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Paddy Griffith

The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789-1802 Hardcover – August 1, 1998

by Paddy Griffith (Author)

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33 maps and diagrams & 40 illustrations & 26 tables & 6 x 9 & Comprehensive study of a crucial military period & New information on the generals of Revolutionary France Between the Fall of the Bastille and the Peace of Amiens, French revolutionary armies scored resounding victories over the armies of Austria, Prussia, Britain, and Spain. Paddy Griffith captures the verve and excitement of these campaigns, which together demonstrated that French armies were the most powerful in the world, even before Napoleon's legendary Grande Arme. The period was, in fact, a major turning point in the history of warfare. This wide-ranging volume covers army organization, operations in the various theaters of war, the navy, Representatives on Mission, the government's relationship with the armies, and armies in battle. Also examined are the important figures of the time, including Dumouriez, Jourdan, Hoche, and Carnot. Paddy Griffith was a senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for 16 years. He is the author of numerous articles and books on the history of warfare, including Battle Tactics of the Western Front, 1916-18 and The Viking Art of War.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal
Publication date

August 1, 1998
Dimensions

6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

1853673358
ISBN-13

978-1853673351
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal (August 1, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1853673358
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1853673351
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.41 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,920,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Jan & Jeff

Prelude to Empire

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2001

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Readers electing NOT to slog through Ramsay Phipp's five volume "ARMIES," might as well read this thought-provoking, well-researched volume filled with keen insight, wry humor, and sensible observations on a confusing subject which has been much overshadowed by the later campaigns of the Emperor Napoleon. In my opinion, Paddy Griffith's books are almost without exception works worth reading due to his ability to analyze a subject and present his theories in a highly entertaining fashion. In "Art of War" the author explains how these wars were fought and reveals the organizational and doctrinal underpinning for the follow-on Napoleonic war machine. I also admire military historians possessing the perception to state "there could never be any meaningful divorce of logistics from operations. "Griffith's grasp of logistical demands commands respect as well as his description of army organization and staff work. He plainly sees the staff as a force- multiplier and gives a very nice nod to Berthier and Thiébault in this vein. I was taken by his description of the republic's Representatives on Mission (forerunner of the Stalinist commissar) as well as a nice section on the role of the French march battalions (socialization of the conscript). He also has a good section on the internal Armées Révolutionnaires. His text is supported by useful explanatory diagrams, maps and tables. I also find his word choice enviable, as when referring to Buonaparte's Armée d'Italie as "meridonal hooligans." His whimsical humor makes for a few chuckles by the fire. I particularly recommend his bibliographic essay and notes which provide the reader good advice for further study. I suggest T.C.W. Blanning's highly readable THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS and, later on, John Lynn's opus to the Armée du Nord, THE BAYONETS of the REPUBLIC. All in all an enjoyable nuts and bolts guide to this period.

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Paras Sanghvi

A good academic study of the armies of revolutionary France

Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2010

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First let me start off by saying that I had the honour though brief of corresponding with the late Dr. Griffith through email. I needed hep on Bonapartes invasion of Italy and like a true gentlemen he gave me lot of information. He will be missed. Even though are views on Napoleon are polar opposites, This book is must read for students of the French Revolutionary army. It tells about the orginzation, politics, and money matters of the revolutionary armies. the personalities of the generals, I was pleased by his admiration for General Moreau, who was a very talented commander during the revolution who's contribution to republican France is all too forgoten. Many former Marshals learned their trade under him (ney, Davout, Grouchy). This is not a book for wargamers their are no army lists, or battle reports. the economics of the war and how the army fought, supplied and fed are greatly described in this volume. The author does not hide his anti-bias for Napoleon(but then we all have biases I am a commited Bonapartist.)
there is truth in his claim that the army of italy were big looters. Napoleon's war in Italy was totaly self financed
even I have to admit by massive looting, which had just gone out style 100 years back, before the age of reason most militaries did lot of looting during the campaign. All in all this book is a must read.

