No More Learning

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? In addition to the army's interest in conquest and plunder, further efforts to extend French control were encouraged by the desire to safeguard past con- quests and put additional pressure on England. In the words of one director, France now aimed "to unite Holland, France, Switzerland, [and] the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics by an uninterrupted continuity of territory . . . a nurs- ery of excellent soldiers and a formidable strategic position. " Thus, the Rhineland was sought as a strategic barrier, and the establishment of the Hel- vetic Republic was inspired in part by a desire to control the strategic passes between France and Italy and halt the espionage activities of English and! emigre agents in Switzerland. Similarly, although France's policies toward the Batavian Republic were affected by its own domestic politics, its underlying objective was to strengthen a key ally and guarantee its continued loyalty. 216
The Expedition to Egypt. French expansionism after Campo Forrnio helped! ensure that a Second Coalition would rise to replace the First, despite the many conflicts between France's putative opponents. 217 The decisive event, however, was the French expedition to Egypt in May 1798. Because England's naval supremacy made a cross-Channel invasion problematic, Bonaparte pro- posed an expedition to conquer Egypt instead. 218 In addition to enhancing French control of the eastern Mediterranean, the conquest of Egypt would pose a direct challenge to the British position in India, which was regarded as the key to England's wealth. It would also bring France's military power to bear against England and facilitate French commerce in the eastern Mediter- ranean. Napoleon and Talleyrand assured the Directory that the Egypt's de- fenders were weak and the population "would greet us with rapture. " They
also promised that England's fear of invasion would prevent the Royal Navy from interfering, and that France's expedition would not provoke any ad- verse foreign response. Over the objections of Reubell and La Revelliere- Lepeaux (who favored consolidating the French hold on the Continent), the expedition was approved in March 1798 and set sail from Toulon in May. 219
216 See BlaiiUling, French Revolutionary Wars, 178. Reubell supported the "revolutionizing" of Switzerland as a military necessity, remarking, "I have never deserved better of my coun- try than by pushing this revolution with all my strength. " Swiss wealth was an additional in- centive, and France used the Bern treasury to finance Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt later in the year. See Gerlof D. Homan, "Jean-Francois Reubell, Director," French Historical Studies 1, no. 4 (196o), 431-32; and Palmer, Democratic Revolution, 2:200.
217 Blaruting, French Revolutionary Wars, 192; Sherwig, Guineas a11d Gunpowder, 101-103; and Mackesy, Statesmen at War, 12-13.
218 After Campo Formio, Bonaparte had advised the Directory "to concentrate all our ac- tivity on the Navy and destroy England. That accomplished, Europe will lie at our feet" (quoted in Rodger, Warofthe Second Coalition, 11). He was ordered to prepare for an invasion but soon realized that the risks were too great.
"9 As Blanning points out, these arguments echo the Girondins' earlier optimism; the French were again choosing to expand the war in the belief that victory would be swift and easy. See his French Revolutionary Wars, 181-83; Rodger, Warofthe Second Coalition, 15-30; and Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and Directory, 146--48.
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The Egyptian expedition was a product of Bonaparte's personal ambition and the desire to end the stalemate with England. The directors' political weakness played a role as well, as they were in no position to defy France's most popular and successful general. Sending him away at his own request may have appeared an ideal solution.
If the solution seemed ideal, its actual consequences were not. 220 Bona- parte's troops seized Malta in June and reached Egypt in July, where they made short work of the Mameluke defenders. However, the situation was reversed when an English squadron destroyed the French fleet at the Bat- tle of the Nile, leaving Napoleon and his army stranded. Not only did this defeat end any possibility of a French challenge in India (where a French- backed uprising was rapidly collapsing), it also brought Russia and Turkey into the war against France. Contrary to Talleyrand's assurances, the invasion of Egypt had encouraged a rapprochement between the two eastern rivals, and the destruction of the French fleet cast doubt on French invincibility. Russia and the Ottoman Empire began joint operations to re- take the Ionian Islands in the fall. The sultan also prepared an army to re- conquer Egypt. In response, Bonaparte led an expedition to Syria in an attempt to disrupt the Ottoman preparations, but his forces were repulsed, with heavy losses, by a combination of Ottoman troops and English seapower.
In addition to squandering some of France's best troops and isolating its most successful general, the results of its expedition to Egypt was to restore England's control of the Mediterranean and bring two new powers into the war against lFrance. 221 It also prevented France from exploiting the Irish re- volt in May 1798; although a belated expedition managed to land a French battalion in Ireland in August, the invaders were quickly defeated and. the opportunity to strike a direct blow against England was llost. 222
The Renewal of the Coalition French expansionism had forced Austria back toward war, but the fear of
a Prussian alliance with France, together with England's refusal to grant a
220 R. R. Palmer calls the expedition to Egypt possibly "one of the worst strategic blunders ever made. " Democratic Revolution, 2:499. Also see Blanning, French Revolutionary Wars, 179-82. For a contrasting view, see Edward Ingram, Commitment to Empire: Prophecies of the Great Game in Asia, 1797-1Boo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
221 See J. Holland Rose, "The Political Reactions of Bonaparte's Eastern Expedition," English Historical Review 44, no. 173 (1929).
222 Marianne Elliott argues, "The failure of the French to arrive had baffled the Irish leaders and was the most important single reason for the indecision of the leaders, the consequent erosion of United [Irish] strength, and the confused campaign that followed. " The rebel force consisted of 8oo French soldiers and 500 Irish recruits, facing roughly 20,000 English soldiers. Partners in Revolution, 214.
