Can The French Revolutionary Wars Be Described As An Ideological Conflict?

The expectation of the Legislative Assembly, when it declared war on Austria in 1792, was a brief and victorious campaign. The number of wars, revolutions, and insurrections which followed made up the 'largest conflict in the history of the world until that time' . Near continuous fighting between 1792 and 1815 engulfed Europe, touching the West Indies and North America. These were wars of devastating consequences for human life and the structure of the European political order . Out of the 3,372 battles fought between 1490 and 1815, one-fifth were fought after 1792 . One cannot deny a role for ideology amidst such devastation; it was not just the Jacobin terror within France that showed the world just how murderous an instrument ideology could be. Prussian General, Carl Von Clausewitz remarked that the 'tremendous effects of the French Revolution abroad, were not caused so much by new military methods and concepts as by radical changes in policies and administration, by the new character of government, the altered conditions of the French People' . Significantly, the 'people became a participant in war, instead of governments and armies as heretofore, the full weight of the nation was thrown into the balance'. There was certainly an unprecedented level of engagement of national resources both human and material, throughout Europe. Yet the idea that an 'aristocratic and qualitative civilisation' , in which an 'expected utility principal' guided rulers in the responsible enactment of war, was destroyed by the French Revolution was a result of evident biases of the time. Humanitarian considerations were frequently disregarded in the old European system. A coalition in 1756 sought to dramatically reduce Frederick II's Prussia whilst wars in Eastern Europe involving Turkey, Austria and Russia witnessed enough humanitarian horrors to rival any wars of ideology . In some of the worst instances of violence in the Revolutionary Wars, old xenophobic hatreds were often more prevalent than new ideological conflicts whilst regressive nationalism rooted in the previous centuries reared its head more so than the enlightened conception of national identity advanced by the Revolution. A mix of opportunism, ideology, old rivalries and atavistic grievances shaped the motivations and expectations of the various competing nations. The idea that war was 'brought about by rival systems of political outlook' has since been modified to emphasise the importance of the defence and expansion of political power. 'There was no question' according to Soboul, 'of any threat from the outside' regarding the situation in France. 'War was willed to divert from social problems' . This remained true of the wars waged by the Directory after 1795 whose 'large armies accommodated a mass of unemployed that would, in the case of peace and demobilisation, threaten the stability of the government' . The discernable intentions of France and her rivals point to the importance of internal pressures facing Europe's major powers coupled with the dynamics of European political power in explaining why states went to war. Ideology has frequently been a tool for mobilising support for war but rarely has it been the primary reason for going to war. The primary motivations have more often centred on the defence of or opportunity to expand political power . Despite the widespread consternation caused by the execution of Louis XVI, it was the threat to political power rather than of ideas that brought together Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Naples, Spain, Britain, the United Provinces, Portugal, and various German states in the First Coalition. Pitt's government in Britain was undoubtedly averse to the direction of the Revolution yet this was not enough reason to go to war with it. In February, 1792, Pitt told parliament that never had fifteen years of peace seemed more likely and remained committed to peace even after 10 August. The eighteenth-century politics of the balance of power, designed to maintain order and security for Europe's major powers, ultimately brought Britain into the war. In the previous decades British foreign policy centred on keeping the Low Countries out of French control. The French invasion of Belgium therefore altered Britain's official position. In breaching the Peace of Westphalia and declaring the Scheldt open, France threatened the balance of power in that region which, in a century of perennial tensions, brought Britain into the war. The question therefore, if we accept the relative insignificance of ideology in causing the Revolutionary Wars, is how ideology affected the conflict and to what extent did it play a role in shaping events. France's immediate concerns following the French Revolution were internal as were those of Austria and Prussia whilst Britain faced unrest in Ireland. Britain considered war to be harmful to trade after its last conflict with France, ending in 1783, left heavy financial burdens on both counties. Furthermore, the French constitution in Article 6, declared the end of 'war for the purpose of conquest'. There was a difference however between war for conquest and war for the consolidation of the Revolution. By the time the Assembly declared war on Austria for the 'just defence of a free people against the unjust aggression of the king' , the situation had changed largely due to the development of French internal politics. Most