The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It [Paperback]

David A. Bell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0618919813 | ISBN-13: 978-0618919819 | Edition: Reprint

The twentieth century is usually seen as “the century of total war,” but as the historian David Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the age of Napoleon. Bell takes us from campaigns of “extermination” in the blood-soaked fields of western France to savage street fighting in ruined Spanish cities to central European battlefields where tens of thousands died in a single day. Between 1792 and 1815, Europe plunged into an abyss of destruction, and our modern attitudes toward war were born. Ever since, the dream of perpetual peace and the nightmare of total war have been bound tightly together in the Western world—where “wars of liberation,” such as the one in Iraq, can degenerate into gruesome guerrilla conflict.

With a historian’s keen insight and a journalist’s flair for detail, Bell exposes the surprising parallels between Napoleon’s day and our own in a book that is as timely and important as it is unforgettable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bell combines his roles as professor of history at Johns Hopkins and contributing editor for the New Republic in this interpretive study arguing that history's first total war was waged during the Napoleonic era. Scholars have increasingly stressed the global aspects of the network of conflicts extending across North America, South Asia and Europe during that time. Bell goes further, presenting a fundamental transformation of war from an ordinary aspect of human existence to an apocalyptic experience whose "terrible sublimity" tested societies and individuals to their limits and ultimately became a redemptive experience. Total war developed not in the context of nationalism or revolutionary zeal, but in the fundamental sense of a "culture of war" driving participants in the direction of complete engagement and total abandonment of restraint. Ironically, the intellectual roots of this modern militarism are in the Enlightenment belief in the coming of perpetual peace. Revolutionary France transformed a moral concept into a practical one: war to emancipate humanity from its past. Bell's conclusion that this mentality survived two world wars is open to challenge, yet his appeal for the rediscovery of restraint and limitation is particularly relevant at a time of nuclear proliferation and apocalyptic rhetoric. (Jan. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The wars of the French Revolution acquired a pitiless character and an unprecedented scale for which historians have groped for explanations: ideology and French nationalism are most commonly cited. Bell elaborates an alternate viewpoint without dismissing traditional analyses. The author of two books on the ancien regime, Bell roots his thesis in Enlightenment theorizers of progress and, less philosophically, in the eighteenth-century aristocratic attitude toward war. Bell effectively personifies his case in a nobleman favorable to the Revolution but ultimately consumed by it, titled the Duke of Lauzun. The boudoir and the battlefield were all the same to him, stages for stylized and restrained performances of honor. When Lauzun was sent to western France to quell royalist revolt in 1793-94, his scruples doomed him as radicals demanded the annihilation of rebels. In this shocking civil war of the Vendee, Bell observes the seeds of the "total war" methods that grew apace in ensuing wars and established dark precedents for the future. Astute and fluid, Bell's study has ramifications beyond his historical specificity. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (January 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618919813
• ISBN-13: 978-0618919819
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #22 in Books > History > Military > Napoleonic Wars

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An Intellectual History of the Napoleonic Wars February 27, 2007

By Izaak VanGaalen

Format:Hardcover

We have grown accustomed to viewing the World Wars of the 20th century as the first total wars in modern history, for they required the total mobilization and militarization of the societies involved. Their accompanying ideologies, fascism and communism, were appropriately called totalitarian since they left no aspect of society unaffected. Now historian David A Bell has written a new and different history of the Napoleonic Wars (1792 - 1815) arguing that they were in fact the first total wars.

In his introduction, Bell tells us that he is borrowing techniques from intellectual history to write a military history. Traditionally military historians have restricted themselves to accounts of battlefield tactics and weapon systems. Bell is attempting to go further in showing that the ideals of the Enlightenment played a role in what he calls the first total war. He believes that the French Revolution - the apotheosis of the Enlightenment - radicalized people's ideas about how and why wars should be fought.

During the time of the ancien regime - which is Bell's main standard of comparison - wars were limited and short-lived. They were fought according to established rules and usually to defend the honor of this or that aristocrat; in fact, many times the armies were made up of mercenaries. The philosophes of the Enlightenment such as Kant, Diderot, d'Alembert, and the Marquis de Condorcet were certain that with the advent of reason wars would be a thing of the past. As late as 1790 Robespierre was declaring in the Assembly that the French nation had no desire to engage in war, that to invade another country and make it adopt their laws and constitution was the furthest thing from their minds.