[1 13]
? ? new loan, kept Vienna on the fence for some time. m The Austrian govern- ment, understandably reluctant to resume a war in which its own territories would be most at risk and its own troops would do most of the fighting, held! on to hopes that the Directory would offer additional concessions. These reservations faded when it became clear that France would not give ground! and Tsar Paul I offered to send a corps to Austria to fight against the French. As a first step, Austria sent troops into the Swiss canton of the Grisons in Oc- tober, where they stood ready to invade the Cisalpine and Helvetic republics.
The final push came after King Ferdinand of Naples launched an ill-fatedl invasion of the Roman Republic in the fall. A French counterattack routed the Neapolitan forces and led to the proclamation of the "Parthanopean Re- public" in January 1799? Although its alliance with Naples was purely de- fensive (and Ferdinand had been warned to avoid any provoking the French), Austria's refusal to come to Ferdinand's aid reinforced Paul's fear of Austrian duplicity. He threatened to withdraw his troops unless Vienna declared war immediately. France made the Austrian decision easier by de- manding that Austria expel the Russians or face war. Austria promptly re- jected the ultimatum, and French units were crossing the Rhine even before the forman declaration of war in March.
Ironically, although both Grenville and Thugut sought to forge a unified! concert against France, their conflicting aims and mutual mistrust made this impossible. Austria was formally allied with Russia but not with England, and efforts to draw Prussia into the coalition failed completely. Agreement on war aims was equally elusive, because the three main allies had very dif- ferent objectives. England and Russia sought to overthrow the revolution- ary government and reduce France to its original size, in order to establish a balance of power on the continent that would maximize their influence there and free them to pursue territorial advantages elsewhere. By contrast, Austria was largely indifferent to the nature of the French government. It sought a territorial settlement that would contain future French expansion- ism, compensate Austria for its previous sacrifices, and enable it to protect itself against its other rivals. As Piers Mackesy observes, "in the absence of agreed Coalition aims, the major allies would allow their divergent political aims to distort the planning of their strategy and disrupt its execution. "224
223 Relations between England and Austria were severely strained by Austria's refusal to ratify a loan agreement in 1797 (which had embarassed the Pitt government and shaken En- glish finances temporarily), as well as by Austrian resentment at having to bear the brunt of the costs of the war and English anger over Vienna's decision to make peace at Campo Formio. See Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder, wo-toJ; Mackesy, Statesmen at War, 12-14, 3o-32; and Roider, Thugut and Austria's Response, 27Q-73?
224 Statesmen at War, 70; and see also Ross, European Diplomatic History, 187-88. For accounts sympathetic to Austria, see Schroeder, Transformation ofEuropean Politics, 192-97, and "The Collapse of the Second Coalition," Journal ofModern History 59, no. 2 (1987); and Roider, Thugut and Austria's Response, chap. 11.
Revolution and War
? ? The French Revolu tion
Thus, the conduct of the war followed the same familiar pattern: the Coalition's early successes were undermined by internal disagreements that allowed France to emerge victorious once again-but not, however, before a series of serious setbacks. An initial French offensive in Germany was re- pulsed, and Austrian troops under Archduke Charles had driven the French forces out of southern Germany and the Helvetic Republic by mid-June. A combined Austro-Russian army under Marshal Alexander Suvorov swept the French from northern Italy, the sister republics promptly collapsed, and a combined Anglo-Russian force staged an amphibious landing in Holland in August. 225 The Coalition seemed poised to carry the war directly into France, where the combination of a new conscription law and the Allies' ini- tial successes had sparked new counterrevolutionary uprisings in Toulouse, the Vendee, and Brittany. 226 The French Republic now faced its most serious challenge since 1793. The result was another swing to the left in the elections of Germinal, Year VI and a brief attempt to resurrect the revolutionary spirit of 1793--94. Jacobin clubs reopened throughout France, and the Councils de- creed the mobilization of five classes of conscripts in June, along with new restrictions on emigre families and other suspected dissidents. These poli- cies were obviously reminiscent of the revolutionary Terror of 1793--94, yet memories of the earlier period helped ensure that these new mea? ures were but a pale imitation of the earlier mobilization. A proposal to declare Ia pa-
trie en danger was rejected in September and the other decrees were never fully implemented. 227
Fortunately for France, the Second Coalition now succumbed to the same internal divisions that had undermined its predecessor. Ever mistrustful of Austria (which he suspected of harboring territorial ambitions in Switzer- land), Grenville proposed that the Austrian army in Switzerland be replaced by 6s,ooo Russians under Marshal Suvorov and General A. M. Rimsky- Korsakov. Supplemented by Swiss volunteers (which were expected to number 2o,ooo), this force would then clear the French from the rest of Switzerland and launch the main invasion into France itself. Despite his own misgivings, Thugut accepted this strategy in the interest of allied cohe- sion. He was also eager to see Suvorov's forces depart from Italy (where the conduct of the Russian soldiers was sowing discord between Vienna and St. Petersburg), and he worried that the allied armies would be left without ad- equate supplies. Accordingly, Thugut proposed that Charles's forces move north out of Switzerland, leaving a residual force to remain in contact with
225 According to A. B. Rodger, the French army had only 250,000 men with whom to defend the border from Holland to Italy. Warofthe Second Coalition, 151, 158-59; and also Ross, Euro- pean Diplomatic History, 194--95.
