French Revolutionary Army
Encyclopedia
The French Revolutionary Army is the term used to refer to the military of France during the period between the fall of the ancien regime under Louis XVI in 1792 and the formation of the First French Empire
under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804. These armies were characterised by their revolutionary fervour and their poor equipment. They performed with mixed results, from the early disastrous defeats to the amazing victories under Generals Moreau
, Masséna
and Bonaparte.
". The signing of the Declaration of Pillnitz
between Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
and King Frederick William II of Prussia
and the subsequent French declaration of war meant that from its formation, the Republic of France was at war, and it required a potent military force to ensure its survival. As a result, one of the first major elements of the French state to be restructured was the army.
Almost all of the ancien regime officer class had been drawn from the aristocracy. During the period preceding the final overthrow of the Monarchy, large numbers of officers left their regiments and emigrated. Between 15 September and 1 December 1791 alone 2,160 officers of the royal army fled France eventually to join the émigré
army of Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé. Of those who stayed numbers were either imprisoned or killed during the Reign of Terror
. The small remaining cadre of officers were promoted swiftly; this meant that the majority of the Revolutionary officers were far younger than their Monarchist counterparts. Those high ranking aristocratic officers who remained, among them Marquis de la Fayette, Comte de Rochambeau and Comte Nicolas Luckner
, were soon accused of having monarchist sympathies and either killed or forced into exile.
Revolutionary fervour, along with calls to save the new regime, resulted in a large influx of enthusiastic yet untrained and undisciplined volunteers (the first sans-culottes
, so called because they wore peasants trousers rather than the knee-breeches used by the other armies of the time). The desperate situation meant that these men were quickly inducted into the army. One reason for the success of the French Revolutionary Army is the "amalgamation" (amalgame) organized by the military strategist Lazare Carnot
, later Napoleon's Minister of War, who assembled in the same regiment
, but in different battalions, young volunteers full of enthusiasm at the thought of dying for liberty and old veterans from the former royal army
.
Officially, the Revolutionary Armies were operating along the guidelines set down in the 1791 Reglement, a set of regulations created during the years before the Revolution. The 1791 Reglement laid down several complex tactical maneuvers, maneuvers which demanded well trained soldier
s, officer
s and NCO
s to perform correctly. The Revolutionary Army was lacking in all three of these areas, and as a result the early efforts to conform to the 1791 Reglement were met with disaster. The untrained troops could not perform the complex maneuvers required, unit cohesion was lost and defeat was ensured.
Realizing that the army was not capable of conforming with the 1791 Reglement, commanders began experimenting with formations which required less training to perform. Many eminent French military thinkers had been clamoring for change decades before. In the period following the humiliating performance of the French Army during the Seven Years' War
, they began to experiment with new ideas. Guibert
wrote his epic Essai général de Tactique, Bourcet
focused on staff procedures and mountain warfare
, and Mesnil-Durand spent his time advocating l'ordre profond, tactics of maneuvering and fighting in heavy columnar formations, placing emphasis on the shock of cold steel
over firepower.
In the 1770s, some commanders, among them the brilliant duc de Broglie
performed exercises testing these tactics. It was finally decided to launch a series of experiments to try out the new tactics, and comparing them to the standard Fredrickian linear formation known as l'ordre mince which was universally popular throughout Europe
. De Broglie decided that l'ordre profond worked best when it was supported by artillery and large numbers of skirmishers. Despite these exercises, l'ordre mince had strong and powerful supporters in the Royal Armée Française, and it was this formation which went into the 1791 Reglement as the standard.
. This invasion soon turned into a debacle when it was found that the hastily-trained Revolutionary forces badly lacked military discipline: on one occasion, troops murdered their general to avoid a battle; on another, troops insisted on putting their commander's orders to a vote. The Revolutionary forces retreated from the Austrian Netherlands in disarray.
