How did the young French republic defend it self against the rest of Europe?

[storealex]

I've always wondered how France managed to survive as a republic after the revolution. Most of the major powers in Europe declared war and invaded France, and this at a time when France still had many internal problems.
It was before Napoleon, before his great Marshalls, before the French army reached the level it did during the later years. Still, France was somehow able to beat back the combined efforts of Europe. How?

 

[Dachs]

Coupla different reasons. You could write a book on this, actually. (People have. )

Usually the French levée en masse is credited with providing the Republic with enough manpower to run over anything in its way. It was one of the first efforts at mass conscription in history, and although a huge number of eligible soldiers fell through the cracks, the French were able to raise a total military establishment several hundred thousand strong. Amalgamated with the remnant of the professional Royal armies and getting a great deal of training on the fly against internal and external enemies, the French, despite hiccups in 1792 and 1793, were on the offensive for most of the war.

Another point is that the Republic's enemies were not particularly interested in destroying the republic itself. Prussia, for instance, was far more interested in carving Poland into bite sized chunks. To a lesser degree, the Poles distracted one of the other major French foes, the Habsburg empire, as well. Why expend resources against France, from which it would be difficult to wrest territory, when you could just gobble up Poland instead? With Prussia uninterested at best and the Habsburgs only a reluctant party, there wasn't really anybody left to shoulder the bulk of the burden of war against France. The Brits were basically useless on land at this point, as the 1793-4 campaign demonstrated rather graphically. Spain switched sides readily enough. The Dutch were overrun rather quickly, partly by luck and partly because about half their government, the Patriotten, were more or less pro-French.

There are a few other reasons, but those are some of the most salient ones.

 

[LightSpectra]

To put it as briefly as I can: advanced artillery technology, effective generals like Napoleon, Jourdan and Moreau, the levée en masse and being able to freely default on loans on account of being at war with the country indebted to and/or bankers conveniently being beheaded for being enemies of the Revolution.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

What both of them said, plus Lazare Carnot.

 

[Yared]

Could someone explain the levée en masse a little more in depth? What made it so special/revolutionary?

 

[Dachs]

Could someone explain the levée en masse a little more in depth? What made it so special/revolutionary?

Oh my ****ing God I pressed F5.

Anyway, what I was originally saying is that nobody in Europe had made a pretense of universal conscription in centuries. Sweden, Prussia, and Russia all had partial conscription systems, based more or less on taking a fraction of the available manpower at any given time. That was nothing like this. There are a lot of reasons as to why the French Republic could do it, including the fiscal capability to actually make this happen, the relative lack of concern about giving a focus of internal opposition more weapons (because you could always just raise more men to kill the internal opposition ), increasing agricultural capability to feed large armies of ex-farmers and ex-city slickers, and, of course, the growing force of nationalism that allowed people to start considering the concept of a nation in arms.

The fact that France was able to raise armies with more than a half million soldiers - larger than friggin Russia's military at the time - was massively unbalancing. Sure, France had raised something like three hundred thousand soldiers (on paper, 400K, but estimates of the number of men who actually served are substantially lower) during the reign of Louis XIV. But this was twice those numbers...

I'm sure that Verbose or somebody would be much better at explaining it than I am though, with fewer errors to boot...

 

[Edelbroy]

The French Empire of Napoleon had the same problem as the Spanish Empire of Charles V, or Hitler's German Empire. Is impossible to invade the British Isles, and England would never allow a united continent.

 

[LightSpectra]

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor & I of Spain was allied with England.

 

[Agent327]

I'm sure that Verbose or somebody would be much better at explaining it than I am though, with fewer errors to boot...

I think you explained it rather well.

A point that may need stressing is the revolutionary character of France's army, which gave capable military the chance to rise to distinction. (Napoleon being an obvious case in point, but he wasn't the only one.)

 

[storealex]

The French Empire of Napoleon had the same problem as the Spanish Empire of Charles V, or Hitler's German Empire. Is impossible to invade the British Isles, and England would never allow a united continent.

Napoleon was actually in preparing for an invasion of Britian, when he had to transfer his army from Northern France to the East in order to deal with new threats coming from the Austrians and Russians. This would eventually lead to his victory at Austerlitz. Had he not been interrupted, things might have looked differently.

 

[say1988]

About the Levee, did it not also stress the involvement of those ineligible to serve (old, young, women, etc..) in supporting of the military. I seem to recall that from school a few years ago, though it may have just be separate things at the same time, or BS.

