1) The Appeal of the Revolution
a) Really no other revolutionary states (except USA)
b) Revolutionary ideology were currents or movements within state powers
i) European intelligence and talent supported revolution (at least until Terror)
ii) Jacobinism in Britain
(1) Collided with (and defused by) traditional anti-French bias
(2) Even sailors who mutinied at Spithead, clamored to fight after their demands were met
iii) Poland, Ireland, Germany and Italy
(1) Mainly simply an auxiliary to French conquest (except in Ireland of course)
(a) Belgium annexed 1795
(b) Netherlands became Batavia Republic 1795
(c) Switzerland became Helvetic Republic 1798
(d) Italy—Cisalpine (1797), Ligurian (1797), Roman (1798), Partenopean (1798)
2) War Chiefly Britain and France
a) France began with revolutionary ideology, shifted to imperial ideology
b) Britain’s interest almost exclusively economic (despite anti-revolutionary rhetoric)
3) Reasons for French Successes
a) Sheer size of French armies
b) Lack of coordination of anti-French alliances
c) Rejuvenation of French military (relative youth of leadership)
4) Overview of War
a) 1793-1794—France fights off pro-king allies and preserves revolution
b) 1794-1795—France occupies the Low Countries, the Rhineland, parts of Spain, Switzerland and Savoy
c) 1796—Napoleon’s Italian campaign
d) 1797-1799—Napoleon’s ambitious forays into Malta, Egypt and Syria; eventually turned back by British sea power; during his absence much of French continental gains were lost
e) 1799-1801—Napoleon returns to Europe and wins decisively imposing peace
f) 1802-1803—temporary peace
g) 1805—Battle of Trafalgar (death of Nelson) destroys French Navy; Britain uncontested at sea for rest of war
h) 1805-1807—greater triumphs over Austria (Austerlitz 1805), Prussia (Jena 1806, Auerstaedt 1806) and Russia (Austerlitz, Eylau 1807, Friedland 1807
i) 1808-1809—Spain revolts against the imposition of Joseph Bonaparte as King; ends with Cintra, but renewed shortly after
j) 1811-1812—Russia
k) 1812-1813—defeat in Russia, and elsewhere; Leipzig (1813) decisive
l) 1814—Paris occupied, Napoleon resigns 6 April 1814
m) 1815—Napoleon escapes gathers forces and is defeated at Waterloo (June 1815)
5) Consequences of War
a) Changes in the Political Map
i) Old territorial units disappeared—foreign enclaves, city-states, city-empires, duchies vanish
ii) British take overseas colonies
b) Spread of French Institutions
i) feudalism formally abolished
ii) French legal codes established (such as the Code Napoleon)
c) Profoundly Different Political Attitude: “It was now known that revolution in a single country could be a European phenomenon; that its doctrines could spread across the frontiers and, what was worse, its crusading armies could blow away the political systems of a continent. It was now known that social revolution was possible; that nations existed as something independent of states, peoples as something independent of their rulers, and even that the poor existed as something independent of the ruling classes” (91).
6) Consequences of War Mobilization
a) Human costs
i) not “frighteningly high”
ii) French mobilization very large
(1) however, at 7% of population, nowhere near the 21% of population during WWI
iii) deaths not by battle
(1) 6 or 7 percent of British sailors succumbed to French; 80% to disease or accident
(2) 8 or 9 percent of deaths at Waterloo were battle-related
b) Economic
i) Unconvertible Paper money
ii) loans
(1) debt rose from £228 millions in 1793 to £876 in 1816
(2) created great age of international financiers who financed new nation-states or stabilized the old ones
iii) diversion of resources
(1) technological innovation covers some diversion
(a) beet-sugar industry reduces reliance on cane-sugar from colonies
(b) canned food invented for Navy
(2) depth of diversion made clear by post-war crisis
(a) 150,000 men demobbed between 1814-1818 (roughly the population of Manchester)
(b) wheat prices fall from 108 shillings a quarter in 1813 to 64 in 1815
(3) diversion in France near catastrophic
(a) manufactures drop precipitously
(b) loss of overseas commerce due to blockade
c) Overall: “Britain decisively eliminated her nearest possible competitor and became the ‘workshop of the world’ for two generations. In terms of every industrial or commercial index, Britain was very much further ahead of all other states (with the possible exception of the USA) than she had been in 1789” (98).
1) Both Sides Confident
a) British believe it will be a short war because of disorder in France
b) French believe it will be a short war because
i) the Revolution appeared “all-conquering”
ii) they thought Britain was on the brink of open revolution
2) Aim of Present War?
a) like past wars—Past strategy
i) use powerful navy to seize foreign colonies
ii) use mercenaries in the field
b) different—eradicate Jaconbinism
i) then colonies irrelevant
ii) must fight on ground side-by-side with allies
iii) restore Bourbon monarchy?