In August 1792, a large Austro-Prussian army commanded by the Duke of Brunswick crossed the frontier and began its march on Paris with the declared intention of restoring full power to Louis XVI. Several Revolutionary armies were easily defeated by the professional Austrian, Hessian
, Brunswick
and Prussia
n troops. The immediate result of this was the storming
of the Tuileries Palace
and the overthrow of the king. Successive Revolutionary forces failed to halt Brunswick's advance, and by mid September it appeared that Paris would fall to the monarchists. The Convention
ordered the remaining armies to be combined under the command of Dumouriez and François Christophe Kellermann
. At the Battle of Valmy
on 20 September 1792, the Revolutionary forces defeated Brunswick's advance guard, causing the invading army to begin retreating to the border. Much of the credit to the victory must go to the French artillery
, widely viewed as the best in Europe thanks to the technical improvements of Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval
.
The Battle of Valmy ensured that the Revolutionary armies were respected by their enemies, and for the next ten years they not only defended the fledgling First French Republic, but under the command of Generals such as Moreau
, Jourdan
, Kléber
, Desaix and Bonaparte expanded the borders of the French republic.
In early 1793, the First Coalition
was formed, not only from Prussia and Austria, but also Sardinia
, Naples
, Spain and Great Britain. The Republic was under attack on several fronts, and in the fiercely Catholic region of La Vendée an armed revolt
had broken out.
The Revolutionary army was greatly overstretched, and it seemed that the fall of the republic was imminent.
In early 1793 Lazare Carnot
, a prominent mathematician
, physicist
, and delegate to the Convention, was promoted to the Committee of Public Safety
. Displaying an exceptional talent for organization and for enforcing discipline, Carnot set about rearranging the disheveled Revolutionary Armies. Realizing that no amount of reforming and discipline was going to offset the massive numerical superiority enjoyed by France's enemies, Carnot ordered (24th february 1793 decree of the national Convention) each département to provide a quota of new recruits, a number totaling around 300,000. By mid 1793, the Revolutionary Army had increased around 645,000 men.
All unmarried able bodied men aged between 18 and 25 were to report immediately for military service. Those married, as well as the remaining men, women and children, were to focus their efforts on arming and supplying the army.
This increased the size of the Revolutionary Armies dramatically, providing the armies in the field with the manpower to hold off the enemy attacks. Carnot was hailed by the government as the Organizer of Victory. By September 1794, the Revolutionary Army had 1,500,000 men under arms. Carnot's levée en masse had provided so much manpower that it was not necessary to repeat it again until 1797.
Seeing the failure of the 1791 Reglement, several early revolutionary commanders followed de Broglie's example and experimented with the pre-revolutionary ideas, gradually adapting them until they discovered a system that worked. The final standard used by the early Revolutionary Armies consisted of the following.
s, these formations were designated demi-brigade
s in an attempt to avoid the feudal connotations of the term Regiment. In mid-1793, the Revolutionary Army officially comprised 196 infantry demi-brigades.
After the initial dismal performance of the federe volunteer battalions, Carnot ordered that each demi-brigade was to consist of one regular (ex-Royal Army) and two federe battalions. These new formations, intended to combine the discipline and training of the old army with the enthusiasm of the new volunteers, were proven successful at Valmy in September 1792. In 1794, the new demi-brigade was universally adopted.
The Revolutionary Army had been formed from a hodgepodge of different units, and as such did not have a uniform appearance. Veterans in their white uniforms and tarleton helmets from the ancien regime period served alongside national guardsmen in their blue jackets with white turnbacks piped red and federes dressed in civilian clothes with only the red phrygian cap and the tricolour cockade
to identify them as soldiers. Poor supplies meant that uniforms which had worn out were replaced with civilian clothes, and so the Revolutionary Army lacked any semblance of uniformity, with the exception of the tricolour cockade which was worn by all soldiers. As the war progressed, several demi-brigades were issued specific coloured uniform jackets, and the Revolutionary Armée d'Orient which arrived in Egypt
in 1798 was uniformed in purple, pink, green, red, orange and blue jackets.
Along with the problem of uniforms, many men of the Revolutionary Army lacked weapons and ammunition. Any weapons captured from the enemy were immediately absorbed into the ranks. After the Battle of Montenotte
in 1796, 1,000 French soldiers who had been sent into battle unarmed were afterwards equipped with captured Austrian muskets. As a result, uniformity was also lacking in weapons.
Besides the regular demi-brigades, light infantry
demi-brigades also existed. These formations were formed from soldiers who had shown skill in marksmanship, and were used for skirmishing in front of the main force. As with the line demi-brigades, the light demi-brigades lacked uniformity in either weapons or equipment.
