_Retrospective View of the External Relations of France--Her
great Military Successes--Whence they arose--Effect of the
Compulsory Levies--Military Genius and Character of the
French--French Generals--New Mode of Training the Troops--Light
Troops--Successive Attacks in Column--Attachment of the Soldiers
to the Revolution--Also of the Generals--Carnot--Effect of the
French principles preached to the Countries invaded by their
Arms--Close of the Revolution with the fall of
Robespierre--Reflections upon what was to succeed._
[Sidenote: EXTERNAL RELATIONS.]
It may be said of victory, as the English satirist has said of wealth,
that it cannot be of much importance in the eye of Heaven, considering
in what unworthy association it is sometimes found.[541] While the
rulers of France were disowning the very existence of a Deity, her
armies appeared to move almost as if protected by the especial favour of
Providence. Our former recapitulation presented a slight sketch of the
perilous state of France in 1793, surrounded by foes on almost every
frontier, and with difficulty maintaining her ground on any point; yet
the lapse of two years found her victorious, nay, triumphantly
victorious, on all.
On the north-eastern frontier, the English, after a series of
hard-fighting, had lost not only Flanders, on which we left them
advancing, but Holland itself, and had been finally driven with great
loss to abandon the Continent. The King of Prussia had set out on his
first campaign as the chief hero of the coalition, and had engaged that
the Duke of Brunswick, his general, should put down the revolution in
France as easily as he had done that of Holland. But finding the
enterprise which he had undertaken was above his strength; that his
accumulated treasures were exhausted in an unsuccessful war; and that
Austria, not Prussia, was regarded as the head of the coalition, he drew
off his forces, after they had been weakened by more than one defeat,
and made a separate peace with France, in which he renounced to the new
Republic the sovereignty of all those portions of the Prussian territory
which lay on the east side of the Rhine. The King, to make up for these
losses, sought a more profitable, though less honourable field of
warfare, and concurred with Russia and Austria in effecting by conquest
a final partition and appropriation of Poland, on the same unprincipled
plan on which the first had been conducted.
Spain, victorious at the beginning of the conquest, had been of late so
unsuccessful in opposing the French armies, that it was the opinion of
many that her character for valour and patriotism was lost for ever.
Catalonia was over-run by the Republicans, Rosas taken, and no army
intervening betwixt the victors and Madrid, the King of Spain was
obliged to clasp hands with the murderers of his kinsman, Louis XVI.,
acknowledge the French Republic, and withdraw from the coalition.
Austria had well sustained her ancient renown, both by the valour of her
troops, the resolution of her cabinet, and the talents of one or two of
her generals,--the Archduke Charles in particular, and the veteran
Wurmser. Yet she too had succumbed under the Republican superiority.
Belgium, as the French called Flanders, was, as already stated, totally
lost; and war along the Rhine was continued by Austria, more for defence
than with a hope of conquest.
So much and so generally had the fortune of war declared in favour of
France upon all points, even while she was herself sustaining the worst
of evils from the worst of tyrannies. There must have been
unquestionably several reasons for such success as seemed to attend
universally on the arms of the Republic, instead of being limited to one
peculiarly efficient army, or to one distinguished general.
The first and most powerful cause must be looked for in the
extraordinary energy of the Republican government, which, from its very
commencement, threw all subordinate considerations aside, and devoted
the whole resources of the country to its military defence. It was then
that France fully learned the import of the word "Requisition," as
meaning that which government needs, and which must at all hazards be
supplied. Compulsory levies were universally resorted to; and the
undoubted right which a state has to call upon each of its subjects to
arise in defence of the community, was extended into the power of
sending them upon expeditions of foreign conquest.
In the month of March, 1793, a levy of two hundred thousand men was
appointed, and took place; but by a subsequent decree of the 21st August
in the same year, a more gigantic mode of recruiting was resorted to.
Every man in France able to bear arms was placed at the orders of the
state, and being divided into classes, the youngest, to the amount of
five hundred thousand, afterwards augmented to a million, were commanded
to march for immediate action. The rest of society were to be so
disposed of as might best second the efforts of the actual combatants.
