In this work Alan Forrest brings together some of the recent research on the Revolutionary army that has been undertaken on both sides of the Atlantic by younger historians, many of whom look to the influential work of Braudel for a model. Forrest places the armies of the Revolution in a broader social and political context by presenting the effects of war and militarization on French society and government in the Revolutionary period. Revolutionary idealists thought of the French soldier as a willing volunteer sacrificing himself for the principles of the Revolution; Forrest examines the convergence of these ideals with the ordinary, and often dreadful, experience of protracted warfare that the soldier endured.
Jean-Paul Bertaud is the leading French authority on the army of the French Revolution, and La Revolution armee is the authortative treatment of the firest great national, patriotic, revolutionary, and mass army, engaged in what has been called the first total war: that between revolutionary France and the other European powers. The book is a successful attempt to integrate military history with social and political history and thereby to depict the army as a "school for the republic" that by subtle changes after 1795 made way for the Napoleonic regime. The distinguished historian R.R. Palmer presents the first translation of this work into English in a volume that will quickly become indispensable for French historians, historical sociologists, and political scientists interested in armies and revolutions. The theme of the book is suggested by its French title: "the Revolution armed." That is, the book is primarily about the Revolution, and specifically the Revolution in its relation to armed force. This revolution, and this army, activated the idea of the citizen-soldier exemplified by the ancient classical republics, and favored by Jean-jacques Rousseau and other eighteenth-century thinkers, but never before realized on so large and portentous a scale as in France in the 1790s. Jean-Paul Bertaud is Professor of Modern History at the University of Paris I (the Sorbonne). He has published widely in France on aspects of the French Revolution. R.R. Palmer is Professor Emeritus at Yale University and author of numerous books, including the two-volume The Age of the Democratic Revolution (1959 and 1964), Twelve Who Ruled (1941), and The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution (1985), all published by Princeton University Press. He has translated many works from the French, most recently The Two Tocquevilles, Father and Son: Herve and Alexis de TOcqueville on the Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton, 1987). Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Before the French Revolution, tens of thousands of foreigners served in France’s army. They included troops from not only all parts of Europe but also places as far away as Madagascar, West Africa, and New York City. Beginning in 1789, the French revolutionaries, driven by a new political ideology that placed "the nation" at the center of sovereignty, began aggressively purging the army of men they did not consider French, even if those troops supported the new regime. Such efforts proved much more difficult than the revolutionaries anticipated, however, owing to both their need for soldiers as France waged war against much of the rest of Europe and the difficulty of defining nationality cleanly at the dawn of the modern era. Napoleon later faced the same conundrums as he vacillated between policies favoring and rejecting foreigners from his army. It was not until the Bourbon Restoration, when the modern French Foreign Legion appeared, that the French state established an enduring policy on the place of foreigners within its armed forces. By telling the story of France’s noncitizen soldiers—who included men born abroad as well as Jews and blacks whose citizenship rights were subject to contestation—Christopher Tozzi sheds new light on the roots of revolutionary France’s inability to integrate its national community despite the inclusionary promise of French republicanism. Drawing on a range of original, unpublished archival sources, Tozzi also highlights the linguistic, religious, cultural, and racial differences that France’s experiments with noncitizen soldiers introduced to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French society. Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Work of Scholarship in Eighteenth-Century Studies
Between the outbreak of war with Austria in 1792 and Napoleon's final debacle in 1814, France remained almost continously at war, recruiting in the process some two to three million frenchmen--a level of recruitment unknown to previous generations and widely resented as an attack on the liberties of rural communities. Forrest challenges the notion of a nation heroically rushing to arms by examining the massive rates of desertion and avoidance of service as well as their consequences on French society--on military campaigns and the morale of armies, on political opinion at home, on the social fabric of local villages, and on the Napoleonic dream of bringing about a coherent and centralized state.
"The military and political progress of the [French] revolutionary armies is narrated and analysed in this ... study, with special attention paid to the legacy of the old regime, the remarkable resilience displayed by the old regime powers, the reasons for the revolutionaries' success on land -- and the reasons for their failure at sea. The revolutionary wars brought France hegemony in Europe but at a terrible cost. Inside the country, the war brought the end of pluralism, the destruction of the monarchy, civil war and the terror, paving the way for military dictatorship and burdening the country with an enduring legacy of political instability. This interaction between events at the front and at home is discussed in full. Special attention is also paid to the devastation inflicted by the revolutionary armies as they rampaged across the continent, together with the nationalist resistance movements they provoked"--Page 4 of cover.