. The artillery had suffered least from the exodus of aristocratic officers during the early days of the Revolution, as it was commanded mostly by men drawn from the middle-class. The man who would shape the era, Napoleon Bonaparte, himself was an artilleryman. The various technical improvements of Général Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval
in the years preceding the Revolution, and the subsequent efforts of Baron du Teil and his brother Chevalier Jean du Teil meant that the French artillery was the finest in Europe. The Revolutionary Artillery was responsible for several of the Republic's early victories; for example at Valmy
, on 13 Vendémiaire
, and at Lodi
. The revolutionary cannon played a vital role in their success. The cannon continued to have a dominating role on the battlefield throughout the Napoleonic Wars
.
The Cavalry was seriously affected by the Revolution. The majority of officers had been of aristocratic birth and had fled France during the final stages of the Monarchy or to avoid the subsequent Terror. Many French cavalrymen joined the émigré army of the Prince du Conde. Two entire regiments, the Hussards du Saxe and the 15éme Cavalerie (Royal Allemande) defected to the Austrians.
Lacking not only trained officers, but also mounts and equipment, the Revolutionary Cavalry became the worst equipped arm of the Revolutionary Army. By Mid 1793, the paper organisation of the Revolutionary Army included twenty six heavy cavalry regiments, two regiments of carabiniers, twenty dragoon regiments, eighteen regiments of chasseurs à cheval and ten hussar regiments. In reality, it was seldom that any of these regiments reached even half strength. However, unlike the infantry, where all battalions of the old Royal Amy were merged with freshly raised volunteers to form new demi-brigades, the cavalry retained their regimental identities throughout the revolutionary and napoleonic periods. As one example, the Regiment de Chasseurs d'Alsace (raised in 1651) was renamed the 1er Regiment de Chasseurs in 1791 but otherwise remained unchanged until it was finally disbanded after Waterloo.
Armies after restructure of 1793
On 1 October, the Armée de la Rochelle was redesignated as the armée de l'Ouest
.
Armies Formed for Specific Tasks
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804. These armies were characterised by their revolutionary fervour and their poor equipment. They performed with mixed results, from the early disastrous defeats to the amazing victories under Generals Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau was a French general who helped Napoleon Bonaparte to power, but later became a rival and was banished to the United States.- Early life :Moreau was born at Morlaix in Brittany...
, Masséna
André Masséna
André Masséna 1st Duc de Rivoli, 1st Prince d'Essling was a French military commander during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....
and Bonaparte.
Formation
As the ancien regime gave way to a constitutional monarchy, and then to a republic, the entire structure of France was transformed to fall into line with the Revolutionary principles of "Liberty, Equality and FraternityLiberté, égalité, fraternité
Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for "Liberty, equality, fraternity ", is the national motto of France, and is a typical example of a tripartite motto. Although it finds its origins in the French Revolution, it was then only one motto among others and was not institutionalized until the Third...
". The signing of the Declaration of Pillnitz
Declaration of Pillnitz
The Declaration of Pillnitz was a statement issued on 27 August 1791 at Pillnitz Castle near Dresden by the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and Frederick William II of Prussia...
between Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
Leopold II , born Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard, was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Bohemia from 1790 to 1792, Archduke of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Emperor Francis I and his wife, Empress Maria Theresa...
and King Frederick William II of Prussia
Frederick William II of Prussia
Frederick William II was the King of Prussia, reigning from 1786 until his death. He was in personal union the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg and the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.-Early life:...
and the subsequent French declaration of war meant that from its formation, the Republic of France was at war, and it required a potent military force to ensure its survival. As a result, one of the first major elements of the French state to be restructured was the army.
Almost all of the ancien regime officer class had been drawn from the aristocracy. During the period preceding the final overthrow of the Monarchy, large numbers of officers left their regiments and emigrated. Between 15 September and 1 December 1791 alone 2,160 officers of the royal army fled France eventually to join the émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
army of Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé. Of those who stayed numbers were either imprisoned or killed during the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
. The small remaining cadre of officers were promoted swiftly; this meant that the majority of the Revolutionary officers were far younger than their Monarchist counterparts. Those high ranking aristocratic officers who remained, among them Marquis de la Fayette, Comte de Rochambeau and Comte Nicolas Luckner
Nicolas Luckner
Nikolaus, Count Luckner was a German in French service who rose to become a Marshal of France. ....