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Bookworm64

Good treatment of all aspects.

Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2015

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Excellent recounting of how the Revolutionary armies fought and were developed. Yes, Griffith has a dislike of Napoleon, but I think he has nailed a balance between showing exactly what happened/who was responsible for the army, and giving a good treatment of all involved. He does have to show that Napoleon, while a master at war, really did not have much to do with army reform until well after the start, and even then how much of it was simply codifying his predecessors works, while explaining all of the other campaigns in the context of a very unstable regime.

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Cody Carlson

Good Work on the Revolutionary Army, Although it is Based Primarily on Secondary Sources

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2018

Historian Paddy Griffith’s book, The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789-1802, examines French military success during the Revolutionary period by considering factors such as generalship, government oversight, army organization, operations, and more. Griffith’s central argument is that France owed its military success in this period not to a new Revolutionary art of war, but rather to pre-Revolutionary military innovations, the sheer numbers of soldiers it could field, some occasionally brilliant work from government and military leaders, and the diplomatic and military shortcomings of its enemies. Critically, Griffith notes, the years 1792-1794 proved important years in focusing the French military effort. Griffith, a British military historian who lectured at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and worked for the Ministry of Defense, authored many works on military history until his death in 2010. His books included 1981’s Forward into Battle: Fighting Tactics from Waterloo to Vietnam, 1986’s Battle in the Civil War: Generalship and Tactics in America, 1861-1865, and 1994’s Battle Tactics on the Western Front, 1916-1918.

Griffith begins his work by noting that Napoleon’s wars have received overwhelming attention by historians, while the history of France’s Revolutionary armies is comparatively largely ignored. By 1792, Griffith states that the French Revolutionary army was in a state of virtual chaos, burdened with rampant incompetence and thoroughly disorganized. However, only two years later the Revolutionary army had managed to turn itself around and become a formidable fighting force that was poised to launch major wars against various European powers. Griffith notes that he wrote this book largely to understand this transformation.

Although French Revolutionary leaders called for peace in 1790, Griffith notes that the Revolution had “a deep ideological commitment to identifying all conceivable enemies, both internal and external, and then fighting them to the death” (23). This ideology motivated France to create a new art of war, one that needed to be based upon its citizens’ enthusiasm rather than on more traditional methods of conscription or hiring mercenaries. Consequently, this meant that the officers and men that flocked to the army had a sense of purpose and the hope of spreading Revolutionary-style liberty across Europe. Despite their enthusiasm, many of the initial volunteers were cowards or incompetents. Griffith names Generals J. A. Rossignol and J. Léchelle as men that knew little about military matters yet managed to secure important commands. Troops at this time lacked proper uniforms, supplies, and even weapons. The contrast between this new, emerging force and the Royal Army could not have been starker and led professionals to question the new art of war. “If ever there was a case of a demented political movement wrecking a finely-tuned global military machine, the French Revolution was surely it” (32).

Between 1792 and 1795, France fought bitter land wars against Austria and Prussia, two nations that enjoyed excellent military reputations. Griffith notes that these German-speaking nations boasted technically proficient armies that understood the proper roles of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Nonetheless, they all lacked bold, decisive generalship during the period, and more importantly they were often more fixated on the other instead of throwing their full efforts into the war against France. Griffith states that the French owed their success at this time not to their superior military, but to the failures of Austrian and Prussian diplomacy. “To a great extent it was simply a matter of good luck that the French were able to stay in the field while their opponents became politically divided and wearied of the game” (61).

Another theme that Griffith highlights is the use of pillaging for the Revolutionary armies. French logistical support was often inadequate and plagued by disorganization, and this proved a strong motivator for armies abroad to live off the land. Griffith makes the point that resistance movements in areas under French occupation were often used to justify French reprisals. Nevertheless, the true need for the reprisals was to mask the larger French need to pillage for supplies. Griffith asserts that Revolutionary general Napoleon Bonaparte realized “that one should make a political virtue out of the logistic necessity of pillaging whenever one could get away with it” (56). Essentially, robbing the people of foreign lands not only supplied an army’s logistical needs, it also produced substantial economic benefit for France as loot was carted back to Paris. In fact, Griffith notes, the only way that France could afford to field the massive armies it raised was to keep them pillaging on foreign soil.

