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

Among these multiplied disasters, with the Sardinians also operating on the Alpine frontier and the Spaniards entering their country by the eastern Pyrenees, France was confronted in every quarter by disciplined armies to which she could as yet oppose only raw and ragged levies. She found her safety in the stern energy of a legislature which silenced faction by terror, in her central position, which of itself separated from one another many of the centres of disturbance, and in the military policy of the allies, which increased instead of seeking to diminish the dissemination of force which was to some extent unavoidable. The Spaniards could not combine with the Sardinians, Toulon could not help Lyon, La Vendée had to stand apart from all the others; but in the east it was possible for the Austrians, Prussians and British to direct against the forces standing between them and Paris a combination of effort which, in the then condition of the French army, might have been irresistible. Instead of so doing, the Austrians and British on the northeastern frontier decided, early in August, to cease their advance and to separate; the Austrians sitting down before Le Quesnoy, and the British undertaking to besiege the seaport of Dunkirk. On the Rhine, the mutual jealousies of Austria and Prussia, and the sluggish movements of routine generals, caused a similar failure to support each other, and a similar dilatory action.

The opportunities thus lost by the allies, and the time conceded to the French, were improved to the full by the Committee of Public Safety and by the commissioners sent from the Convention to the headquarters of every army. Men, for the most part, without pity as without fear, their administration, stained as it was with blood, was effectual to the salvation of France. From the minister in the cabinet to the general in the field, and down to the raw recruit forced from his home, each man felt his life to depend upon his submission and his activity. In the imminent danger of the country and the hot haste of men who worked not only under urgent pressure, but often with a zeal as blindly ignorant as it was patriotic, many blunders and injustices were committed; but they attained the desired end of impressing the resistless energy of the Convention upon each unit of the masses it was wielding. If ever, for good or ill, men had the single eye, it was to be found in the French soldiers of 1793, as they starved and bled and died that the country might live. Given time,—and the allies gave it,—units animated by such a spirit, and driven forward by such an impetus as the Committee knew how to impart, were soon knit into an overpowering organism, as superior in temper as they were in numbers to the trained machines before them.

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Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xix. p. 370.

Nineteenth Century Review, June, 1887, p. 922.

Lord John Russell's Life of Fox, vol. ii. p. 137.

Annual Register, vol. 27, p. 10.

See Annual Register, 1769, pp. 2-4; 1770, pp. 27-41, 67, 71, 75.

Annual Register, 1788, p. 59.

King's Message, March 29, 1781.

Fox's Speeches (London, 1815), vol. iv. p. 178.

Parl. Hist., vol. xxix. pp. 75-79.

Annual Register, 1791, p. 102.

Annual Register, 1793; State Papers, p. 118.

[12] Things had come to this state when news reached London of the death sentence of the French king. M. Chauvelin had just received and presented credentials from the republican government. On January 20, the minister informed him that the king, under present circumstances, did not think fit to receive them, adding the irritating words: "As minister of the Most Christian King, you would have enjoyed all the exemptions which the law grants to public ministers, recognized as such; but as a private person you cannot but return to the general mass of foreigners resident in England." 12 12 Annual Register, 1793; State Papers, pp. 127, 128. On the 24th of January, the execution of Louis XVI. being now known, Lord Grenville wrote to him: "The King can no longer, after such an event, permit your residence here. His Majesty has thought fit to order that you should retire from the kingdom within the space of eight days, and I herewith transmit to you a copy of the order which His Majesty has given me to that effect." 13 13 Annual Register, 1793; State Papers, pp. 127, 128. On the 1st of February, 1793, the French republic declared war against Great Britain and Holland. It was already at war with Austria, Prussia and Sardinia; while Russia and Sweden were avowedly unfriendly, and Spain almost openly hostile.

[66] Holland, first the ally and afterwards the enemy of Great Britain in the war, had forty-nine ships-of-the-line, but, owing to the shoalness of her waters, they were mostly of light burden; many would not have found a place in a British line-of-battle. The frigates were also of small force. The condition of the ships being, besides, bad, the Dutch navy was not an important factor on either side. 67 67 James' Nav. Hist., vol. i. p. 54. (Ed. 1878). Portugal and Naples had, the one six, the other four, ships-of-the-line, which, during the early years of the war, offered a respectable support to the British Mediterranean fleet; 68 68 James' Nav. Hist., vol. i. p. 54. (Ed. 1878). but the advance of the French under Bonaparte into the two peninsulas reduced these States to neutrality before the end of the century. The fleets of the Baltic powers and of Turkey played no part in the war which would, at this time, require a particular consideration of their strength.

Annual Register, 1793; State Papers, pp. 127, 128.

Annual Register, 1793; State Papers, pp. 127, 128.

Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la République, p. 49.

Nap. to Decrès, Aug. 29, 1805.

Troude, Batailles Nav., vol. iii. p. 370.

Moniteur, Jan. 19, 1790, p. 82.

Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la République, p. 11.

Ibid., p. 12.

Guérin, Histoire de la Marine, vol. iii. p. 156 (1st ed.).

Troude, Batailles Nav. de la France, vol. ii. p. 201.

Guérin, Hist. Mar., vol. iii. p. 195 (1st ed.).

Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. 2, p. 320.

Guérin, vol. iii. p. 213.