 

[Agent327]

Napoleon was actually in preparing for an invasion of Britian, when he had to transfer his army from Northern France to the East in order to deal with new threats coming from the Austrians and Russians. This would eventually lead to his victory at Austerlitz. Had he not been interrupted, things might have looked differently.

Hmmm - actually, Napoleon underestimated the problems involved with an invasion of the British Isles completely. Following the Austro-Russian threat he left a token force and rushed his main forces to where he expected to meet his enemies. (Even after being several times at sea, he never mastered what it takes to 'rule the waves', so to speak.)

 

[Yared]

So the French wouldn't have succeeded either way?

 

[storealex]

Hmmm - actually, Napoleon underestimated the problems involved with an invasion of the British Isles completely. Following the Austro-Russian threat he left a token force and rushed his main forces to where he expected to meet his enemies. (Even after being several times at sea, he never mastered what it takes to 'rule the waves', so to speak.)

How does this contratict anything I wrote?

Anway, He didn't have to master the sea himself, as long as he could find someone to do it for him.

Also, bear in mind that the French did send an invasion army of 15000 men to Ireland in 1798. The fleet reached it's destinaiton but couldn't conduct amphibious landings due to bad weather (Worst storm in nearly a hundred years).
What is important here is that it was the weather, not the British that prevented a French invasion. Afterwards the British navy received criticism at home for it's failure to do anything about it.
Not long after this incident, the French managed to land a raiding force in Ireland and together with Irish rebels routed the English at Castlebar.

My point is, an invasion of Britain, maybe with Ireland as a stepping stone, was a hard task but not an impossible one. Who knows what would have happened?

So the French wouldn't have succeeded either way?

Sure they would, had Napoleon not been so ambitious. The invasion of Spain was a terrible mistake, that bound large French armies and never obtained anything. Russia was a even bigger mistake.
Had Napoleon been satisfied with controlling most of Europe while denying Britian from trading with almost everyone, his armies would have been complete and Britian could never dream of defeating him. Even if Russia had declared war and attacked Napoleon in Europe, it is unlikely they could have defeated him, now that they didn't have "General Winter" and with the entire French army to fight (No one fighting an endless guerilla war in Spain)

 

[Dachs]

A point that may need stressing is the revolutionary character of France's army, which gave capable military the chance to rise to distinction. (Napoleon being an obvious case in point, but he wasn't the only one.)

That's true, but said "revolutionary character" also ended up slaughtering capable military leaders, driving them to defect, and/or getting them marginalized in political struggles. It also emphasized the rise of a certain kind of leader - the courageous, if not particularly well-schooled front-line general, who had more in common with grizzled old veterans than with egghead St.-Cyr cadets at the tops of their classes. The disadvantages of relying on that sort of man should be clear. Personally, I'd call the effect on overall French Army military leadership by the Revolution itself a wash.

 

[Verbose]

That's true, but said "revolutionary character" also ended up slaughtering capable military leaders, driving them to defect, and/or getting them marginalized in political struggles. It also emphasized the rise of a certain kind of leader - the courageous, if not particularly well-schooled front-line general, who had more in common with grizzled old veterans than with egghead St.-Cyr cadets at the tops of their classes. The disadvantages of relying on that sort of man should be clear. Personally, I'd call the effect on overall French Army military leadership by the Revolution itself a wash.

Not to mention how the Revolution pretty much killed the old pet project of the monarchy, the navy. Which is interesting in the way naval warfare requires quite a lot of specific competences, regardless if it draws its officers from the aristocracy or fills it with clever commoners. It's simply not possible to replace schooled naval officers with courageous people taken from before the mast, at least not without rather extensive education in between. Of course, the monarchy had mainly used it to challenge the UK for dominion of the seas, and the Republic had to deal with more immediate problems, like securing continued existence.

 

[privatehudson]

Also, bear in mind that the French did send an invasion army of 15000 men to Ireland in 1798. The fleet reached it's destinaiton but couldn't conduct amphibious landings due to bad weather (Worst storm in nearly a hundred years).
What is important here is that it was the weather, not the British that prevented a French invasion. Afterwards the British navy received criticism at home for it's failure to do anything about it.