, were soon accused of having monarchist sympathies and either killed or forced into exile.
Revolutionary fervour, along with calls to save the new regime, resulted in a large influx of enthusiastic yet untrained and undisciplined volunteers (the first sans-culottes
Sans-culottes
In the French Revolution, the sans-culottes were the radical militants of the lower classes, typically urban laborers. Though ill-clad and ill-equipped, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars...
, so called because they wore peasants trousers rather than the knee-breeches used by the other armies of the time). The desperate situation meant that these men were quickly inducted into the army. One reason for the success of the French Revolutionary Army is the "amalgamation" (amalgame) organized by the military strategist Lazare Carnot
Lazare Carnot
Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Comte Carnot , the Organizer of Victory in the French Revolutionary Wars, was a French politician, engineer, and mathematician.-Education and early life:...
, later Napoleon's Minister of War, who assembled in the same regiment
Demi-brigade
Not to be confused with 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign LegionThe Demi-brigade was a military formation first used by the French Army during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Demi-brigade amalgamated the various infantry organizations of the French Revolutionary infantry into a single unit...
, but in different battalions, young volunteers full of enthusiasm at the thought of dying for liberty and old veterans from the former royal army
French Royal Army (1652–1830)
The French Royal Army served the Bourbon kings beginning with Louis XIV and ending with Charles X with an interlude from 1792 until 1814, during the French Revolution and the reign of the Emperor Napoleon. After a second, brief interlude when Napoleon returned from exile in 1815, the Royal Army...
.
1791 Reglement
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s, officer
Officer
-Shipping industry:*Captain the person in charge of a merchant ship*Chief Officer typically the person in charge of the deck department of a merchant ship*Second Officer typically the navigator and medical officer on a merchant ship...
s and NCO
NCO
NCO may refer to:* NCO Group, an international corporation that provides customer service contracting* Net Capital Outflow, an economic metric measuring the amount of money from a country holding assets elsewhere...
s to perform correctly. The Revolutionary Army was lacking in all three of these areas, and as a result the early efforts to conform to the 1791 Reglement were met with disaster. The untrained troops could not perform the complex maneuvers required, unit cohesion was lost and defeat was ensured.
Realizing that the army was not capable of conforming with the 1791 Reglement, commanders began experimenting with formations which required less training to perform. Many eminent French military thinkers had been clamoring for change decades before. In the period following the humiliating performance of the French Army during the Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...
, they began to experiment with new ideas. Guibert
Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert
Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert was a French general and military writer. Born at Montabaun, he accompanied his father in wars before he became a general himself...
wrote his epic Essai général de Tactique, Bourcet
Pierre-Joseph Bourcet
Pierre-Joseph Bourcet was a French tactician, general, chief of staff, mapmaker and military educator. He was the son of Daniel-André Bourcet and of Marie-Magdeleine Legier.-Life:...
focused on staff procedures and mountain warfare
Mountain warfare
Mountain warfare refers to warfare in the mountains or similarly rough terrain. This type of warfare is also called Alpine warfare, named after the Alps mountains...
, and Mesnil-Durand spent his time advocating l'ordre profond, tactics of maneuvering and fighting in heavy columnar formations, placing emphasis on the shock of cold steel
Bayonet
A bayonet is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit in, on, over or underneath the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar weapon, effectively turning the gun into a spear...
over firepower.
In the 1770s, some commanders, among them the brilliant duc de Broglie
Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie
Victor François de Broglie, 2nd duc de Broglie was a French aristocrat and soldier and a marshal of France...
performed exercises testing these tactics. It was finally decided to launch a series of experiments to try out the new tactics, and comparing them to the standard Fredrickian linear formation known as l'ordre mince which was universally popular throughout Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. De Broglie decided that l'ordre profond worked best when it was supported by artillery and large numbers of skirmishers. Despite these exercises, l'ordre mince had strong and powerful supporters in the Royal Armée Française, and it was this formation which went into the 1791 Reglement as the standard.