226 Godechot, Counter-Revolution, esp. chap. 13.
227 Palmer, Democratic Revolution, 2:564-65; Lefebvre, French Revolution, 2:246-49; Syden- ham, First French Republic, 198-203; and Woloch, Jacobin Legacy, 369-70.
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the Russians. This step would relieve the logistical burden, protect the Upper Rhine from a French counterattack, preserve Austrian interests in southern Germany, and facilitate efforts to link up with the Anglo-Russian expeditionary force in Holland. The English and Russian ambassadors ac- cepted Thugut's suggestions, and the bulk of Charles's army headed north toward Mainz in late August.
This decision proved fatal to the Coalition's plans for a coordinated as- sault on revolutionary France. Rimsky-Korsakov turned out to have only 28,000 troops (instead of an anticipated 45,000), and the efforts to raise Swiss volunteers yielded a mere 2,000 men. The orders to Suvorov were delayed and Thugut neglected to remind Charles to remain in Switzerland until Su- vorov had arrived. As a result, writes Karl Roider, "Switzerland gradually become not the staging area for the overwhelming allied invasion force . . . but a weak point in the allied cordon. " The French seized the opportunity and attacked, driving the Austro-Russian forces from Zurich on September 25-26 and forcing them back into Hapsburg territory for the winter. 228
The French victories ended the danger of a foreign invasion and enabled France to send reinforcements to Holland in October, where the Anglo- Russian expeditionary force remained on the narrow Helder Peninsula. Testimony from Orangist exiles in England had convinced Grenville and Pitt that the landing would spark an uprising against the French, but the anticipated revolt never materialized. 229 Pressed by the onset of winter, the Anglo-Russian force signed an armistice permitting them to evacuate their troops in return for the release of 8,ooo French and Dutch prisoners. The latest wave of internal revolts was subsiding as well, and disgust over his allies' conduct led the tsar to withdraw from the Coalition in October. Once again, an attempt to combine against revolutionary France had fallen victim to overconfidence, conflicting aims and interests, and the in-
trinsic difficulty of a coordinating allied strategy over a vast geographic area.
BrumaireandBeyond. AlthoughFrancehadsurvivedthislatestdanger,its government did not. The machinations of the previous two years had cost the Directory whatever legitimacy it had once possessed, and the directors'
228 Earlier accounts view the decision to send Charles's army northward as a product of Austria's selfish desire to retake the Netherlands: Ross, European Diplomatic History, 2o8-12; Sherwig. Guineas and Gunpawder, 123; Rodger, War of the Second Coalition; and Mackesy, States- men at War. More recent research offers a different interpretation, which is the one I adopt here: Roider, Tlrugut and Austria's Response, 3o8-27; and Schroeder, "Collapse of the Second Coalition," and Transformation ofEuropean Politics, 2oo-2o6.
229 In the words of the British commander Sir Ralph Abercrombie, "The grounds on which this great undertaking were founded have failed. We have found no cooperation in the coun- try. " Quoted in Palmer, Democratic Revolution, 2:568. See also Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 389-96; and Rodger, War ofSecond Coalition, 176--94.
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attempts to rein in the army had cost them the military's support as well. The purge of Prairial, Year VII left Abbe Sieyes in charge of the Directory, an inveterate schemer who now conspired to establish a new government that could eschew the use of terror, protect bourgeois interests, and arrange a final end to the war. Because he regarded the legal procedure for revising the constitution as too cumbersome and time-consuming, Sieyes decided another coup was necessary. 230
The stage was now set for Bonaparte, who had abandoned his army in Egypt and staged a dramatic return to Paris just as France's military for- tunes began to rise. Despite his failure in Egypt and his callous disregard for his troops' welfare, Bonaparte's prestige was undimmed and he quickly endorsed Sieyes's plans. The plot was launched on 17 Brumaire, Year VIII (November 8, 1799). After warning of a fictitious Jacobin con- spiracy, the real conspirators persuaded the Councils to reassemble a few miles outside Paris, where they would be at the mercy of the troops as- signed to protect them. The directors then resigned in favor of Bonaparte, who appeared before the Councils to receive their approval. The deputies greeted Bonaparte with open hostility, however, and drove him from the chamber. Rallied by Napoleon's brother Lucien, troops loyal to the con- spirators removed the defiant deputies. The remainder then appointed Bonaparte, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos as "provisional consuls" pending the drafting of a new constitution.
Sieyes's plot backfired when Bonaparte ignored his erstwhile partners and quickly established himself as the unchallenged leader of France. As Burke and Robespierre had warned many years before, the revolution in France had ended in a military dictatorship. The war continued until French victories at Marengo and Hohenlinden forced Austria to negotiate a separate peace in February 1801. Pitt resigned and peace talks began the following month. The final treaty was completed at Amiens in March 1802. England formally recognized the new French state and the Batavian, Cisalpine, Ligurian, and Helvetian republics and agreed to return all of its colonial conquests save for Ceylon and Trinidad. The treaty was a clear tri- umph for France, if not for the revolution: the revolutionary period was now over and the Napoleonic era had begun. 231
230 Amendments to the Constitution had to be proposed by the Council of Elders on three separate occasions in nine years and ratified by the Council of Five Hundred. An "assembly of revision" would then have three months to make final changes. See Stewart, Documentary History, ? .