How war gave birth to revolution in the 19th century The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 introduced new military technologies, transformed the organization of armies, and upset the continental balance of power, promulgating new regimented ideas of nationhood and conflict resolution more widely. However, the mass armies that became a new standard required mass mobilization and the arming of working people, who exercised a new power through both a German social democracy and popular insurgent French movements. As in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Paris Commune of 1871 grew directly from the discontent among radicalized soldiers and civilians pressed into armed service on behalf of institutions they learned to mistrust. If this militarized class conflict, the brutality of the Commune's subsequent repression not only butchered the tens of thousands of Parisians but slaughtered an old utopian faith that appeals to reason and morality could resolve social tensions. War among nations became linked to revolution and revolution to armed struggle.
This book provides an interpretation of the French Revolution that is both thematic and accessible to the general reader. The discussion includes an analysis of the historiography of the subject, and reviews the range of literature produced around the recent Bicentenary. Insisting that the French Revolution had an important social dimension, Alan Forrest demonstrates that the revolutionaries, even the most extreme of them, were committed to an ordered society. He argues that in destroying the political institutions and the corporate structures of the Ancien Regime, they were conscious of the need to invent a new order of their own, one that would be consistent with their ideology. Chapters focus on the initial crisis of 1789, on the political and social experiments of the revolutionary years, and on the impact of war and counter-revolution. The study covers the period up to 1799, looking forward where appropriate to the Napoleonic Empire. The author's succinct and penetrating overview of events ensures that The French Revolution will be welcomed by all students of this fascinating and turbulent period in European history.
Americans today have a love/hate relationship with France, but in How the French Saved America Tom Shachtman shows that without France, there might not be a United States of America. To the rebelling colonies, French assistance made the difference between looming defeat and eventual triumph. Even before the Declaration of Independence was issued, King Louis XVI and French foreign minister Vergennes were aiding the rebels. After the Declaration, that assistance broadened to include wages for our troops; guns, cannon, and ammunition; engineering expertise that enabled victories and prevented defeats; diplomatic recognition; safe havens for privateers; battlefield leadership by veteran officers; and the army and fleet that made possible the Franco-American victory at Yorktown. Nearly ten percent of those who fought and died for the American cause were French. Those who fought and survived, in addition to the well-known Lafayette and Rochambeau, include François de Fleury, who won a Congressional Medal for valor, Louis Duportail, who founded the Army Corps of Engineers, and Admiral de Grasse, whose sea victory sealed the fate of Yorktown. This illuminating narrative history vividly captures the outsize characters of our European brothers, their battlefield and diplomatic bonds and clashes with Americans, and the monumental role they played in America’s fight for independence and democracy.
“A fascinating study exploring the motivation of French soldiers during the Napoleonic Era, and the process through which they became Napoleon’s men.”—Frederick C. Schneid, author of Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe The men who fought in Napoleon’s Grande Armée built a new empire that changed the world. Remarkably, the same men raised arms during the French Revolution for liberté, égalité, and fraternité. In just over a decade, these freedom fighters, who had once struggled to overthrow tyrants, rallied to the side of a man who wanted to dominate Europe. What was behind this drastic change of heart? In this ground-breaking study, Michael J. Hughes shows how Napoleonic military culture shaped the motivation of Napoleon’s soldiers. Relying on extensive archival research and blending cultural and military history, Hughes demonstrates that the Napoleonic regime incorporated elements from both the Old Regime and French Revolutionary military culture to craft a new military culture, characterized by loyalty to both Napoleon and the preservation of French hegemony in Europe. Underscoring this new, hybrid military culture were five sources of motivation: honor, patriotism, a martial and virile masculinity, devotion to Napoleon, and coercion. Forging Napoleon’s Grande Armée vividly illustrates how this many-pronged culture gave Napoleon’s soldiers reasons to fight. “Hughes offers a tight and well-grounded exposition and analysis of French military culture in the Napoleonic period in which military honour is presented as a dynamic element.” —Journal of European Studies “Hughes’s book not only contributes to our understanding of the military success of Napoleon’s army, but also elegantly employs cultural history methods to better understand army operations and sustained troop motivations.” —Julia Osman, History: Reviews of New Book