significantly, the Girondins believed that war would weaken the King's position and thus be the means for realising their political ambitions. With support from the 'Fayettists' on the right who believed that war would rely on Lafayette for victory who would then turn against the revolutionaries, the case for war was a calculated move for political power rather than an ideological impulse. For example France believed that war with Britain and the German states could be avoided meanwhile French emissaries in Berlin sought to enlist Prussian support up until April 1792 in spite of Girondin rhetoric. Brissot announced to the Assembly for example that 'a people who have conquered liberty after ten centuries of slavery, need war.to cleanse liberty from the vices of despotism' as well as presenting the rather hollow gesture, as Leopold II recognised, of the 'Declaration of Pillnitz' as a threat to France's liberty . Historians have debated how such a vast coalition failed to defeat a nation reeling from social, political and economic uncertainty. The consensus lies in the extension and protection of political power. Austria considered exchanging Belgium for Bavaria to satisfy an ambition they had long held. Britain meanwhile committed troops to the Caribbean when the opportunity to capitalise on French weakness presented itself. The potential for the realisation of longstanding political ambitions obstructed the swift defeat of France. Thugut was reserving Austrian strength for possible action in Poland determined to benefit from any further partitioning of the county. Russia and Prussia also limited operations against France for the same reasons. The Treaty of Basel in April, 1795, ensured peace between France and Prussia allowing Prussia to devote resources to Poland giving France the freedom to exploit the Rhine's left bank. By 1797, the military successes of the Directory resulted in a willingness by Britain to recognise French conquests in Europe in exchange for some kind of peace. French insistence on control of the Cape, a valuable route to India, was something Britain could not accept however. Britain was prepared to accommodate French domination of the continent but there were limits to how much French political power they could accept. There was also widespread concern at the expansion of Russia. In 1776, the Scots Magazine described how Russia 'sits supreme between Europe and Asia, and looks as if she intended to dictate both' . The competing rivalries of eighteenth-century Europe ensured a multi-layered conflict and ultimately destructive conflict. Yet ideology was a presence in the Revolutionary Wars. In Spain, Frenchmen who were not émigrés voiced hatred for the Church and the King in 1792 whilst Jacobins formed clubs in Naples and Mainz in 1793. Dutch patriots also formed societies and, in 1794, the Poles ran riot against the Russians in Warsaw and Vilno, wearing tricolour cockades and singing translations of 'Ça Ira' and of the 'Marseillaise'. The case of Poland highlights the presence of and the limits to ideology in the revolutionary Wars. A Jacobin 'Society of the Friends of National Insurrection' was established as Kosciuszko arrived in Cracow in March, 1794, proclaiming an insurrection. There was a genuine surge of revolutionary ideology, not at the behest of French intervention, but out of popular enthusiasm for Jacobinism in Poland. The Prussians took the lead in defeating the Poles motivated by longstanding ambitions regarding the division of Poland rather than, as evidenced by their peace with France, aversion to revolutionary ideology. Prussia had effectively not committed to fighting France for over a year before their official peace. The worst violence of the decade was carried out by the Russians on the edges of Warsaw. In the space of a few hours on November 4, 1794, up to twenty-thousand Poles were massacred in the suburb of Praga in what was the most deadly day of a destructive decade . The Russian General Suvurov reported that the 'whole of Praga was strewn with dead bodies, blood was flowing in the streams' in what was an act of brutal revenge for the treatment of Russians half a year earlier. The power play in the East had little to do with ideas in Poland, rather than the threat any insurrection might pose to the political influence of Russia, Prussia, and Austria and the opportunities that uncertainty in that region and a potential partitioning of Poland presented them with. The Polish uprising was Jacobin in its style and language and had aided France by relieving pressure from its borders. Yet the absence of French intervention, despite the requests of a Polish delegation in Paris, perpetuates the notion that immediate realities and long term political ambitions ultimately dictated the actions of individual states rather than ideological persuasions. The war effort in France was not caused by ideology, but it often characterised it. The levee en masse, August 23, 1793, embodied the idea of a 'nation in arms' engaging an extraordinary level of human and material resources. It was to turn war into, as Clausewitz put it, 'an affair of the people, and that of a people numbering thirty millions, every one of whom regarded himself a citizen of the state' . The levee en masse represented an unprecedented level of military engagement providing a conscri pt army of 700,000. French national identity was not created by the Revolution. But the idea that legitimate authority was rooted in the concept of the nation and its people created a revolutionary nationalism that, when utilised by the authorities, had the capability of mobilising a mass of people. In contrast to the divided and fractious nature of their rivals, national unity and organisation, headed by a strong executive in the Committee of Public Safety, was enforced during the terror . The sacrifices of French citizens suggest a genuine eagerness to defend the Revolution. Women were an important part of this process. 