3) Failure to agree on aims led to a strategy that attempted all of the above
a) Seizing French colonies successful
i) Martinique falls 1794 as does rest of Caribbean
ii) Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon seized from Dutch (when they entered war on French side)
b) Land troops in France disastrous
i) Toulon: small Anglo-Spanish force lands in August 1793, withdraws in Dec 1793
ii) Quiberon: small French émigré army landed in July 1795; completely crushed
iii) Duke of York’s forces forced out of Low Countries, evacuated from Bremen (1795)
4) Allies seek Peace
a) By summer of 1795, most allies sought peace with France
b) By summer 1796, Pitt convinced peace was necessary
i) Malmesbury dispatched to Paris
ii) Spain declares war against Britain
iii) Catherine the Great dies (Russia not involved in war)
iv) Bonaparte enjoys success in Italy
v) Hoche launches mission to Ireland
vi) Malmesbury ordered to leave Paris
c) July 1797 Malmesbury returns to France on peace mission; leaves in Sept 1797
5) Napoleon’ mistake
a) given command of Army of England (Dec 1797)—invasion seems imminent
b) instead takes army to Egypt
c) seizes Malta (June 1798)
d) victorious in Egypt (July 1798)
e) Nelson destroys French fleet in Aboukir Bay
i) ends idea of French invincibility
ii) traps Napoleon and his army in Egypt
iii) Britain masters of Mediterranean
f) Napoleon leaves Egypt to become First Consul
g) British forces retake Malta
h) British forces defeat French in Egypt (1801)
6) Peace of Amiens (1802-1803)
a) British surrender all colonial seizures except Ceylon and Trinidad
b) French promise to withdraw from central and southern Italy and compensate the House of Orange (in Holland)
7) Costs
a) larger armies and navies
b) casualties enormous
i) 1793-1801: 89,000 troops sailed to Caribbean; 45,250 died there mostly of disease
ii) Example: 31st Foot Regimen lost 55 men to enemy action, 764 to disease, some 77% of its total (1796-1797)
c) Recruitment?
i) recruiting parties
(1) bounty offered to enlist
(2) actions of “crimps” (essentially kidnappers) lead to riots in London and other areas
ii) press gangs
(1) those from recruiting centers
(2) those from the ships themselves
iii) Quota Acts
d) Militia
i) chosen by ballot (like a draft)
ii) could be excluded from ballot by wealth, occupation or by paying £10
iii) local riots occurred when some thought that drafting into militia was first step to being posted overseas as part of the regular army
iv) often used to maintain internal order (such as during food riots)
8) Taxes
a) Loans
i) much of initial phase of war financed with loans—with interest payments taking up larger proportion of budget
b) 1795 Taxes
i) wines and spirits
ii) tea
iii) wood imports
iv) life insurance
v) cargo insurance
vi) hair powder (at one guinea a year it killed powdered wigs)
c) 1796 Taxes
i) tobacco
ii) horses kept for pleasure
iii) printed calico
iv) sugar
v) salt
vi) property—an estate tax
d) 1797 Taxes
i) spirits
ii) tea
iii) sugar
iv) house tax
e) 1799 Income Tax
9) Paper money
a) Ireland requests loan to defend against French invasion
b) B of E cash on hand too low to make loan
c) run on country banks as people want cash
d) gov’t issues B of E notes instead of cash (i.e. gold); force country banks to do same
10) Famine
a) no government collected statistics available
i) such as how many people there were
ii) how much grain Britain produced
iii) the fact that prior to war Britain a net importer
b) bad harvests in 1794, 1795, 1799 and 1800
c) war halts imports of grain from France
d) crowds
i) acted to enforce their “moral economy”
(1) rioted in response to press gangs, recruiting parties, high prices, and so on
(2) attempted to fix prices
(3) worried about “profiteers”
ii) soldiers took part in riots, even instigated them
(1) militia not housed and fed by gov’t—on their own
(2) most serious army riot in Oxfordshire
(a) prevented movement of flour out of town
(b) two rioters executed by firing squad; two hanged; others flogged
e) rioters and politics
i) in later food riots (1799-1801) reports of political language (borrowed from French Revolution)
ii) war and food shortages linked by public
f) Malthus’ theory
i) population increases geometrically; agriculture increases arithmetically
ii) two curbs on population
(1) preventive (prudence or “moral” restraint)
(2) “positive”—famine, pestilence and war
iii) therefore indiscriminate charity was wrong because it actually encouraged population growth without addressing the inevitability of “positive” checks
g) Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (SBCP)