The married men were to prepare arms and forward convoys,--the women to
make uniforms,--the children to scrape lint,--and the old men to preach
Republicanism. All property was in like manner devoted to maintaining
the war--all buildings were put to military purposes--all arms
appropriated to the public service--and all horses, excepting those
which might be necessary for agriculture, seized on for the cavalry, and
other military services. Representatives of the people were named to
march with the various levies,--those terrible commissioners, who
punished no fault with a slighter penalty than death. No excuse was
sustained for want of personal compliance with the requisition for
personal service--no delay permitted--no substitution allowed--actual
and literal compliance was demanded from every one, and of what rank
soever. Conscripts who failed to appear, resisted, or fled, were
subjected to the penalties which attached to emigration.[542]
By successive decrees of this peremptory nature, enforced with the full
energy of revolutionary violence, the Government succeeded in bringing
into the field, and maintaining, forces to an amount more than double
those of their powerful enemies; and the same means of supply--arbitrary
requisition, namely--which brought them out, supported and maintained
them during the campaign; so that, while there remained food and
clothing of any kind in the country, the soldier was sure to be fed,
paid, and equipped.
There are countries, however, in which the great numerical superiority
thus attained is of little consequence, when a confused levy _en masse_
of raw, inexperienced, and disorderly boys, are opposed against the
ranks of a much smaller, but a regular and well-disciplined army, such
as in every respect is that of Austria. On such occasions the taunting
speech of Alaric recurs to recollection,--"The thicker the hay the more
easily it is mowed." But this was not found to be the case with the
youth of France, who adopted the habits most necessary for a soldier
with singular facility and readiness. Military service has been popular
amongst them in all ages; and the stories of the grandsire in a French
cottage have always tended to excite in his descendants ideas familiar
with a military condition. They do not come to it as a violent change of
life, which they had never previously contemplated, and where all is new
and terrible; but as to a duty which every Frenchman is liable to
discharge, and which is as natural to him as to his father or
grandfather before him.
[Sidenote: MILITARY GENIUS OF THE FRENCH.]
Besides this propensity, and undoubtedly connected with it, a young
Frenchman is possessed of the natural character most desirable in the
soldier. He is accustomed to fare hard, to take much exercise, to make
many shifts, and to support with patience occasional deprivations. His
happy gaiety renders him indifferent to danger, his good-humour patient
under hardship. His ingenuity seems to amuse as well as to assist him in
the contingencies of a roving life. He can be with ease a cook or an
artificer, or what else the occasion may require. His talents for actual
war are not less decided. Either in advancing with spirit, or in
retreating with order, the Frenchman is one of the finest soldiers in
the world; and when requisite, the privates in their army often exhibit
a degree of intelligence and knowledge of the profession, which might
become individuals of a higher rank in other services. If not absolute
water-drinkers, they are less addicted to intoxication than the English
soldier, who, perhaps, only brings, to counterbalance the numerous
advantages on the part of his opponent, that mastiff-like perseverance
and determination in combat, which induces him to repeat, maintain, and
prolong his efforts, under every disadvantage of numbers and
circumstances.
The spirits of the Frenchman, such as we have described, did not suffer
much from the violent summons which tore him from his home. We have
unhappily, in our own navy, an example, how little men's courage is
broken by their being forced into a dangerous service. But comfortless
as the state of France then was, and painful as the sights must have
been by which the eyes were daily oppressed--closed up too as were the
avenues to every civil walk of life, and cheap as they were held in a
nation which had become all one vast camp, a youth of spirit was glad to
escape from witnessing the desolation at home, and to take with gaiety
the chance of death or promotion, in the only line which might now be
accounted comparatively safe, and indubitably honourable. The armies
with whom these new levies were incorporated were by degrees admirably
supplied with officers. The breaking down the old distinctions of ranks
had opened a free career to those desirous of promotion; and in times of
hard fighting, men of merit are distinguished and get preferment. The
voice of the soldier had often its influence upon the officer's
preferment; and that is a vote seldom bestowed, but from ocular proof
that it is deserved. The revolutionary rulers, though bloody in their
resentment, were liberal, almost extravagant, in their rewards, and
spared neither gold nor steel, honours nor denunciations, to incite
their generals to victory, or warn them against the consequences of
defeat.
