retaining the principle of the line, set controversy at rest by admitting battalion columns of attack, and movements at the "quick" (100-120 paces to the minute) instead of at the "slow" march (76). On these two prescriptions, ignoring the rest, the practical troop leaders built up the new tactics little by little, and almost unconsciously. The process of evolution cannot be stated exactly, for the officers learned to use and even to invent now one form, now another, according to ground and circumstances. But the main stream of progress is easily distinguishable.

Tactics.

The earlier battles were fought more or less according to the drill-book, partly in line for fire action, partly in column for the bayonet attack. But line movements required the most accurate drill, and what was attainable after years of practice with regulars moving at the slow march was wholly impossible for new levies moving at 120 paces to the minute. When, therefore, the line marched off, it broke up into a shapeless swarm of individual firers. This was the form, if form it can be called, of the tactics of 1793--"horde-tactics," as they have quite justly been called--and a few such experiences as that of Hondschoote sufficed to suggest the need of a remedy. This was found in keeping as many troops as possible out of the firing line. From 1794 onwards the latter becomes thinner and thinner, and instead of the drill-book form, with half the army firing in line (practically in hordes) and the other half in support in columns, we find the rear lines becoming more and more important and numerous, till at last the fire of the leading line (skirmishers) becomes insignificant, and the decision rests with the bayonets of the closed masses in rear. Indeed, the latter often used mixed line and column formations, which enabled them not only to charge, but to fire close-order volleys--absolutely regardless of the skirmishers in front. In other words, the bravest and coolest marksmen were let loose to do what damage they could, and the rest, massed in close order, were kept under the control of their officers and only exposed to the dissolving influence of the fight when the moment arrived to deliver, whether by fire or by shock, the decisive blow.

Cavalry. Artillery. Engineers.

The cavalry underwent little change in its organization and tactics, which remained as in the drill-books founded on Frederick's practice. But except in the case of the hussars, who were chiefly Alsatians, it was thoroughly disorganized by the emigration or execution of the nobles who had officered it, and for long it was incapable of facing the hostile squadrons in the open. Still, its elements were good, it was fairly well trained, and mounted, and not overwhelmed with national guard drafts, and like the other arms it duly evolved and obeyed new leaders.

In artillery matters this period, 1792-1796, marks an important progress, due above all to Gribeauval (q.v.) and the two du Teils, Jean Pierre (1722-1794) and Jean (1733-1820) who were Napoleon's instructors. The change was chiefly in organization and equipment--the great tactical development of the arm was not to come until the time of the _Grande Armee_--and may be summarized as the transition from battalion guns and reserve artillery to batteries of "horse and field."

The engineers, like the artillery, were a technical and non-noble corps. They escaped, therefore, most of the troubles of the Revolution--indeed the artillery and engineer officers, Napoleon and Carnot amongst them, were conspicuous in the political regeneration of France--and the engineers carried on with little change the traditions of Vauban and Cormontaingne (see FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT). Both these corps were, after the Revolution as before it, the best in Europe, other armies admitting their superiority and following their precepts.

In all this the army naturally outgrew its old "linear" organization. Temporary divisions, called for by momentary necessities, placed under selected generals and released from the detailed supervision of the commander-in-chief, soon became, though in an irregular and haphazard fashion, permanent organisms, and by 1796 the divisional system had become practically universal. The next step, as the armies became fewer and larger, was the temporary grouping of divisions; this too in turn became permanent, and bequeathed to the military world of to-day both the army corps and the capable, self-reliant and enterprising subordinate generals, for whom the old linear organization had no room.

The starting point of modern warfare.

This subdivision of forces was intimately connected with the general method of making war adopted by the "New French," as their enemies called them. What astonished the Allies most of all was the number and the velocity of the Republicans. These improvised armies had in fact nothing to delay them. Tents were unprocurable for want of money, untransportable for want of the enormous number of wagons that would have been required, and also unnecessary, for the discomfort that would have caused wholesale desertion in professional armies was cheerfully borne by the men of 1793-1794. Supplies for armies of then unheard-of size could not be carried in convoys, and the French soon became familiar with "living on the country." Thus 1793 saw the birth of the modern system of war--rapidity of movement, full development of national strength, bivouacs and requisitions, and force, as against cautious manoeuvring, small professional armies, tents and full rations, and chicane. The first represented the decision-compelling spirit, the second the spirit of risking little to gain a little. Above all, the decision-compelling spirit was reinforced by the presence of the emissaries of the Committee of Public Safety, the "representatives on mission" who practically controlled the guillotine. There were civil officials with the armies of the Allies too, but their chief function was not to infuse desperate energy into the military operations, but to see that the troops did not maltreat civilians. Such were the fundamental principles of the "New French" method of warfare, from which the warfare of to-day descends in the direct line. But it was only after a painful period of trial and error, of waste and misdirection, that it became possible for the French army to have evolved Napoleon, and for Napoleon to evolve the principles and methods of war that conformed to and profited to the utmost by the new conditions.

Those campaigns and battles of this army which are described in detail in the present article have been selected, some on account of their historical importance--as producing great results; others from their military interest--as typifying and illustrating the nature of the revolution undergone by the art of war in these heroic years.