231 This period of the war is analyzed in Piers Mackesy, War without Victory: The Downfall ofPitt, 1799-1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Gunther E. Rothenberg, Napoleon's Great Adversaries: The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792-1814 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), chap. 3; Ross, European DiplomaticHistory, chap. 7; Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder, 126-143; and Christie, Wars and Revolutions, 249-61.
? ? ? ? ? Revolution and War CoNCLUSIONs: THE FRENCH REvoLUTION AND
BALANCE-OF-THREAT THEORY
The evidence presented in this chapter supports the main propositions advanced in chapter 2. As predicted, the revolution increased the level of se- curity competition among the European states. Conflict was a constant fea- ture of European politics before 1789 and some sort of war might well have occurred had the revolution never occurred, but the revolution in France was largely responsible for the wars that did occur and the shape that they ultimately took. By weakening France in the short term and casting doubt on the legitimacy of existing political forms, the revolution created both new problems to resolve and new opportunities for other rulers to exploit. The struggle for power within France sabotaged Austrian emperor Leopold's ef- forts to preserve the French monarchy and promote a concert of mutual re- straint, leading directly to the declaration of war in 1792. The war delivered the final blow to the monarchy, and French attempts to spread the revolu-
tion soon brought the rest of Europe into the war. The republic survived the initial assault but eventually became dependent on a diet of conquest and exploitation that made a negotiated settlement extremely elusive.
The dynamics that led to war also support the basic theory laid out in the previous chapter. The revolution created inviting shifts in the balance of power, encouraged states to view one another's intentions as excessively malign, and fostered an exaggerated belief in the efficacy of military force and the prospects for both revolutionary and counterrevolutionary sub- version. These problems were compounded by uncertainty and biased in- formation; which were themselves a by-product of the revolutionairy experience. 232
The Balance ofPower
The revolution in France altered the balance of power in Europe, and these shifts contributed to the outbreak of war in two closely related ways. First, Prussia saw France's apparent weakness as an opportunity either fro acquire territory directly from France or to obtain it elsewhere in compen- sation for helping restore Louis to his throne. A similar motive played a minor role for Austria as well-particularly after the death of Leopold-as Francis II and his ministers came to see war against France as a way to ob- tain international approval for the coveted Bavarian-Belgian exchange. 233
232 As Paul Schroeder points out, "Europe in the 178os was not heading inexorably toward revolution, but toward war, whether or not there was revolution. " Transformation ofEuropean Politics, 51-52. Nevertheless, the French Revolution was the immediate cause of the wars of the 1790S, and largely for the reasons I set forth in chapter 2.
233 See Blanning, French Revolutionary Wars, 115.
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Second, the belief that the revolution had left France defenseless boosted its adversaries' confidence that victory would be swift and the cost low. Their calculations were not entirely mistaken, as the French armies did perform poorly at first and would have had difficulty meeting a full-fledged inva- sion. In the end, however, the allies' belief that the French "army of lawyers" would not fight effectively was self-defeating, as it encouraged Austria and Prussia to wage only a half-hearted campaign.
Shifts in the balance of power also contributed to the expansion of the war in 1793. French capabilities were on the rise by the fall of 1792, and England decided to enter the war as a direct response to the French conquest of the Austrian Netherlands and Liege and the danger this posed to Holland. 234 The French victories at Valmy and Jemappes had partly dispelled the image of French impotence, but Pitt and Grenville still believed that the war would offer an easy opportunity to expand England's colonial holdings at French expense. Once again, this view was not entirely unwarranted, and only the extraordinary efforts of the Committee on Public Safety and divisions within the allied coalition allowed the republic to avoid defeat in 1793?
Thus, the French case supports the claim that revolutions cause war by al- tering the balance of power and creating seemingly large windows of op- portunity.
Yet it also demonstrates that this effect is only part of the story. Prior to 1792, Prussia was the only state that saw the revolution as an op- portunity for aggrandizement. 235 Frederick William was unwilling to act alone, however, and Leopold and Kaunitz consistently opposed war, be- lieving that Louis' acceptance of the constitution in September 1791 had eliminated the need for military action. Although Francis II was more ac- quisitive and adventuresome, Austria would not have gone to war had the French Assembly taken a less belligerent position from November 1791 on- ward. By itself, therefore, the effect of the revolution on the balance of power would not have led to war. Similarly, England's leaders were less concerned with French capabilities per se than with the purposes for which French power was being used. As noted earlier, England's leaders still saw France as relatively weak, and both Grenville and Pitt emphasized that they were primarily concerned with French actions (such as the closing of the River Scheidt) and not with the nature of the French government or its rela- tive position in the European system.
The growth of French power after 1793 had other effects as well. The de- sire to balance the threat from revolutionary France played a central role in the formation of the First and Second coalitions, although the divisions that
234 Not only was England eager to keep the Belgian and Dutch coastlines out of French hands, but they were worried that the Dutch fleet might fall under the control of the French as well.
235 Cathedne the Great is a partial exception to this claim. She saw the revolution as a means of distracting the other powers and gaining a free hand in the east.
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undermined both of these alliances suggests that the sense of threat was not overwhelming. Moreover, it was the policies pursued by successive French governments that led to these countervailing coalitions, not simply the growth in French power. Thus, Russia and the Ottoman Empire entered the war in 1798 not because France was becoming too powerful (although this was a concern) but because France's activities in the eastern Mediterranean, and above all Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, betrayed limitless ambitions and posed an immediate threat to Russian and Ottoman interests.