Under that stern rule which knew no excuse for ill success, and
stimulated by opportunities which seemed to offer every prize to
honourable ambition, arose a race of generals whom the world scarce ever
saw equalled, and of whom there certainly never at any other period
flourished so many, in the same service. Such was NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE
himself; such were Pichegru and Moreau, doomed to suffer a gloomy fate
under his ascendency. Such were those Marshals and Generals who were to
share his better fortunes, and cluster around his future throne, as the
Paladins around that of Charlemagne, or as the British and Armorican
champions begirt the Round Table of Uther's fabled son. In those early
wars, and summoned out by the stern conscription, were trained Murat,
whose eminence and fall seemed a corollary to that of his
brother-in-law--Ney, the bravest of the brave--the calm, sagacious
Macdonald--Joubert, who had almost anticipated the part reserved for
Buonaparte--Massena, the spoiled Child of Fortune--Augereau--Berthier,
Lannes, and many others, whose names began already to stir the French
soldier as with the sound of a trumpet.
These adventurers in the race of fame belonged some of them, as
Macdonald, to the old military school; some, like Moreau, came from the
civil class of society; many arose from origins that were positively
mean, and were therefore still more decidedly children of the
Revolution. But that great earthquake, by throwing down distinctions of
birth and rank, had removed obstacles which would otherwise have impeded
the progress of almost all these distinguished men; and they were,
therefore, for the greater part, attached to that new order of affairs
which afforded full scope to their talents.
[Sidenote: NEW MILITARY SYSTEM.]
The French armies, thus recruited, and thus commanded, were disciplined
in a manner suitable to the materials of which they were composed. There
was neither leisure nor opportunity to subject the new levies to all
that minuteness of training, which was required by the somewhat pedantic
formality of the old school of war. Dumouriez, setting the example,
began to show that the principle of revolution might be introduced with
advantage into the art of war itself; and that the difference betwixt
these new conscripts and the veteran troops to whom they were opposed,
might be much diminished by resorting to the original and more simple
rules of stratagie, and neglecting many formalities which had been once
considered as essential to playing the great game of war with
success.[543] It is the constant error of ordinary minds to consider
matters of mere routine as equally important with those which are
essential, and to entertain as much horror at a disordered uniform as at
a confused manœuvre. It was to the honour of the French generals, as
men of genius, that in the hour of danger they were able to surmount all
the prejudices of a profession which has its pedantry as well as others,
and to suit the discipline which they retained to the character of their
recruits and the urgency of the time.
The foppery of the manual exercise was laid aside, and it was restricted
to the few motions necessary for effectual use of the musket and
bayonet. Easier and more simple manœuvres were substituted for such
as were involved and difficult to execute; and providing the line or
column could be formed with activity, and that order was preserved on
the march, the mere etiquette of military movements was much relaxed.
The quantity of light troops was increased greatly beyond the number
which had of late been used by European nations. The Austrians, who used
to draw from the Tyrol, and from their wild Croatian frontier, the best
light troops in the world, had at this time formed many of them into
regiments of the line, and thus limited and diminished their own
superiority in a species of force which was becoming of greater
importance daily. The French, on the contrary, disciplined immense
bodies of their conscripts as irregulars and sharpshooters. Their
numbers and galling fire frequently prevented their more systematic and
formal adversaries from being able to push forward reconnoitring
parties, by which to obtain any exact information as to the numbers and
disposition of the French, while the Republican troops of the line,
protected by this swarm of wasps, chose their time, place, and manner,
of advancing to the attack, or retreating, as the case demanded. It is
true, that this service cost an immense number of lives; but the French
generals were sensible that human life was the commodity which the
Republic set the least value upon; and that when death was served with
so wide a feast from one end of France to the other, he was not to be
stinted in his own proper banqueting-hall, the field of battle.
