Alfred Thayer Mahan - The Influence of sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol I

During the War of the American Revolution, the corps of naval officers had been found too small for the needs of the service; there was a deficiency of lieutenants and junior officers to take charge of the watches and gun-divisions. A systematic attempt was made to remedy this trouble in the future. By a royal decree, dated January 1, 1786, the navy was re-organized, and two sources of supply for officers were opened. The first was drawn wholly from the nobles, the youths composing it having to show satisfactory proofs of nobility before being admitted to the position of élèves , as they were called. These received a practical and rigorous training especially directed to the navy; and, so far as education went, there is reason to believe they would have made a most efficient body of men. The second source from which the royal navy was to be supplied with officers was a class called volunteers. Admission to this was also restricted, though extended to a wider circle. There could be borne upon its rolls only the sons of noblemen, or of sub-lieutenants serving either afloat or in the dockyards, of wholesale merchants, shipowners, captains, and of people living "nobly." These, though required to pass certain examinations and to have seen certain sea-service, were only admitted to the grade of sub-lieutenant, and could be promoted no further except for distinguished and exceptional acts. 26 26 See Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la République, pp. 20-23.

Such was the organization with which, in 1791, a popular assembly was about to deal. The invidious privilege by which the naval career, except in the lower ranks, was closed to all but a single, and not specially deserving, class, was of course done away without question. There still remained to decide whether the privilege should in the future be confined to a single class, which should deserve it by giving all its life and energies to the career—whether the navy should be recognized as a special calling requiring like others a special training—or whether there was so little difference between it and the merchant service that men could pass from one to the other without injuring either. These two views each found upholders, but the latter prevailed even in the first Assembly; those who wished a wholly military service only succeeded in modifying the original scheme presented by the committee.

The new organization was established by two successive acts, passed on the 22d and 28th of April, 1790. 27 27 The decree of April 22 is in the Moniteur of the 23d. That of the 28th is not; but it will be found in the "Collection Générale des Décrets rendus par l'Ass. Nat." for April, 1791. Like the old, it provided two sources of supply; the one from men specially trained in youth, the other from the merchant service. The former began in a class called Aspirants , three hundred of whom were in pay on board ships of war; they were not then officers, but simply youths between fifteen and twenty learning their business. The lowest grade of officer was the Enseigne ; they were of two kinds, paid 28 28 The word entretenu , here rendered "paid," is difficult to translate. The dictionary of the French Academy explains it to mean an officer kept on pay, without necessarily being employed. Littré says that an officer "non entretenu" is one not having a commission. The word carries the idea of permanence. By the decree of April 28, "enseignes non entretenus" had no pay nor military authority, except when on military service; nor could they wear the uniform, except when so employed. and unpaid, the former being actually in the navy. The latter were in the merchant service, but susceptible of employment in the fleet, and, when so engaged, took rank with other enseignes according to the length of time afloat in national ships. Admission to the grade of paid, or naval, enseigne could be had between eighteen and thirty, by passing the required examination and proving four years service at sea, no distinction being then made in favor of those who had begun as aspirants or had served in the navy. Those passing for enseigne and wishing to enter the navy had a more severe and more mathematical examination, while, on the other hand, those who returned to the merchant service had to have two years longer service, six in all, one of which on board a ship of war. All enseignes twenty-four years old, and only they, could command ships in the foreign trade and certain parts of the home, or coasting, trade. By the age of forty, a definitive choice had to be made between the two services. Up to that time enseignes could pass for lieutenant, and there seems to have been no inducement to follow one branch of the sea service rather than the other, except this: that five-sixths of the lieutenant vacancies at any one time were to be given to those who had most service as enseignes on board ships of war. To pass for lieutenant at the mature age of forty, only two years of military sea service were absolutely required. Thenceforth the officer was devoted to the military navy.

The essential spirit and tendency of the new legislation is summed up in the requirements for the lieutenancy. Up to the age of forty, that is, during the formative years of a man's life, it was left to the choice, interest, or caprice of the individual, how he would pass his time between the two services. The inducements to stick to the navy were too slight to weigh against the passing inclinations of young or restless men. If the navy is the specialty that has been before asserted, there can be no doubt that this scheme was radically vicious. A period of commercial prosperity would have robbed it of its best men during their best years.

It is due to the Constituent Assembly to say that, while thus establishing the navy of the future on foundations that reason and experience have both condemned, it did not, as has sometimes been said, reject or drive away the able officers still in France; that is, by direct legislative act. Although the decree of April 22 abolished the existing corps of the navy, it provided also that the new organization should be constituted, "for this time only," by a selection made from the officers of the old service then available; from whom the higher grades, including lieutenants, were to be, as far as possible, filled. Those who were not so selected were to be retired with at least two-thirds of their present pay; and with the next higher grade, if they had served over ten years in the one they then held. Whatever dislike these officers may rightly have felt for the new organization, they personally lost little by it, unless not selected; but the failure on the part of the Assembly to realize the irreparable loss with which the country was threatened,—the unique value of a body of men already, and alone, fitted for the performance of very delicate duties,—and the consequent neglect to uphold and protect them, were as fatal in their results as though they had been legislated out of existence.

The second, or Legislative, Assembly during its year of existence made no radical changes in the organization it found; but the increasing want of officers led inevitably to lowering the qualifications exacted for the different grades, which was done by several acts. The National Convention went still farther in the same direction. January 13, 1793, immediately before the war with Great Britain, it decreed that rear-admirals might be taken from any captains whose commission dated back the month before. Merchant captains who had commanded privateers or ships in the foreign trade for five years, could be at once made post-captains. To be made lieutenant were needed only five years' sea-service, either in the navy or on board merchant ships. Decree now followed decree, all in the same direction, winding up on July 28 by authorizing the minister of marine, until otherwise ordered, to fill the places of flag and other officers from any grade and without regard to existing laws. Most of these measures were probably justified by stern and pressing necessity. 29 29 Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 260.