Griffith addresses the French Revolutionary government’s war direction, stating that it was often confused, but sometimes proved relatively effective. Initially, the war leadership in Paris fluctuated between royalist ministers and pro-assembly ministers, often obscuring a clear chain of command. With the king dead, by the summer of 1793 the Committee of Public Safety had managed to unify military control functions and solve many problems. Nonetheless, a multitude of difficulties still persisted, such as the continuing logistical problems, confused direction in military theaters, and lingering questions of grand strategy. Griffith credits Minister Lazare Carnot for energizing the Revolutionary war effort from late 1793 into 1794. He introduced order to the French military system and championed reforms such as promoting by merit rather than through political connections. The use of government representatives on mission also proved another important characteristic of the French Revolutionary army. These were government officials sent to work with generals in the field, help them overcome various difficulties, instill proper political enthusiasm among the officers and men, and generally act as the embodiment of the Parisian government in the field.

Griffith gives the example of one representative on mission, Joesph Cassanyes, who served with General Luc Siméon Auguste Dagobert in the Pyrenees. During the late summer of 1793, the two men led the French army to victory over the Spanish in a series of battles. Griffith wrote that it was “a clear demonstration of the way in which an energetic representative on mission could turn the tide of victory” (103).

Griffith notes that with the mass exodus of émigré officers, France desperately needed generals in the early Revolutionary period. Griffith credits the Ancien Régime’s relatively good educational system for the abundance of men it found to lead its armies, and this fact proved as important as France’s large population in creating its vast military force. Ultimately, a continuity existed in recruiting generals that extended back to the Ancien Régime, rather than a uniquely Revolutionary method to finding commanders for armies.

Griffith’s work also explores the vast challenges that awaited the French war effort on multiple fronts, from the Belgian frontier, to the Pyrenees, to the Mediterranean Sea, to India. The organizations of France’s armies and their staffs are likewise considered, with Griffith noting that while Bonaparte refined the systems he inherited, ultimately, they were systems that “formed him rather than that he formed” (156). The concluding chapters offer examinations of French military operations, the conduct of battles, the use of engineering and artillery units, the French navy, and irregular warfare.

Rafe Blaufarb states in The Journal of Military History that Griffith makes a compelling argument but criticizes his limited secondary sources. He notes that the argument “rests on a caricatural view of the royal army.” John A. Lynn notes in The International History Review that no danger exists that Griffith’s work will supersede that of Sam Scott, Jean-Paul Bertaud, and others. Both reviewers share the conclusion that Griffith’s work had much to commend it, but ultimately contained too many fundamental problems to keep it from truly succeeding.

Griffith presents many well-reasoned and interesting ideas in this book. His assertion that Revolutionary armies engaged in a program of systematic plunder in order to pay for France’s military costs is an example. Griffith dismisses French historian Georges Six’s claim in his book Les généraux de la Révolution et de l’Empire that France simply followed the Allies’ lead in mass plunder. Instead, he accepts Marcel Reinhard’s argument in Avec Bonaparte in Italie. Here, the French historian asserts that Napoleon’s Revolutionary soldiers followed him largely because of the pay he could give them based upon the army’s looting efforts. Further, Griffith includes a speech Napoleon supposedly gave to his men at the outset of the Italian campaign, a speech that highlights Napoleon’s promises of “Rich provinces and great cities that will fall under your power” (55). However, Griffith notes carefully that his source, Jean Tulard, offered that the exact time and circumstances of the speech are questionable.