The same circumstances dictated another variety or innovation in French
tactics, which greatly increased the extent of slaughter. The armies
with whom they engaged, disconcerted by the great superiority of numbers
which were opposed to them, and baffled in obtaining intelligence by the
teazing activity of the French light troops, most frequently assumed the
defensive, and taking a strong position, improved perhaps by
field-works, waited until the fiery youth of France should come to throw
themselves by thousands upon their batteries. It was then that the
French generals began first to employ those successive attacks in
column, in which one brigade of troops is brought up after another,
without interruption, and without regard to the loss of lives, until the
arms of the defenders are weary with slaying, and their line being in
some point or other carried, through the impossibility of every where
resisting an assault so continued and desperate, the battle is lost, and
the army is compelled to give way; while the conquerors can, by the
multitudes they have brought into action, afford to pay the dreadful
price which they have given for the victory.
In this manner the French generals employed whole columns of the young
conscripts, termed from that circumstance, "food for the cannon" (_chair
à canon_,) before disease had deprived them of bodily activity, or
experience had taught them the dangers of the profession on which they
entered with the thoughtless vivacity of schoolboys. It also frequently
happened, even when the French possessed no numerical superiority upon
the whole, that by the celerity of their movements, and the skill with
which they at once combined and executed them, they were able suddenly
to concentrate such a superiority upon the point which they meant to
attack, as ensured them the same advantage.
In enumerating the causes of the general success of the Republican arms,
we must not forget the moral motive--the interest which the troops took
in the cause of the war. The army, in fact, derived an instant and most
flattering advantage from the Revolution, which could scarce be said of
any other class of men in France, excepting the peasant. Their pay was
improved, their importance increased. There was not a private soldier
against whom the highest ranks of the profession was shut, and many
attained to them. Massena was originally a drummer, Ney a common hussar,
and there were many others who arose to the command of armies from the
lowest condition. Now this was a government for a soldier to live and
flourish under, and seemed still more advantageous when contrasted with
the old monarchical system, in which the prejudices of birth interfered
at every turn with the pretensions of merit, where a _roturier_ could
not rise above a subaltern rank, and where all offices of distinction
were, as matters of inheritance, reserved for the _grande noblesse_
alone.
But besides the rewards which it held out to its soldiers, the service
of the Republic had this irresistible charm for the soldiery--it was
victorious. The conquests which they obtained, and the plunder which
attended those conquests, attached the victors to their standards, and
drew around them fresh hosts of their countrymen. "_Vive la
Republique!_" became a war-cry, as dear to their army as in former times
the shout of Dennis Mountjoie, and the Tricoloured flag supplied the
place of the Oriflamme. By the confusion, the oppression, the bloodshed
of the Revolution, the soldiers were but little affected. They heard of
friends imprisoned or guillotined, indeed;[544] but a military man, like
a monk, leaves the concerns of the civil world behind him, and while he
plays the bloody game for his own life or death with the enemy who faces
him, has little time to think of what is happening in the native country
which he has abandoned. For any other acquaintance with the politics of
the Republic, they were indebted to flowery speeches in the Convention,
resounding with the praises of the troops, and to harangues of the
representatives accompanying the armies, who never failed by flattery
and largesses to retain possession of the affection of the soldiers,
whose attachment was so essential to their safety. So well did they
accomplish this, that while the Republic flourished, the armies were so
much attached to that order of things, as to desert successively some of
their most favourite leaders, when they became objects of suspicion to
the fierce democracy.
The generals, indeed, had frequent and practical experience, that the
Republic could be as severe with her military as with her civil
subjects, and even more so, judging by the ruthlessness with which they
were arrested and executed, with scarce the shadow of a pretext. Yet
this did not diminish the zeal of the survivors. If the revolutionary
government beheaded, they also paid, promised, and promoted; and amid
the various risks of a soldier's life, the hazard of the guillotine was
only a slight addition to those of the sword and the musket,[545] which,
in the sanguine eye of courage and ambition, joined to each individual's
confidence in his own good luck, did not seem to render his chance much
worse. When such punishment arrived, the generals submitted to it as one
of the casualties of war; nor was the Republic worse or more reluctantly
served by those who were left.