Trial by fire
The French struck first, with an invasion of the Austrian Netherlands proposed by foreign minister Charles François DumouriezCharles François Dumouriez
Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez was a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars. He shared the victory at Valmy with General François Christophe Kellermann, but later deserted the Revolutionary Army and became a royalist intriguer during the reign of Napoleon.-Early life:Dumouriez...
. This invasion soon turned into a debacle when it was found that the hastily-trained Revolutionary forces badly lacked military discipline: on one occasion, troops murdered their general to avoid a battle; on another, troops insisted on putting their commander's orders to a vote. The Revolutionary forces retreated from the Austrian Netherlands in disarray.
In August 1792, a large Austro-Prussian army commanded by the Duke of Brunswick crossed the frontier and began its march on Paris with the declared intention of restoring full power to Louis XVI. Several Revolutionary armies were easily defeated by the professional Austrian, Hessian
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, Brunswick
Brunswick-Lüneburg
The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , or more properly Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg, was an historical ducal state from the late Middle Ages until the late Early Modern era within the North-Western domains of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, in what is now northern Germany...
and Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n troops. The immediate result of this was the storming
10th of August (French Revolution)
On 10 August 1792, during the French Revolution, revolutionary Fédéré militias — with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the "insurrectionary" Paris Commune and ultimately supported by the National Guard — besieged the Tuileries palace. King Louis XVI and...
of the Tuileries Palace
Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace was a royal palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine until 1871, when it was destroyed in the upheaval during the suppression of the Paris Commune...
and the overthrow of the king. Successive Revolutionary forces failed to halt Brunswick's advance, and by mid September it appeared that Paris would fall to the monarchists. The Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
ordered the remaining armies to be combined under the command of Dumouriez and François Christophe Kellermann
François Christophe Kellermann
François Christophe Kellermann or de Kellermann, 1st Duc de Valmy was a French military commander, later the Général d'Armée, and a Marshal of France...
. At the Battle of Valmy
Battle of Valmy
The Battle of Valmy was the first major victory by the army of France during the French Revolution. The action took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris...
on 20 September 1792, the Revolutionary forces defeated Brunswick's advance guard, causing the invading army to begin retreating to the border. Much of the credit to the victory must go to the French artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, widely viewed as the best in Europe thanks to the technical improvements of Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval
Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval
Lieutenant General Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval was a French artillery officer and engineer who revolutionized French cannon, creating a new production system that allowed lighter, more uniform guns without sacrificing range. His Gribeauval system superseded the de Vallière system...
.
The Battle of Valmy ensured that the Revolutionary armies were respected by their enemies, and for the next ten years they not only defended the fledgling First French Republic, but under the command of Generals such as Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau was a French general who helped Napoleon Bonaparte to power, but later became a rival and was banished to the United States.- Early life :Moreau was born at Morlaix in Brittany...
, Jourdan
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, 1st Comte Jourdan , enlisted as a private in the French royal army and rose to command armies during the French Revolutionary Wars. Emperor Napoleon I of France named him a Marshal of France in 1804 and he also fought in the Napoleonic Wars. After 1815, he became reconciled...
, Kléber
Jean Baptiste Kléber
Jean Baptiste Kléber was a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars. His military career started in Habsburg service, but his plebeian ancestry hindered his opportunities...
, Desaix and Bonaparte expanded the borders of the French republic.
Lazare Carnot
While the Cannonade of Valmy had saved the Republic from imminent destruction and caused its enemies to take pause, the guillotining of Louis XVI in January 1793 and the convention's proclamation that it would 'export the revolution' hardened the resolve of France's enemies to destroy the Republic and reinstate a monarchy.In early 1793, the First Coalition
First Coalition
The War of the First Coalition was the first major effort of multiple European monarchies to contain Revolutionary France. France declared war on the Habsburg monarchy of Austria on 20 April 1792, and the Kingdom of Prussia joined the Austrian side a few weeks later.These powers initiated a series...
was formed, not only from Prussia and Austria, but also Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Spain and Great Britain. The Republic was under attack on several fronts, and in the fiercely Catholic region of La Vendée an armed revolt
Revolt in the Vendée
The War in the Vendée was a Royalist rebellion and counterrevolution in the Vendée region of France during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately south of the Loire River in western France. The uprising was closely tied to the Chouannerie, which took place in...
had broken out.
The Revolutionary army was greatly overstretched, and it seemed that the fall of the republic was imminent.