CAMPAIGNS IN THE NETHERLANDS

The year 1793 opened disastrously for the Republic. As a consequence of Jemappes and Valmy, France had taken the offensive both in Belgium, which had been overrun by Dumouriez's army, and in the Rhine countries, where Custine had preached the new gospel to the sentimental and half-discontented Hessians and Mainzers. But the execution of Louis XVI. raised up a host of new and determined enemies. England, Holland, Austria, Prussia, Spain and Sardinia promptly formed the First Coalition. England poured out money in profusion to pay and equip her Allies' land armies, and herself began the great struggle for the command of the sea (see _Naval Operations_, below).

Neerwinden.

In the Low Countries, while Dumouriez was beginning his proposed invasion of Holland, Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg, the new Austrian commander on the Lower Rhine, advanced with 42,000 men from the region of Cologne, and drove in the various detachments that Dumouriez had posted to cover his right. The French general thereupon abandoned his advance into Holland, and, with what forces he could gather, turned towards the Meuse. The two armies met at Neerwinden (q.v.) on the 18th of March 1793. Dumouriez had only a few thousand men more than his opponent, instead of the enormous superiority he had had at Jemappes. Thus the enveloping attack could not be repeated, and in a battle on equal fronts the old generalship and the old armies had the advantage. Dumouriez was thoroughly defeated, the house of cards collapsed, and the whole of the French forces retreated in confusion to the strong line of border fortresses, created by Louis XIV. and Vauban.[1] Dumouriez, witnessing the failure of his political schemes, declared against the Republic, and after a vain attempt to induce his own army to follow his example, fled (April 5) into the Austrian lines. The leaderless Republicans streamed back to Valenciennes. There, however, they found a general. Picot (comte de) Dampierre was a regimental officer of the old army, who, in spite of his vanity and extravagance, possessed real loyalty to the new order of things, and brilliant personal courage. At the darkest hour he seized the reins without orders and without reference to seniority, and began to reconstruct the force and the spirit of the shattered army by wise administration and dithyrambic proclamations. Moreover, he withdrew it well behind Valenciennes out of reach of a second reverse. The region of Dunkirk and Cassel, the camp of La Madeleine near Lille, and Bouchain were made the rallying points of the various groups, the principal army being at the last-named. But the blow of Neerwinden had struck deep, and the army was for long incapable of service, what with the general distrust, the misconduct of the newer battalions, and the discontent of the old white-coated regiments that were left ragged and shoeless to the profit of the "patriot" corps. "Beware of giving horses to the 'Hussars of Liberty,'" wrote Carnot, "all these new corps are abominable."

Assembly of the Allies.

France was in fact defenceless, and the opportunity existed for the military promenade to Paris that the allied statesmen had imagined in 1792. But Coburg now ceased to be a purely Austrian commander, for one by one allied contingents, with instructions that varied with the political aims of the various governments, began to arrive. Moreover, he had his own views as to the political situation, fearing especially to be the cause of the queen's death as Brunswick had been of the king's, and negotiated for a settlement. The story of these negotiations should be read in Chuquet's _Valenciennes_--it gives the key to many mysteries of the campaign and shows that though the revolutionary spirit had already passed all understanding, enlightened men such as Coburg and his chief-of-staff Mack sympathized with its first efforts and thought the constitution of 1791 a gain to humanity. "If you come to Paris you will find 80,000 patriots ready to die," said the French negotiators. "The patriots could not resist the Austrian regulars," replied Coburg, "but I do not propose to go to Paris. I desire to see a stable government, with a chief, king or other, with whom we can treat." Soon, however, these personal negotiations were stopped by the emperor, and the idea of restoring order in France became little more than a pretext for a general intrigue amongst the confederate powers, each seeking to aggrandize itself at France's expense. "If you wish to deal with the French," observed Dumouriez ironically to Coburg, "talk 'constitution.' You may beat them but you cannot subdue them." And their subjugation was becoming less and less possible as the days went on and men talked of the partition of France as a question of the moment like the partition of Poland--a pretension that even the emigres resented.

Coburg's plan of campaign was limited to the objects acceptable to all the Allies alike. He aimed at the conquest of a first-class fortress--Lille or Valenciennes--and chiefly for this reason. War meant to the burgher of Germany and the Netherlands a special form of _haute politique_ with which it was neither his business nor his inclination to meddle. He had no more compunction, therefore, in selling his worst goods at the best price to the army commissaries than in doing so to his ordinary customers. It followed that, owing to the distance between Vienna and Valenciennes, and the exorbitant prices charged by carters and horse-owners, a mere concentration of Austrian troops at the latter place cost as much as a campaign, and the transport expenses rose to such a figure that Coburg's first duty was to find a strong place to serve as a market for the country-side and a depot for the supplies purchased, and to have it as near as possible to the front to save the hire of vehicles. As for the other governments which Coburg served as best he could, the object of the war was material concessions, and it would be easy to negotiate for the cession of Dunkirk and Valenciennes when the British and Austrian colours already waved there. The Allies, therefore, instead of following up their advantage over the French field army and driving forward on the open Paris road, set their faces westward, intending to capture Valenciennes, Le Quesnoy, Dunkirk and Lille one after the other.

Dampierre at Valenciennes.