Much changed in two years. By 1792 there was growing opposition to the revolutionary government in Paris, especially in Vendee. The government decided to put down this rebellion with a degree of brutality not seen before. They conducted a scorched-earth policy that spared no one. They made no distinction between combattants and non-combattants. The dogs of war had been unleashed to save the revolution and to obliterate any dissent.

Bell explores the nature of total war and how it feeds on itself. Once the military becomes front and center of the government, war becomes unstoppable. All of the nations resources and efforts went to the Grand Armee to create an empire in places as far as Egypt and Russia.

In his retelling of the Spanish campaign, Bell attempts to draw a parallel with America's intervention in Iraq. To an extent there are some parallels. Napoleon claimed to be bringing Enlightenment ideals and reform to Spain, yet the insurgency would have none of it. This, however, is a distraction from Bell's thesis; whatever else it is doing in Iraq, America is not conducting a total war. This is a very restrained and cautious use of military power. In fact, Napoleon's excursion into Spain was somewhat cautious to be called total war.

When contrasted with what transpired in the preceding century and what the philosophes predicted, the Napoleonic Wars were barbaric and total, but it is still not clear how they were different from, say, the Mongol invasions of the Middle Ages or the military expeditions of Alexander the Great. Its seems that the so-called total wars of Napoleon have been done before. The total mobilization of people and resources is as old as human history. Mutual and absolute hatred for the enemy is a timeless emotion. Bell's argument that hell hath no fury like a citzen's army is reminiscent of Victor Davis Hanson's thesis in Carnage and Culture, and it is as unconvincing.

Bell's book provides much food for thought on how quickly circumstances can change from permanent peace to permanent war without pinpointing exactly what triggers the change. Paranoia, perceived threat,and survival are all factors in the devolution of high ideals to base hostility. And why armies of citizens driven by Enlightenment ideals fight more effectively than previous armies is still unanswered. However, Bell makes a robust effort with this original work.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed but fascinating May 8, 2008

By Rick W

Format:Paperback

As a brief history of the late Enlightenment and the French Revolution: 4 stars
As a brief history of the Napoleonic Wars (only 3 of 8 chapters): 3 stars
As a coherent political theory: 2 stars

On average, this amounts to 3 stars and makes for a light readable history accompanied by some often interesting theory. However, if you're getting the book based on its title, 2.5 stars might be more accurate.

The history itself is fine, making for a broad overview with a few good insights, so my critique will focus on the theory and the parallels Bell draws.

Bell is not an idiot and seems to have a good grasp of general history, capable of soberly pointing out that the total American casualties in the War on Terror have so far amounted to less than what the Russians would have suffered in an average 6 hours during WWII. Yet he will often come up with the most inane comments to keep the book contemporary. For instance, he repeatedly states how "uncannily similar" the guerrilla war in Spain is to the current Iraq insurgency. "Uncannily similar" in what sense? The answer seems to be that they're both insurgencies - just like Afghanistan, Somalia, Vietnam, Lebanon, and thousands of other historical insurgencies. Arguably Iraq has more in common with the Jewish revolt against the Romans than with the Peninsula War. But then, of course, if he argued that, he would be admitting that fanatical insurgency predates the French Revolution by a long margin.

What he terms "Total War" is also problematic. The West has only fought a handful of total wars since Napoleonic times. Instead, less technologically advanced societies have tended to be the ones to most fully mobilize their populations in war. But is this really a modern phenomenon? Bell admits city states fought total wars in this [his] sense, but so too did tribal societies, nomadic pastoralists, and small colonies. Some of the religious wars of the 16th and 17th century seemed pretty total too. Perhaps he has things the wrong way around and it is "limited war" that needs explaining.

On the other hand, he is right to emphasise the role the French Revolution played in the military/civilian split, the advent of the literate soldier, and the rise of propaganda. He also brings up the birth of the philosophical concept of a War to End All Wars (in the non-Biblical sense, of course). Did these things lead to Total War though? He is unconvincing. Wars had already long been fought as much to eliminate other powers as for plunder or to keep a system of powers in balance. "Delenda Carthago/Carthage must be destroyed" is not a modern call to war.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The French Revolution and the Emergence of Modern Warfare February 15, 2008

By Omer Belsky VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The role of War in human events has been discussed by political philosophers for centuries. David Bell describes the early French traditions in his book; today, the argument continues: Authors like John Mueller claim that war is on the road to extinction (Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War), while others, "realists", think that it's very much here to stay (The Independence of Nations). In "The First Total War", Bell describes not only the conversation but its consequences - how the discourse of Peace and War affect the practice of warfare. And Bell offers a paradoxical observation: that ideas about the obsolescence and even obscenity of war themselves cause war to be more terrible then otherwise.