Further, Griffith offers that the Duke of Wellington had fully discerned the French proclivity for waging war based largely on financial reasons. He cites British historian S.G.P. Ward’s work Wellington’s Headquarters: The Command and Administration of the British Army During the Peninsula War to remark that the British general often labeled the French Emperor as “Jonathan Wild the Great” (59). The reference was to a confidence man of popular literature, and although it was made during the period of Napoleon’s Empire, it nevertheless illustrated the fruition of the plunder policy Napoleon had learned during the Revolution.

Griffith asserts that French Revolutionary army staff work generally proved little better than the Allies’ army staff work, and therefore France had to find new ways to develop its art of war. The French did manage to martial large armies at the field of battle much faster than their enemies. Griffith cites Bertaud’s The Army of the French Revolution: From Citizen-Soldiers to Instrument of Power, stating that moving troops from France to armies abroad proved a constant process during this period. “An endless succession of ad hoc ‘march battalions’ (or companies, or squads) would therefore appear and disappear within the army …” (177). Griffith also cites American historian John Lynn’s The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791-1794. Here, Griffith asserts that Revolutionary leaders initially believed that properly motivated men could overcome any obstacle, regardless of training and equipment. Therefore, it was essential to indoctrinate men politically with speeches, songs, pamphlets, and more.

Griffith’s fundamental argument is that Revolutionary France’s art of war was not entirely new, but rather that it essentially built upon the Ancien Régime’s war making structure. After the Revolutionary regimes’ chaotic and disorganized early years, the army needed to create an ordered system to function. “In a nutshell, the professionals were right to insist that the war had to be fought with regularity and system, according to the Old Régime’s rule-book” (189). Griffith cites Guibert’s camp organization that had been laid out in his 1772 Essai de Tactique as evidence for military continuity. Further, he states that French Revolutionary generals engaged in ruses and subterfuge just as did their Ancien Régime predecessors and Austrian and Prussian enemies. These types of strategies included forging documents, feint attacks, and the French practice of disguising their soldiers as Dutch by boasting orange cockades, or as Saxons by speaking German. Griffith cites French historian A. M. Chuquet’s multi-volume study of the period to make this point.

Griffith notes that the French armies’ sheer size and reliance on Ancien Régime methods proved key ingredients to France’s success in the Revolutionary Wars. France had managed to reorganize its military affairs while its government and society were still in a state of chaos and disorganization. By 1794, its key concepts of mass, government control through representatives on mission, and reassertion of Ancien Régime military practices had been established. Further, Griffith cites American historian Paul Schroeder’s The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 as proof that French success owed much to the allies’ disjointed and irrational approach to foreign policy.

The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789-1802 is a fine study of France and its military system during the Revolution. Still, the work is dominated by secondary sources. Griffith includes a relatively brief bibliographical essay at the end of the work in lieu of footnotes, although he does offer in-text citations throughout. He cites the works of Bertaud, Scott, Lynn, and Alan Forrest as essential reading for the subject, as well as several others. The essay presents a section on works written in English, which contains titles stretching from the nineteenth century to the time of publication. Sadly, relatively few primary sources are used in this work, detracting from the study. Aside from the occasional reference to works like Guibert’s Essai de Tactique, this book relies primarily on previous historians’ products. The reader cannot help but feel that Griffith is offering a very limited perspective, and that a deeper, more rigorous approach featuring original research might have yielded greater results. It is easy to understand Blaufarb and Lynn’s issues with this book, and to appreciate its accomplishments while lamenting its shortcomings.

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Amazon Customer

Not quite what expected

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2013

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If you are looking for a military history of the Revolutionary Wars this is not the book for you. This book examines how the war was fought and is of the usual excellent standard you would expect from the late Dr Griffiths. If you want to learn about how the battles and campaigns played out you will need one of the older meatier tomes.

m fletcher

A Good book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2013

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A good book which deals with the transisition of the FRench army from the kings army, a bunch of blokes with sticks, into the most powerful army in world.

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The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789-1802 Hardcover – August 1, 1998

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