In early 1793 Lazare Carnot
Lazare Carnot
Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Comte Carnot , the Organizer of Victory in the French Revolutionary Wars, was a French politician, engineer, and mathematician.-Education and early life:...
, a prominent mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, and delegate to the Convention, was promoted to the Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
. Displaying an exceptional talent for organization and for enforcing discipline, Carnot set about rearranging the disheveled Revolutionary Armies. Realizing that no amount of reforming and discipline was going to offset the massive numerical superiority enjoyed by France's enemies, Carnot ordered (24th february 1793 decree of the national Convention) each département to provide a quota of new recruits, a number totaling around 300,000. By mid 1793, the Revolutionary Army had increased around 645,000 men.
Levée en masse
On 23 August 1793, at Carnot's insistence, the Convention issued the following proclamation ordering a levée en masseLevée en masse
Levée en masse is a French term for mass conscription during the French Revolutionary Wars, particularly for the one from 16 August 1793.- Terminology :...
- "From this moment until such time as its enemies shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the services of the armies. The young men shall fight; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn linen into lint; the old men shall betake themselves to the public squares in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic"
All unmarried able bodied men aged between 18 and 25 were to report immediately for military service. Those married, as well as the remaining men, women and children, were to focus their efforts on arming and supplying the army.
This increased the size of the Revolutionary Armies dramatically, providing the armies in the field with the manpower to hold off the enemy attacks. Carnot was hailed by the government as the Organizer of Victory. By September 1794, the Revolutionary Army had 1,500,000 men under arms. Carnot's levée en masse had provided so much manpower that it was not necessary to repeat it again until 1797.
Tactics
- Troops with exceptional morale or skill became skirmishers, and were deployed in a screen in front of the Army. Their main fighting tactics were of a guerrilla-warfare nature. Both mounted and on foot, the large swarm of skirmishers would hide from enemies if possible, pepper their formations with fire and deploy ambushes. Unable to retaliate on the scattered skirmishers, the morale and unit cohesion of the better trained and equipped émigré and monarchist armies was gradually worn down. The incessant harassing fire usually resulted in a section of the enemy line wavering, and then the 'regular' formations of the Revolutionary Army would be sent into the attack.
- Troops with less skill and of more dubious quality, making up the 'regular' part of the army, were formed into battalion columns. The battalion column required little training to perfect, and provided commanders with potent "battering ram-style" formations with which to hit the enemy lines after the skirmishers had done their work. The skirmish screen also provided protection for those troops
Infantry
Following the dissolution of the ancien regime, the system of named regiments was abandoned. Instead, the new army was formed into a series of numbered demi-brigades. Consisting of two or three battalionBattalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
s, these formations were designated demi-brigade
Demi-brigade
Not to be confused with 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign LegionThe Demi-brigade was a military formation first used by the French Army during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Demi-brigade amalgamated the various infantry organizations of the French Revolutionary infantry into a single unit...
s in an attempt to avoid the feudal connotations of the term Regiment. In mid-1793, the Revolutionary Army officially comprised 196 infantry demi-brigades.
After the initial dismal performance of the federe volunteer battalions, Carnot ordered that each demi-brigade was to consist of one regular (ex-Royal Army) and two federe battalions. These new formations, intended to combine the discipline and training of the old army with the enthusiasm of the new volunteers, were proven successful at Valmy in September 1792. In 1794, the new demi-brigade was universally adopted.
Cockade
A cockade is a knot of ribbons, or other circular- or oval-shaped symbol of distinctive colors which is usually worn on a hat.-Eighteenth century:...
to identify them as soldiers. Poor supplies meant that uniforms which had worn out were replaced with civilian clothes, and so the Revolutionary Army lacked any semblance of uniformity, with the exception of the tricolour cockade which was worn by all soldiers. As the war progressed, several demi-brigades were issued specific coloured uniform jackets, and the Revolutionary Armée d'Orient which arrived in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in 1798 was uniformed in purple, pink, green, red, orange and blue jackets.