Such being the admirable quality and talents, the mode of thinking and
acting, which the Republican, or rather Revolutionary, armies possessed,
it required only the ruling genius of the celebrated Carnot, who, bred
in the department of engineers, was probably one of the very best
tacticians in the world, to bring them into effectual use. He was a
member of the frightful Committee of Public Safety; but it has been said
in his defence, that he did not meddle with its atrocities, limiting
himself entirely to the war department, for which he showed so much
talent, that his colleagues left it to his exclusive management.[546] In
his own individual person he constituted the whole _bureau militaire_,
or war-office of the Committee of Public Safety, corresponded with and
directed the movements of the armies, as if inspired by the Goddess of
Victory herself. He first daringly claimed for France her natural
boundaries--that is, the boundaries most convenient for her. The Rhine,
the Alps, and the Pyrenees, he assigned as the limits of her dominions;
and asserted that all within these belonging to other powers, must have
been usurpations on France, and were unhesitatingly to be resumed as
such. And he conquered by his genius the countries which his ambition
claimed. Belgium became an integral part of the French Republic--Holland
was erected into a little dependent democracy, as an outwork for
defending the great nation--the Austrians were foiled on the Rhine--the
King of Sardinia driven from Savoy--and schemes realized which Louis
XIV. never dared to dream of. In return for the complaisance exhibited
by the Committee towards himself, he did not express any scruples, if he
entertained such, concerning the mode in which they governed the
interior of their unhappy country. Yet, notwithstanding his skill and
his caution, the blighting eye of Robespierre was fixed on him, as that
of the snake which watches its victim. He could not dispense with the
talents of Carnot in the career of victory; but it is well known, that
if his plans on any occasion had miscarried, the security of his head
would have become very precarious.[547]
It must also be allowed, that although the French armies were attached
to the Republic, and moved usually under direction of a member of the
Committee of Public Security, they did not adopt, in their brutal
extent, the orders for exterminating warfare which were transmitted to
them by their masters. At one time a decree was passed, refusing quarter
to such of the allied troops as might be made prisoners; but the French
soldiers could not be prevailed on to take a step which must have
aggravated so dreadfully the necessary horrors of war. When we consider
how the civil government of France were employed, when the soldiers
refused their sanction to this decree, it seems as if Humanity had fled
from cities and the peaceful dwellings of men, to seek a home in camps
and combats.
One important part of the subject can be here treated but slightly. We
allude to the great advantages derived by the French arms from the
reception of their political doctrines at this period among the people
whom they invaded. They proclaimed aloud that they made war on castles
and palaces, but were at peace with cottages; and as on some occasions
besieging generals are said to have bribed the governor of a place to
surrender it, by promising they would leave in his unchallenged
possession the military chest of the garrison, so the French in all
cases held out to the populace the plunder of their own nobles, as an
inducement for them to favour, at least not to oppose, the invasion of
their country. Thus their armies were always preceded by their
principles. A party favourable to France, and listening with delight to
the doctrines of liberty and equality, was formed in the bosom of each
neighbouring state, so that the power of the invaded nation was crushed,
and its spirit quenched, under a sense of internal discontent and
discord. The French were often received at once as conquerors and
deliverers by the countries they invaded; and in almost all cases, the
governments on which they made war were obliged to trust exclusively to
such regular forces as they could bring into the field, being deprived
of the inappreciable advantage of general zeal among their subjects in
their behalf. It was not long ere the inhabitants of those deceived
countries found that the fruits of the misnamed tree of liberty
resembled those said to grow by the Dead Sea--fair and goodly to the
eye, but to the taste all filth and bitterness.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RETROSPECT.]
We are now to close our review of the French Revolution, the fall of
Robespierre being the era at which its terrors began to ebb and recede,
nor did they ever again rise to the same height. If we look back at the
whole progress of the change, from the convocation of the States-General
to the 9th Thermidor, as the era of that man's overthrow was called, the
eye in vain seeks for any point at which even a probability existed of
establishing a solid or permanent government. The three successive
constitutions of 1791, 1792, and 1795, the successive work of
Constitutionalists, Girondists, and Jacobins, possessed no more power to
limit or arrest the force of the revolutionary impulse, than a bramble
or brier to stop the progress of a rock rushing down from a precipice.
