The Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, 1792-1815 (review)

The wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon are of major significance in the history of warfare. They introduced modern war as it became known in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They mark the transition from small, well-trained armies of the king to the massive armies, raised by universal male conscription, of nations. Rather than king against king, war became a struggle of nation against nation. The total resources of France, and the satellite states controlled by France, were at the disposal of the Emperor Napoleon for the purpose of waging war. The ground work was thus put down in the early nineteenth century for total war in the twentieth century.

The French Revolutionary regimes introduced the levée en masse; the first truly universal draft in modern history. This made it possible for Napoleon eventually to raise an army of one million men, incomprehensible in the eighteenth century. However, there was very little change in the technology of warfare. Although rifling was used in a very limited way, the smoothbore muzzle-loading musket remained the standard weapon of the infantry. Nor were there improvements in artillery until well after Napoleon. Strategy and tactics remained generally unchanged. Napoleon did introduce the corps, a cluster of two or more divisions with all arms that could fight on its own. Line and column remained standard on the battlefield.

Professor Connelly explains the transition of the French army from the traditions of the Old Regime through the innovations of the Revolutionary wars to Napoleon's Imperial Grande Armée. He points out that Napoleon was a scrambler, that he made better use of his troops, weapons, and the existing tactics and strategy of the times, than did his opponents. He made fewer mistakes and took advantage of the errors of his adversaries. He was able to analyze the enemy's position and movements and adjust his own strategy and tactics for a campaign or battle. Of the Campaign of 1805, Connelly writes: "Ulm was an improvised strategic victory; Austerlitz an improvised tactical victory. They marked Napoleon as one of the all-time masters of the art of military command" (p. 128). And again he declares that Napoleon "never had a tactical plan, and only vague strategic ones. His success resulted as much from 'scrambling' as from genius" (p. 216).

Connelly has produced an excellent summary of the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon and has woven into it an expert insight that is the culmination of more that forty years of studying and teaching this critical period in history. This book is solid scholarship and skillfully written. In conclusion, the author declares that: "The Revolutionary/Napoleonic era was not a turning point in the history of warfare. However, the innovations in mobilizing manpower . . . , national support 'and resources'" set the stage for mass warfare that would reach its zenith in the World War of 1914– 18, the most savage and wasteful of life ever fought" (p. 220).