Perceptions of Intent
The revolution also profoundly affected France's intentions and its wm- ingness to use force. From 1789 to 1791, French assertiveness declined as a consequence of military weakness and a preoccupation with internal events. The Assembly gradually adopted more aggressive policies, however, in- cluding the annexation of Savoy and Alsace, the de facto renunciation of the Austro-French alliance, and the ultimatums demanding that the German princes expel the emigres. The Decree on Liberty in November 1792 marked an even more dramatic departure from diplomacy of the old regime, and nf the quest for "natural borders" did not begin with the revolution, the new regime placed more weight on this goal than its immediate predecessor had. Thus, the revolution did influence French aims and objectives in ways that contributed to foreign perceptions of threat.
This case also supports the claim that revolutionary states are especially prone to spiral toward enmity with other powers. The pervasive fear of an aristocratic conspiracy between the king, the emigres, the papacy, the dissi- dent clergy, and various foreign rulers helped radicalize the revolution be- tween 1789 and 1791 and formed the centerpiece of the Girondin campaign for war in 1791--92. The flight to Varennes reinforced these suspicions, and events such as the Padua Circular, the Declaration of Pillnitz, the formation of the Austro-Prussian alliance, and Austria's imprudent demarches nn 1791--92 merely confirmed the Girondin image of a monolithic counterrevo-
lutionary bloc. Impressions of irreconcilable foreign hostility increased even more during the war; for example, the dire warnings contained in the Brunswick Manifesto helped spark the abolition of the monarchy and the September Massacres and reinforced the prevailing image. This tendency to view opponents as irrevocably hostile reached its peak during the Terror, when any sign of dissent could be seen as treason.
The revolutionaries' suspicions were not without some basis, of course.
Indeed, the deputies were correct to doubt the king's commitment to the constitution, as they were to suspect that the royal family was seeking for- eign assistance. Domestic opposition to the revolution was widespread, and the antipathy of the emigres was self-evident. Moreover, some foreign rulers
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(such as Catherine of Russia, Gustav Adolphus of Sweden, and Charles IV of Spain) were openly hostile. But there was no European concert to reverse the revolution, and the French greatly exaggerated Austrian (and to a lesser extent) Prussian hostility: Prussia hungered for territory but did not care where it came from, and Frederick William even sought an alliance with France on more than one occasion. Leopold wanted to protect the royal fam-
ily and defend the rights of the German princes, but he hoped to accomplish these goals through diplomatic pressure rather than open warfare. 236 The emigres' activities reinforced French fears of a counterrevolutionary coali- tion, but their entreaties had little influence on foreign powers.
Interestingly, neither Austria nor Prussia exaggerated French hostility very much. Frederick William was motivated more by greed than by fear, and Leopold's concerns about the royal family, the German princes, and the bellicose Legislative Assembly were clearly justified. Austria and Prussia contributed to the spiral by acting in ways that confirmed French suspi- cions, but their perceptions of French intentions turned out to be fairly ac-
curate. Thus, spirals of negative sentiment prior to the war of 1792 were largely confined to France alone.
By contrast, the expansion of the war in 1793 was based on exaggerated perceptions of hostility on both sides. English impressions of French inten- tions were critical to its decision for war; had France rescinded the Novem- ber 19 decree and agreed to keep the River Scheidt closed, England would almost certainly have remained neutral. By December, however, England's leaders were convinced that France sought to control the Low Countries
and to export its principles to other societies, an assessment based on such actions as the Decree on Liberty and the friendly reception given to English radicals at the Convention in Paris.
These fears were not without some basis, but England's leaders clearly overstated the strength of the French commitment to revoRutionary expan- sion. Although Pitt and Grenville saw the Decree on Liberty as strong evi- dence of French ambitions, the Convention and the CPS were actually ambivalent about supporting foreign revolutionary movements; the Decree
was an impulsive act and was rescinded less than five months later. France did not try to foment revolution in England until after war was declared, and Lebrun and others eventually recognized that reports from French agents predicting an imminent revolution in England were erroneous. In short, although England's fears of French aggression were not unwarranted, their inferences were at least partly inflated.
236 Paul Schroeder argues that Leopold was trying to use the threat from revolutionary France to promote a general concert of the European powers that would dampen their com- petition in other areas (Transformation ofEuropean Politics, 8<)-9ci). Whatever Leopold's ulti- mate aims were, it is clear that the French misread them.
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? For their part, France's leaders viewed England as potentially hostile even before the invasion of the Low Countries, and failed to appreciate En- gland's strong desire to remain neutral. As a result, they saw English oppo- sition to their policy of expansion as evidence of innate hostility and did not
recognize their own role in forcing England to make common cause with their enemies. The shared belief that the other side was irrevocably hostile may have led both states to overlook possibilities for a peaceful resolution of the dispute, and to the extent that these beliefs were exaggerated, spiral- ing contributed to the expansion of the war.
The French case reveals that spirals of suspicion can arise from several distinct sources. One obvious source is ideology: by portraying opponents as irrevocably evil or aggressive, revolutionary ideologies encourage their adherents to see the behavior of potential adversaries in the worst possible light. Spiraling may also arise from domestic political competition, particu- larly if one faction decides to overemphasize a foreign danger in order to bolster its internal position. The Girondins did exactly that in the fall and winter of 1791--92, and their efforts were critical to solidifying French per-
ceptions of an external danger and driving the Assembly to declare war in April. Their efforts might well have failed, however, if the deputies had been less disposed to see foreign monarchs as potentially hostile or if certain rulers' actions had not appeared to confirm the Girondins' accusations.