Along with the problem of uniforms, many men of the Revolutionary Army lacked weapons and ammunition. Any weapons captured from the enemy were immediately absorbed into the ranks. After the Battle of Montenotte
Battle of Montenotte
The Battle of Montenotte was fought on 12 April 1796, during the French Revolutionary Wars, between the French army under General Napoleon Bonaparte and an Austrian corps under Count Eugène-Guillaume Argenteau. The battle was fought near the village of Cairo Montenotte, in northwestern Italy, and...
in 1796, 1,000 French soldiers who had been sent into battle unarmed were afterwards equipped with captured Austrian muskets. As a result, uniformity was also lacking in weapons.
Besides the regular demi-brigades, light infantry
Light infantry
Traditionally light infantry were soldiers whose job was to provide a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry, harassing and delaying the enemy advance. Light infantry was distinct from medium, heavy or line infantry. Heavy infantry were dedicated primarily to fighting in tight...
demi-brigades also existed. These formations were formed from soldiers who had shown skill in marksmanship, and were used for skirmishing in front of the main force. As with the line demi-brigades, the light demi-brigades lacked uniformity in either weapons or equipment.
Artillery
Supporting the skirmishers was the French ArtilleryArtillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
. The artillery had suffered least from the exodus of aristocratic officers during the early days of the Revolution, as it was commanded mostly by men drawn from the middle-class. The man who would shape the era, Napoleon Bonaparte, himself was an artilleryman. The various technical improvements of Général Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval
Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval
Lieutenant General Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval was a French artillery officer and engineer who revolutionized French cannon, creating a new production system that allowed lighter, more uniform guns without sacrificing range. His Gribeauval system superseded the de Vallière system...
in the years preceding the Revolution, and the subsequent efforts of Baron du Teil and his brother Chevalier Jean du Teil meant that the French artillery was the finest in Europe. The Revolutionary Artillery was responsible for several of the Republic's early victories; for example at Valmy
Battle of Valmy
The Battle of Valmy was the first major victory by the army of France during the French Revolution. The action took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris...
, on 13 Vendémiaire
13 Vendémiaire
13 Vendémiaire Year 4 is the name given to a battle between the French Revolutionary troops and Royalist forces in the streets of Paris...
, and at Lodi
Battle of Lodi
The Battle of Lodi was fought on May 10, 1796 between French forces under General Napoleon Bonaparte and an Austrian rear guard led by Karl Philipp Sebottendorf at Lodi, Lombardy...
. The revolutionary cannon played a vital role in their success. The cannon continued to have a dominating role on the battlefield throughout the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
.
Cavalry
Lacking not only trained officers, but also mounts and equipment, the Revolutionary Cavalry became the worst equipped arm of the Revolutionary Army. By Mid 1793, the paper organisation of the Revolutionary Army included twenty six heavy cavalry regiments, two regiments of carabiniers, twenty dragoon regiments, eighteen regiments of chasseurs à cheval and ten hussar regiments. In reality, it was seldom that any of these regiments reached even half strength. However, unlike the infantry, where all battalions of the old Royal Amy were merged with freshly raised volunteers to form new demi-brigades, the cavalry retained their regimental identities throughout the revolutionary and napoleonic periods. As one example, the Regiment de Chasseurs d'Alsace (raised in 1651) was renamed the 1er Regiment de Chasseurs in 1791 but otherwise remained unchanged until it was finally disbanded after Waterloo.
Active Armies - 1792-1804
Armies of 1792- Armée du Nord
- Armée du RhinArmée du RhinThe Army of the Rhine is the overall name for one of the main French Revolutionary armies, that operated in the German theater along the River Rhine...
- Armée des AlpesArmée des AlpesThe Army of the Alps was one of the French Revolutionary armies. It existed from 1792-97 and from July to August 1799, and the name was also used on and off right up until 1939 for France's army on its border with Italy.-1792-7:...
- Armée des PyrénéesArmée des PyrénéesOne of the French Revolutionary armies, the Army of the Pyrenees was created by a decree of the National Convention dated 1 October 1792 and formed out of the right wing of the Armée du Midi...
- Armée des côtesArmée des côtesThe Army of the Coasts was a French Revolutionary Army created in 1792. In April 1793 it was split into the armée des côtes de Cherbourg and armée des côtes de Brest, though the armée des côtes de l'Océan can be seen as its re-forming as a single unit....
- Armée du CentreArmée du CentreThe Army of the Centre was one of the first French Revolutionary Armies, named after the location it was set up, the Centre region. It was created by order of king Louis XVI of France on 14 December 1791 and attached to Champagne...
