harbinger of a superior new way in warfare. Notwithstanding the political hindrances to
military effectiveness in 1792–3, the new armies of the Republic did inherit the finest
artillery park in Europe, as well as the most modern drill book, which is to say manual
of tactical doctrine. Eighteenth-century military drill was direct preparation for tactical
movement and discipline on the battlefield.
As so often is the case for the armies of revolutionary regimes, French commanders
in the years of high peril from abroad, 1792–4, were in more danger from their own
political masters than they were from the enemy. As a grim precedent for what was
to become Soviet practice in the twentieth century, political commissars from Paris
were attached to the new armies. Those men were vigilant in the extreme in sniffing out
signs of treason to the current regime. Failure in battle often was taken as prima facie
evidence of disloyalty. Some eighty generals and other senior officers were executed in
1793–4, providing Stalin with a model to copy in his period of desperation in 1941–2.
Foreign perception of the new France as constituting a fundamental threat to the existing
European order was correct. As the tide of war turned generally in the French favour by
1794, especially following their victory over the Austrians at Fleurus on 26 June that
year, aggressive French strategic behaviour made clear beyond any room for doubt
that a truly revolutionary force was on the loose in Europe. French armies in those early
years were the revolutionary instrument of an ever more extreme republican regime in
Paris.
The strategic story of the early years of the Republic is quickly summarized in its
essentials. What was new about the French way of war was the scale of its armies and,
initially, on balance, their lack of professionalism. But France possessed the world’s finest
artillery and had Europe’s most advanced manual in the form of the Army Ordinance of
1791, and its raw volunteers and draftees were leavened substantially by the remnants
of what had been a more than competent royal army. These were considerable assets.
The combination of enthusiastic volunteers and former royalist regulars just, but only
just, sufficed to keep France’s enemies at bay from 1792 to 1794. It was a close-run thing,
however. One should resist being overimpressed by an alleged high potency to a new
French way of war in the early revolutionary years. The levée en masseof 23 August
1793, which was a startling proclamation of commitment to total war, in theory con-
scripted for the army all single men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. The
levéehad dramatic political effect, but pragmatically it reflected the grim reality that the
voluntary principle had failed to produce sufficient soldiers for the Republic’s armies.
Notwithstanding their limited advantages, the armies of the new Republic were taking
on some worthy enemies. The Prussians, and especially the Austrians, may have lacked
revolutionary élanand generally been challenged in numbers, but they were skilled
military professionals, led by some fine generals. As a result, French arms did not sweep
all before them in the early and mid-1790s. In addition, it is important to remember that
revolutionary regimes have to combat enemies both without and within. France needed
unusually large armies in those years not only to compensate for their amateurishness,
but to suppress serious royalist insurgencies at home, most particularly in the Vendée and
in Brittany in the west.
Why did revolutionary France survive its years of maximum peril? Because of
luck, because of the incompetence of its enemies – a quality never to be discounted,
even though one dare not rely on it – and, above all else, because the enemy was a
38 War, peace and international relations