There are two ways of thinking of Bell's book: you can read it as a pretty straight history of The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, a little strange in its focus but that nonetheless covering most of the basics, or as an illustration of the main idea: That one of the great renovations of the French Revolution was instituting a view of War as abnormal and unnatural; And, ironically, that this de-legitimization of War made the Wars of the French Revolution into modern - total - wars, much worse than the wars that came before.

Under the Ancient Regime, wars took place regularly. The European powers constantly fought one another. Every decade, at least one major European power fought another, and usually, more than one. The wars were perceived as a natural, inevitable part of international politics: Indeed, warfare had been the raison d'etre of the stae. War had been celebrated in Art, Literature and Poetry, and the great deeds of Kings and Generals universally acclaimed.

But with the Enlightenment, a new brand of thinking came into being: the view of war as unnatural, an abomination. Philosophers like Voltaire and the Baron d'Holbach and popular writers like Archbishop Fenelon argued not only that was is evil, but that it is on the way out: That the growth of commerce, and the increased knowledge and sophistication of mankind means that war would cease.

The French Revolution unleashed these ideas upon the world. The Revolutionaries, with faith in the rights of man, heralded a new age of perpetual peace. But first, the reactionary, counter revolutionary forces had to be destroyed...

For the irony is that the very visions of perpetual Peace led with them the willingness to achieve it regardless of the means; Thus the wars of the ancient regime which were limited and under control were replaced by mass scale feasts of destruction.

To put it in game theory terms (Which Bell doesn't do), the aristocrats who ran pre 1789 armies expected repeat engagements. They have had an incentive for moderation because they knew moderation would be returned. Cultural factors - such as the similarity between aristocratic leaders on all sides of the conflicts - helped enforce the moderation.

After the Revolution, France's new leaders did not expect repeat engagements: they believed in total defeat for the enemy, followed by eternal peace. Partially as a result of this new outlook, wars became a grim, disastrous affair. In the war against France's foreign neighbors, an element of moderation remained because of fear of reprisals. But when destroying internal enemies, no such checks existed: the wide spread destruction of the Vendee region, the heart of the counter revolutionary forces in France, is shocking. "The Vendee was not a genocide, but it nonetheless stirs memories of recent genocidal horrors". (p.184).

This theme sums up the first half of the book, and it might have ended here. Instead, Bell continues to chronicle the events of the Revolution, and the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Here Bell's thesis is less clear, and the historical elements of the narrative move to the stage's front.

The argument Bell offers in this section is about the culture of the warrior not the horrors of warfare. Before the ancient regime, to be a solider - to be a commander - was part of the persona one wore. No full time professionals, Ancient Regime aristocrats took soldiering as one of the many facets of their personality. They danced; They wrote poetry; They seduced ladies; And they made war.

With the revolution, soldiering became professional. The army became separate from civilian life, housed separately in barracks and perceived as a different quality than the civil society. Indeed, only in the time of the French Revolution did the terms "Civilian" and "Military" come to detonate the different classes of people.

Napoleon, as the first political general, knew how to use the difference between Civilian and Military spheres to his political advantage. If Civil society seemed corrupt, selfish and incompetent, Napoleon appeared an embodiment of the military spirit - brilliant, powerful, successful, loyal and patriotic. "What have you done with the France that I left you so brilliant?" he asked before taking power. "The Republic exists almost nowhere but in the armies" he claimed. His soldiers called upon him to take the mantle for the good of the country. "General, you have saved France... now save the Republic!" (pp. 218-222). Could he do anything but heed the call?

The French Revolution doubtlessly changed Europe and the world in various respects. Bell's focuses on the transformation of warfare and of the military, of the birth of the professional soldier and the soldier cum political hero. And he offers an imperfect but lively history of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, including short summaries of the major battles. Both intellectually exciting and historically illuminating, it should appeal to the expert and the neophyte alike.