- Armée de réserve
- Armée du VarArmée du VarThe Army of the Var was one of the French Revolutionary armies. It was established along the River Var, the frontier between France and Piedmont, and charged with protecting Provence from invasion.In reality its name was not official...
Armies after restructure of 1793
- Armée du Nord
- Armée des Ardennes
- Armée de Moselle
- Armée du RhinArmée du RhinThe Army of the Rhine is the overall name for one of the main French Revolutionary armies, that operated in the German theater along the River Rhine...
- Armée des AlpesArmée des AlpesThe Army of the Alps was one of the French Revolutionary armies. It existed from 1792-97 and from July to August 1799, and the name was also used on and off right up until 1939 for France's army on its border with Italy.-1792-7:...
- Armée d'Italie
- Armée des côtes de BrestArmée des côtes de BrestThe Army of the Coasts of Brest was a French Revolutionary Army formed on 1 April 1793 by splitting the Army of the Coasts into this army and the Army of the Coasts of Cherbourg. It was put under the command of Jean Baptiste Camille de Canclaux and charged with combatting the Chouans and...
- Armée des côtes de CherbourgArmée des côtes de Cherbourg-History:Formed by splitting the Army of the Coasts in April 1793, it was put under the command of Georges Félix de Wimpffen and charged with defending the coasts of Manche against British invasion, and fighting against the federalist revolt in Normandy and Caen...
- Armée des côtes de La Rochelle
- Armée des Pyrénées occidentalesArmée des Pyrénées occidentalesThe Army of the western Pyrenees was one of the French armies of the French Revolutionary Wars. From April 1793 until 12 October 1795, the army fought in the Basque Country and in Navarre during the War of the Pyrenees. After indecisive fighting during the first year of its existence, the army...
- armée des Pyrénées orientalesArmée des Pyrénées orientalesThe Army of the Eastern Pyrenees was one of the French Revolutionary armies. It fought against the Kingdom of Spain in Rousillon and Catalonia during the War of the Pyrenees. The army was formed a few days after Spain invaded France in April 1793...
On 1 October, the Armée de la Rochelle was redesignated as the armée de l'Ouest
Armée de l'Ouest
The Army of the West was one of the French Revolutionary Armies. It was created on 1 August 1793 by merging the armée des côtes de Brest, the armée des côtes de La Rochelle, and the armée de Mayence, and was sent to fight the revolt in the Vendee.- Reorganisation :Visiting Republican soldiers of...
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Armies Formed for Specific Tasks
- Army of Sambre-et-MeuseArmy of Sambre-et-MeuseThe Army of Sambre-et-Meuse is the best known of the armies of the French Revolution. It was formed on 29 June 1794 by combining three forces: the Army of the Ardennes, the left wing of the Army of Moselle, and the right wing of the Army of the North. It had a brief but celebrated existence...
- Armée de Rhin-et-Moselle
- Armée de Rome Formed from the Army d'Italie for the occupation of Rome.
- Armée d'Angleterre Originally formed to fight the British in 1797, it was redesignated Armée d'Orient and divided into
- Armée de Syrie
- Armée d'Égypte
- Armée de RéserveMilitary reserve forceA military reserve force is a military organization composed of citizens of a country who combine a military role or career with a civilian career. They are not normally kept under arms and their main role is to be available to fight when a nation mobilizes for total war or to defend against invasion...
Formed in secret by Napoleon and led by him personally during the Italian campaign of 1800, culminating in the Battle of Marengo. - Armée d'AllemagneArmée d'Allemagne (1797)The Army of Germany was one of the French Revolutionary armies, formed by a decree of the French Directory dated 29 September 1797 by merging the armée de Sambre-et-Meuse and the armée de Rhin-et-Moselle and commanded from the decree until 6 October by général Saint-Cyr under général Hoche...
- Armée du Danube
- Armée de Hollande
- Armée des Grisons
- Armée des côtes de l'Océan This army was formed for the invasion of England, and in 1803 it became La Grande ArméeLa Grande ArméeThe Grande Armée first entered the annals of history when, in 1805, Napoleon I renamed the army that he had assembled on the French coast of the English Channel for the proposed invasion of Britain...
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