Though ratified and sworn to, with every circumstance which could add
solemnity to the obligation, each remained, in succession, a dead
letter. France, in 1795 and 1796, was therefore a nation without either
a regular constitution, or a regular administration; governed by the
remnant of an Assembly called a Convention, who continued sitting,
merely because the crisis found them in possession of their seats, and
who administered the government through the medium of Provisional
Committees, with whose dictates they complied implicitly, and who really
directed all things, though in the Convention's name.
In the meantime, and since those strange scenes had commenced, France
had lost her King and nobles, her church and clergy, her judges, courts,
and magistrates, her colonies and commerce. The greater part of her
statesmen and men of note had perished by proscription, and her orators'
eloquence had been cut short by the guillotine. She had no finances--the
bonds of civil society seem to have retained their influence from habit
only. The nation possessed only one powerful engine, which France called
her own, and one impulsive power to guide it--These were her army and
her ambition. She resembled a person in the delirium of a fever, who has
stripped himself in his frenzy of all decent and necessary clothing, and
retains in his hand only a bloody sword; while those who have
endeavoured to check his fury, lie subdued around him. Never had so many
great events successively taken place in a nation, without affording
something like a fixed or determined result, either already attained, or
soon to be expected.
Again and again did reflecting men say to each other,--This unheard-of
state of things, in which all seems to be temporary and revolutionary,
will not, cannot last;--and especially after the fall of Robespierre, it
seemed that some change was approaching. Those who had achieved that
work, did not hold on any terms of security the temporary power which it
had procured them. They rather retained their influence by means of the
jealousy of two extreme parties, than from any confidence reposed in
themselves. Those who had suffered so deeply under the rule of the
revolutionary government, must have looked with suspicion on the
Thermidoriens as regular Jacobins, who had shared all the excesses of
the period of Terror, and now employed their power in protecting the
perpetrators. On the other hand, those of the Revolutionists who yet
continued in the bond of Jacobin fraternity, could not forgive Tallien
and Barras the silencing the Jacobin Clubs, the exiling Collot d'Herbois
and Billaud-Varennes, putting to death many other patriots, and totally
crushing the system of revolutionary government. In fact, if the
thoroughbred Revolutionists still endured the domination of Tallien and
Barras, it was only because it shielded them from the reaction, or
retributive measures threatened by the moderate party. Matters, it was
thought, could not remain in this uncertain state, nor was the present
temporary pageant of government likely to linger long on the scene. But,
by whom was that scene next to be opened? Would a late returning to
ancient opinions induce a people, who had suffered so much through
innovation, to recall either absolutely, or upon conditions, the
banished race of her ancient princes? Or would a new band of
Revolutionists be permitted by Heaven, in its continued vengeance, to
rush upon the stage? Would the supreme power become the prize of some
soldier as daring as Cæsar, or some intriguing statesman as artful as
Octavius? Would France succumb beneath a Cromwell or a Monk, or again be
ruled by a cabal of hackneyed statesmen, or an Institute of Theoretical
Philosophy, or an anarchical Club of Jacobins? These were reflections
which occupied almost all bosoms. But the hand of Fate was on the
curtain, and about to bring the scene to light.
END OF VOLUME FIRST.
FOOTNOTES:
[541]
"Riches, in effect,
No grace of Heav'n or token of th' Elect;
Giv'n to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the Devil."
POPE.
[542] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 22; Mignet, tom. ii., p. 287.
[543] Dumouriez, vol. i., p. 398.
[544] Such was the fate of Moreau, who, on the eve of one of his most
distinguished victories, had to receive the news that his father had
been beheaded.--S.
[545] The risk was considered as a matter of course. Madame La
Roche-Jacquelein informs us that General Quentineau, a Republican
officer who had behaved with great humanity in La Vendée, having fallen
into the hands of the insurgents, was pressed by L'Escure, who commanded
them, not to return to Paris. "I know the difference of our political
opinions," said the Royalist, "but why should you deliver up your life
to those men with whom want of success will be a sufficient reason for
abridging it?"--"You say truly," replied Quentineau; "but as a man of
honour, I must present myself in defence of my conduct wherever it may
be impeached." He went, and perished by the guillotine
accordingly.--S.--_Mémoires_, p. 130.
[546] Carnot's Mémoires, p. 230.
[547] Carnot, p. 255; Thibaudeau, tom. i., p. 37.