Ignorance about domestic conditions within a revolutionary state may provide a third source of spiraling. For example, Austria's demarches in 1791--92 were intended to strengthen the moderates and undermine the rad- icals, but they had precisely the opposite effect. Similarly, England's leaders misread the French commitment to revolutionary expansion because they were unaware that the Decree of November 19 was an act of revolutionary bravado and did not know of the disagreements within France on the entire question of supporting foreign revolutionaries.
Offense, Defense, and the Export ofRevolution
The wars of the French Revolution support the hypothesis that revolu- tions make war more likely by affecting perceptions of the offense-defense balance. They also illustrate why these beliefs are usually incorrect or self- defeating, and why revolutions are harder to export or to reverse than either side expects.
As we have seen, this tendency is partly due to the effects of a revolution on perceptions of the balance of power. By causing a short-term decline in the new state's military capabilities, revolutions encourage other states to believe that the new regime will be easy to overcome. Such a belief con- vinced Austria, Prussia, and England to go to war against France in 1792 and 1793. That is also why their military efforts were relatively modest and
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? ? ? ? (122]
? The French Revolution
their attention so easily distracted. On the other hand, an outpouring of rev- olutionary fervor may convince the revolutionary government that its mili- tary strength has grown, inspiring it to run greater risks. This is precisely what happened in France in 1791-92, most obviously in the Girondins' lav-? ish claims about the ability of "free soldiers" to overcome the armies of the old regime.
To be sure, the nationalist energies unleashed by the revolution in France did liberate armies from the cumbersome logistical and doctrinal con- straints of eighteenth-century warfare and improve the prospects for deci- sive battles and rapid wars of conquest. Yet the offensive implications of this military innovation should not be overstated. It took many years before the strategic and tactical implications of these changes were fully realized: the Girondin visions of a rapid and relentless revolutionary advance turned out to be grossly exaggerated. Although France won a number of impressive victories between 1792 and 1799, it suffered equally impressive losses and was often close to defeat. 237 In short, while the Girondins correctly foresaw that the revolution would increase France's offensive capabilities, they over- estimated the magnitude of this effect.
The diplomacy of the French Revolution also confirms that the possibility of revolutionary contagion or counterrevolutionary subversion intensifies the security dilemma between the revolutionary state and its adversaries, making both sides more willing to use force. The ability to subvert other states is an especially potent form of offensive power because it enables one state to "conquer" another at virtually no cost. The revolutionary forces in France were preoccupied by the fear of counterrevolution, and so they con- fined the royal family in the Tuileries from 1789 onward, imposed harsh measures against emigres and dissident priests, issued ultimatums to the emigres' foreign hosts, and eventually declared war on Austria in April 1792. They were also worried about the possibility of foreign invasion, but this fear was linked to the belief that foreign enemies and internal traitors were collaborating to restore the old order.
In addition, the Girondin campaign for war rested on the claim that revo- lutionary contagion would enable France to win a swift, easy victory. Even if the Girondins used this argument solely to enhance their internal posi- tions, the fact that many deputies embraced it suggests that it struck a sym- pathetic chord among the revolutionary elite. The unexpected successes of the revolution at horne, the optimistic testimony from the foreign revolu- tionaries, and the universalist beliefs that had inspired the revolution all contributed to the Assembly's confidence in the offensive power of its
237 See Peter Paret, "Napoleon and the Revolution in War," in his edited Makers ofModern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 124-27.
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? ideals. French military successes in the fall of 1792 seemed to confirm these rosy visions, and an unwarranted belief in England's revolutionary poten- tial encouraged France to risk expanding the war in February 1793. All- though faith in a universal crusade for liberty faded quickly, a lingering belief in the power of subversion continued to shape French foreign policy for the rest of the decade and contributed to the length of the war. 238
France's opponents exhibited similar tendencies, albeit not as powerfully.
By 1791, virtually all of the European powers feared the spread of revol\ll- tion, and all had taken steps to suppress suspected Jacobins. The scope and impact of these fears varied widely, however, and neither Austria, Prussia, nor England went to war for this reason alone. Ironically, fear of Jacobinism was probably most pronounced in Sweden, Russia, and Spain, yet the first two states remained neutral for most of the decade and the last was one o? the first to abandon the Coalition.
Finally, the belief that the new regime was illegitimate and would therefore be easy to overthrow made war more attractive than peace in the eyes of its opponents. Monarchists in France welcomed the outbreak of war because they thought France would lose and the Assembly would be discredited by the defeat. Austria, Prussia, and England were convinced that the revolution- aries lacked popular support, and England provided subsidies to a variety of counterrevolutionary groups from 1794 onward. 239 Encouraged by optimistic testimony from royalists within France and emigres outside, British faith in the fragility of the revolutionary regime led to the disastrous expedition to Quiberon in 1795 and the ill-fated Anglo-Russian landing in Holland in 1799. Similarly, assuming that the royalists would soon gain control of the Councils,
England rejected a possible peace settlement in the summer of 1797 only to have its hopes dashed by the coup of Fructidor V. In each of these cases, an ex- aggerated sense of the fragility of the revolutionary government and the po- tency of the counterrevolutionary forces made opponents of the revolutionary regime more willing to start or to continue the war.