The fact that the weather prevented the landings is somewhat moot since had it been better the French would have had a significantly harder time even getting to Ireland in the first place. The main blockading force at Brest had been withdrawn to the Channel ports and the watching squadron withdrawn 40 miles to avoid being driven onto the rocks near Brest. The British were able to maintain blockading fleets for months on end and had the main force been within easy communication range of Pellew and the other Frigate captains the heavily laden expedition would probably have been intercepted and brought to battle (assuming it was even sent in the first place). We can't be certain of the outcome of that battle but you don't have to look too far for examples of a Royal Navy force pasting an enemy fleet without the help of mother nature.

Not long after this incident, the French managed to land a raiding force in Ireland and together with Irish rebels routed the English at Castlebar.

Quite embarrassing for the British but ultimately futile since the Franco-Irish forces were beaten and had surrendered within a month.

Anyway I wouldn't say a successful invasion of Ireland by the French was impossible but given what we know about British operations that would prevent or hinder it it was so unlikely as to be not far off impossible. The French could slip one or two ships past the blockading British fleets and land 1-2,000 troops in Ireland. Just about the only ways they would be likely to get enough troops past though would be freak weather, blind luck or winning a major battle.

The first presents the problem that if you send out a major fleet into the worst winter in nearly a century you shouldn't be surprised if it has trouble landing the troops and you loose 12 ships and 2,000 troops making the attempt (itself a by-product of the decline in seamanship skills that Verbose touched on). The second can always be present but never relied on and the third wasn't very likely given the state of the French navy at the time.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Oh my ****ing God I pressed F5.

You clearly need this then. It's a live saver, to say nothing of sanity.

 

[Agent327]

How does this contratict anything I wrote?

Anway, He didn't have to master the sea himself, as long as he could find someone to do it for him.

Which he didn't, not having a clue as to what it takes to 'rule the waves', as said. The 'invasion' of Britain was just as poorly being planned as that of Russia, so not much would have been different had it gone through; Napoleon actually welcomed the Austro-Russian initiative, happy to have something to do again.

See also:

Not to mention how the Revolution pretty much killed the old pet project of the monarchy, the navy. Which is interesting in the way naval warfare requires quite a lot of specific competences, regardless if it draws its officers from the aristocracy or fills it with clever commoners. It's simply not possible to replace schooled naval officers with courageous people taken from before the mast, at least not without rather extensive education in between. Of course, the monarchy had mainly used it to challenge the UK for dominion of the seas, and the Republic had to deal with more immediate problems, like securing continued existence.

But:

That's true, but said "revolutionary character" also ended up slaughtering capable military leaders, driving them to defect, and/or getting them marginalized in political struggles. It also emphasized the rise of a certain kind of leader - the courageous, if not particularly well-schooled front-line general, who had more in common with grizzled old veterans than with egghead St.-Cyr cadets at the tops of their classes. The disadvantages of relying on that sort of man should be clear. Personally, I'd call the effect on overall French Army military leadership by the Revolution itself a wash.

I wasn't referring to the revolutionary character of the Revolution, but to the fact that it allowed men to rise through the ranks by merit, not social background. Also, if one thinks that a professional army's commanders do not have to contend with political intrigue one is sadly mistaken. What the net effect on the French military might be would require a case-specific statistical study, but following the sheer increase in size of the French military it stands to reason to assume that the net effect might actually have been positive rather than negative.

 

[storealex]

The first presents the problem that if you send out a major fleet into the worst winter in nearly a century you shouldn't be surprised if it has trouble landing the troops and you loose 12 ships and 2,000 troops making the attempt (itself a by-product of the decline in seamanship skills that Verbose touched on). The second can always be present but never relied on and the third wasn't very likely given the state of the French navy at the time.

You forget the fourth; The Royal Navy make a mistake and the French exploit it. Now that we have established that the British embarrassed themselves twice, it is not entirely impossible they would do so again

Another interesting topic is what would had happened, if the Swedish fleet had managed to come in time for the Battle of Copenhagen (This time the weather actually helped the British, as unfavourable winds prevented that)
Had the Swedish fleet arrived, it's not certain whether the British could have won and suddenly Britain would be the very serious situation, that they had made enemies with the League of Armed Neutrality (Or at least Denmark-Norway and Sweden)
Knowing that the British surprised attacked Denmark later (in 1807) to capture it's navy so it couldn't be of use to the French, it is a likely assessment that the combined navies of Denmark and Sweden would be a very serious threat. (The Times said that the confiscation of the Danish fleet was "a bare act of self-preservation" and noticed the short distance between Denmark and Ireland or north-east Scotland.)
One can only wonder what Napoleon would have done during all this...