'Patriotic donations' were collected including women's jewellery, and Theroign de Mericourt appealed to the Convention to let women militarise. From 1792-4, the term 'people's war' can be appropriately applied considering the mass of artisans and labourers working in the various public spaces in Paris, in Luxembourg Gardens, on boats on the Seine, overflowing from their workshops to contribute to the war effort. There is no shortage of examples of ideological commitment to the French nation. In 1793, a soldier explained how enemies defecting to the French side must have 'no longer accepted to be slaves, they want liberty' . The Terror was remarkably successful in ensuring committed soldiers. Much of this however was out of fear, persuasion and propaganda. In less than two years, 84 generals were executed and 352 others were relieved from duty. This could not help but leave an impression on the soldier. Fear, fatigue, and misery were common themes in the letters of soldiers. Inspiration in the army, as was the case throughout the eighteenth-century, was best provided by individual commanders rather than revolutionary nationalism. A general was the first point of loyalty for many soldiers; overarching patriotism was often secondary. Napoleon may be the most famous example, but there were others that possessed what the French called the coup d`oil. Moreover the extent of mobilisation, affecting all levels of society was temporary by its nature. Sacrifices bore by the French populace required justification which could only be sustained as long as the threat to France was evident. Ideology is a legitimising and therefore often dangerous force. It is unsurprising contemporaries warned of the threat to human civilisation when one considers the destruction wrought between 1792 and 1815. The wars unleashed and intensified certain forces across Europe. The ideas of the French revolution were not the only ideological force present. Enlightenment cosmopolitanism set a new standard of humanitarianism in which people possessed and shared a capacity to reason. When these conceptions of natural rights were not extended to everyone, those that, out of circumstance or conscience, fell outside this ideological framework could be eliminated without regard to the 'laws of war'. The creation of rational and reasonable human beings also saw the creation of monstrous and savage human beings whose extermination was both legally and morally justifiable. The manifestation of these forces helped shape events that unfolded over the course of the conflict. Prejudices and hatreds were already woven into the fabric of the European system. Many Girondin arguments in favour of war, for all the talk of international fraternity, were atavistic in character emphasising the old hatred of Austria. Pierre Vergniaud for example declared that the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles of 1956 was a 'revolution as necessary in foreign affairs.as the destruction of the Bastille has been for our internal restoration' . Gerhard Scharnhorst, a Hanoverian officer, noted in 1795 that the 'French Nation has always deemed itself to be the only people which is enlightened.despising all other nations as uncultured, bestial and wretched' . Much of the revolutionary nationalism of France and the prejudices of other countries in this period were informed by old prejudices rooted in previous decades of conflict. The origins of the French Revolutionary Wars are rooted in a succession of miscalculations, old rivalries, and anxieties over the defence and expansion of political power. By 1795, wars started in the name of liberty were characterised by plunder and conquest. This was recognised by commanders on the ground with one general remarking that, concerning the expedition across the Rhine, the purpose of 'an incursion into a rich and defenceless country was to obtain money of which we were in such dire need' . One cannot ignore factors such as a dramatically increasing population in Europe and improved infrastructure, networks of communication and advances in agriculture and industrial production that was bound to change the nature of war. Just as significantly, the French brought new methods of strategy and organisation to the battlefield originally attached to the Seven Years War and the theorists of the Ancien Régime. Theorists such as Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval and Jacques de Guibert who suggested narrow but deep columns of infantry protected by musketry, were influential in creating a devastatingly effective army. These ideas were adopted by the revolution and strengthened by Napoleon. That is not to say ideology did not make a difference. Ideology was everywhere in this conflict as it always has been in the popular justification of, and the mobilisation for, war. Yet the Revolutionary Wars were born out of the hostile layers of rivalries and political ambitions of the eighteenth-century European order.

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