In short, conflict between France and its opponents was fueled by each side's beliefs about the likelihood of revolutionary contagion and the chances for a successful counterrevolution. Both dangers turned out to be greatly exaggerated; the revolution did not spread to any other states in Eu- rope except where forcibly implanted by French troops. None of France's opponents faced a serious internal challenge during the war, and foreign support for counterrevolutionary efforts within France were even less sue-
238 France's efforts to aid the Irish rebels reflected its continued hopes for a successful revolt against English rule there. The formation of additional sister republics after the Treaty of Campo Formio was partly based on beliefs about the universal applicability of French prin- ciples.
239 See Mitchell, Underground War; and W. R. Fryer, Republic or Restoration in France, 1794-1797 (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1965).
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? ? ? The French Revolution
cessful. Thus, the French case, contrary to both sides' expectations, supports one of my central claims: except when the disparity of power between the two sides is very large, revolutions are both hard to export and difficult to reverse.
Against this interpretation, it might be argued that the French expansion after 1794-and especially the creation of the "sister republics"-shows that the foreign fears of revolutionary contagion were justified. Similarly, the re- curring revolts within France and the near-victories by France's opponents in 1793 and 1799 could be taken as evidence that French fears and Allied hopes for a counterrevolution were not unwarranted. One could even argue that, had Austria and Prussia focused their strength against France in 1792 and fought more energetically, the revolution would have been crushed long before the mobilization of 1 793-94 began. Each of these arguments im- plies that the security dilemma was real and intense and that the use of force
was justified even if it did not have the anticipated effects.
Although not without merit, these points are ultimately unpersuasive.
France's conquests in Italy and Holland did enable them to place local "pa- triots" in power and to equip them with constitutions similar to its own, but the sister republics were the product of French military expansion and not of revolutionary contagion. Nor was their creation an easy or spontaneous event; although the Girondins had claimed that the "liberty of the whole world" would cost only a few thousand deaths, establishing the sister re- publics had cost France and its foes close to a million lives by 1802. The sis- ter republics remained utterly dependent on French support, and efforts to promote revolutionary upheavals in the absence of French occupation con- sistently failed, most notably in the case of the botched expedition to Ireland in response to the abortive rebellion of 1798. 240 These failures confirm the difficulty of spreading a revolution when other states retain their political cohesion and military effectiveness. Revolutionary France was able to "ex- port" its principles only where its armies were able to destroy the existing
political order.
Similarly, while the revolutionaries may have worried about the danger of a restoration and France's enemies had high hopes for such an event, the actual danger of a counterrevolution was slight. The revolutionary regime did face recurring internal revolts (at times backed by France's foreign ad- versaries), but they were poorly coordinated and dominated by local con- cerns. They were therefore incapable of challenging the revolutionary government in Paris, which was able to deal with them in piecemeal fash-
240 Although R. R. Palmer views the French Revolution as part of a wave of "democratic revolutions," he acknowledges that "nowhere, except in far-off Poland, was there any revolt against a government with which France was at war. There was no revolution in aid of France. It was perfectly evident that the foreign revolutionaries were entirely dependent on the French. " Democratic Revolution, 2:117, JJD-Jl, 340.
? ? ion. The counterrevolutionary movement was weakened further by internan divisions and the uncompromising positions adopted by the pretender Louis XVIII (the former comte de Provence), and other emigre leaders un- dermined their efforts to attract support within France itsel? . 241 Although, unsurprisingly, the revolutionary government took the royalist threat seri- ously, it was able to suppress these various challenges fairly easily.
The difficulty of exporting or reversing a revolution reminds us why rev- olutions are rare. Even weak or divided states retain enormous advantages over their internal opponents. Just as it was easy for other states to repress local "democrats" (as long as their territory was free of French troops), so it was also easy for the revolutionaries in France to overcome their domestic rivals once they had established control of the state and the army. In short, the export of revolution or counterrevolution was largely a function of mili- tary success; it was not determined by the popular appeal of ideological principles.
Finally, although it is possible that an all-out invasion in the spring of 1792 could have toppled the Assembly and restored the king's authority, this scenario ignores the possibility that such a vigorous invasion would have instead accelerated the radicalization of the revolution and brought the monarchy down even more quickly. There is also no guarantee that the foreign invaders would not have been stopped by the same sort of popular mobilization that halted them in 1792 and 1793. Most important of all, Aus- tria and Prussia were willing to go to war precisely because they believed it would be easy; had they foreseen that war would require a more substantial effort, they would have been more reluctant to confront France during the latter half of 1791 and more inclined to seek a peaceful accommodation with the new regime. And if they had done so, it would have defused the para- noia pervading the Assembly and rendered war far less likely. Thus, this po- litical "cult of the offensive" was both destabilizing and self-defeating. In particular, the very beliefs that led Austria and Prussia into the war with France also made them less likely to adopt the one strategy that might have brought success.
Uncertainty, Information, and Miscalculation
Each of these causes of war was exacerbated by uncertainty and lack of information. France's opponents miscalculated the balance of power in part because the military potential of revolutionary France rested on ideas and institutions (such as the levee en masse) that were previously unknown. This fact helps explain why the various anti-French coalitions found it difficult to implement a unified strategy. Although each member agreed that France
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? 241 See Fryer, Republic or Restoration, 1 1-19, 1o8, 184--85.
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? The French Revolution
was a threat, the precise magnitude of the danger was impossible to state with confidence. The danger seemed much clearer to England and Austria than to Prussia or Russia (especially after 1795), and even Austria was dis- tracted by events in Eastern Europe and its concern for the future of the Holy Roman Empire.
Lack of information also fueled the spiral of suspicion between France and its adversaries. Austria's attempts to threaten the Assembly were based on outdated information about political conditions within France, while the French failed to appreciate the subtleties in both the Padua Circular and the Declaration of Pillnitz. Similarly, English perceptions of French hostility were reinforced by the Decree on Liberty, but English officials did not un- derstand its impromptu origins and did not appreciate how weak the French commitment to revolutionary internationalism really was. These problems, partly due to the slow pace of communications, were amplified by the breakdown in diplomatic relations and the resulting need to rely on unreliable, unofficial channels. Thus, the Anglo-French negotiations during
the winter of 1792 were undermined by the activities of inexperienced agents in London, and Foreign Minister Lebrun was forced to pin his later hopes for peace on an unofficial emissary (the English radical David Williams) and on a personal initiative by a Welsh tea dealer, James Tilly Matthews, who was subsequently confined to an asylum!
As suggested in chapter 2, lack of information may also explain why both sides exaggerated the potential for both revolutionary contagion and coun- terrevolutionary subversion. The French knew that the revolution had at- tracted favorable responses from some foreign groups, and also that some of their adversaries faced significant internal opposition. They had little basis for judging the strength of these sentiments, however, or the ability of for- eign rulers to quell or coopt them. Lacking adequate information about oth- ers' preferences and forgetting that their own revolution had encouraged other rulers to take preventive measures, the French overstated the likeli- hood that other societies would imitate their own experience. France's for- eign opponents could not gauge the level of radical support either, nor could they determine whether pro-French forces within their own societies were an irrelevant minority or a sign of imminent revolt. Efforts to estimate
the prospects for a counterrevolution in France faced the same difficulties:
France's leaders had no idea how many of their compatriots favored a restoration, and the Coalition could not dismiss royalist reports that the French people, groaning under Jacobin repression, were ready to rise up against the republic as soon as the opportunity beckoned.
In the absence of reliable information, both sides fell back on ideology or other sources that were obviously biased. Raising the level of misinforma- tion was the testimony of the emigres who had fled from France and the for- eign revolutionaries who had flocked to it. The emigres portrayed the
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? ? revolution as a grave threat to the rest of Europe while stressing its unpop- ularity at home and the ease with which it could be overturned. Their ef- forts were not always successful, but their testimony did contribute both to foreign suspicions of France and to French fears of a looming aristocratic menace .
The foreign revolutionaries in France had similar effects in reverse. Their presence in Paris made Europe appear ripe for revolution, and the testi- mony of such people as Anacharsis Cloots and the English and Irish dele- gations to the Convention in November 1792 strengthened the universalist hopes of the French radicals. French policy soon became more discriminat- ing and support for foreign revolutionaries declined, but groups such as the United Irishmen continued to receive French backing throughout the war. And just as the French took the activities of the emigres as evidence of a for- eign conspiracy against the revolution, their opponents saw the presence of the foreign revolutionaries in Paris as proof of the revolution's universalis- tic ambitions.
Finally, the diplomacy of revolutionary France also supports the claim that radical regimes will moderate their ideological ambitions in the face of external pressure. After renouncing foreign conquest in 1791 and launching a "crusade of liberty" in 1792, revolutionary France quickly reverted to the familiar pursuit of self-interest. French armies began to plunder their neigh- bors instead of liberating them, and support for foreign revolutionaries was largely abandoned. French diplomats eventually engaged in the same sort of territorial barters that the European states had practiced for centuries. By
1797, the Directory was willing to cede the Republic of Venice to the Haps- burgs at Campo Formio in exchange for territory elsewhere, a sure sign that the original principles of the revolution no longer held sway.
To summarize: I believe that the origins and course of the French revolu- tionary wars provide considerable support for my main arguments about the relatio11h1S ip between revolution and war. The revolution tempted other states to take advantage of a favorable shift in the balance of power, led both sides to exaggerate the hostility of their opponents, and created erroneous perceptions of vulnerability and overconfidence that cast the use of force in a more attractive light.
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? ? The Russian Revolution
"What, are we going to have foreign affairs? "
-V. I. Lenin, October 1917 "I shall issue some revolutionary proclamations to the peoples and then
close up shop. "
-Leon Trotsky, as commissar for foreign affairs, 1917 "Lenin . . . was one of the greatest realists, as well as one of the greatest
fanatics. "
-William Henry Chamberlin, 1935
The Russian Revolution caused a dramatic shift in the Eurasian balance of power that threatened the interests of the other great powers and pressed them to intervene in the subsequent civil war. The Bolsheviks and the West- em powers regarded each other with suspicion if not outright hostility, and the belief that tlhe 1917 revolution in Russia might spark similar upheavals elsewhere led the Soviet government to venture several ill-fated attempts to accelerate the process. The uncertainties unleashed by the revolution made accommodation more difficult, because both sides based their actions on unfounded hopes and fears and were unable to maintain consistent policies in the face of conflicting information.
Coexistence became feasible once these illusions were challenged. By the early 1920s, Western fears of a rising Bolshevik tide were declining, along with the hope that Bolshevik rule in Russia would be short-lived. Soviet leaders were more confident about their own ability to hold power but also were beginning to recognize that the revolution was unlikely to spread quickly. As mutual perceptions of threat declined, a more "normal"-albeit guarded-relationship began to emerge.