The political weakness of the Thermidorean regime was
institutionalized
by the Constitution of the Year III.
Revolution and War_nodrm
The first interest to consult is that of the [French] Republic itself.
" Quoted in Biro, German Policy, 1:220 n.
268.
? ? ? terfere in any manner in the government of other powers. "155 By the fall, Robespierre was insisting the revolution should be spread not by force but by example, telling the Convention that "the French are not afflicted with a mania for rendering any nation happy and free despite itsel? . "156 Similarly, when it became clear that efforts to "promote liberty" via propaganda and
subversion were undermining French relations with several neutral powers (such as the United States and the Swiss Confederation), France's leaders re- called their agents and suspended their subversive efforts. 157
The waning of revolutionary internationalism was accompanied by a growing xenophobia, once again triggered by the pervasive fear of foreign plots. 158 In December, Robespierre accused foreign revolutionaries such as Anacharsis Cloots of dragging France into a dangerous and unprofitable war, informing the Jacobin Club, "! distrust without distinction all those for- eigners . . . who endeavour to appear more republican and energetic than we are. "159 While serving as representant en mission in Alsace in December, Saint-Just disbanded a group of local republicans who advocated universal liberty; one of his assistants advised Robespierre "not to listen to these cos- mopolitan charlatans and to trust only in ourselves. " The CPS denied a pe- tition for assistance from a group 'of Dutch revolutionaries in March, and nt eventually dissolved the foreign legions that the Assembly had created in
1792. Thus, by 1794 the earlier visions of a universal crusade for liberty had faded almost completely. 160
Moderation was also apparent in French policy toward neutral states. De- spite an improving military posture, pressure from local officials, and the
155 As Da11t1 on told the deputies: "In a moment of enthusiasm you passed a decree whose motive was doubtless fine . . . [but) this decree appeared to commit you to support a few p<? ? triots who might wish to start a revolution in China. Above all we need to look to the preser? vation of our own body politic and lay the foundation of French greatness. " Quoted i111 Blanning, French Revolution and Germany, 70; and see also Stewart, Documentary Survey, 426-27.
156 Robespierre also emphasized the need to stop "our generals and our armies [from in- terfering) in [others') political affairs; it is the only means of preventing intrigues which can terminate our glorious revolution. " Quoted in Biro, German Policy, 1:18? 9.
157 See Eugene R. Sheridan, "The Recall of Edmund Charles Genet," Diplomatic History 18, no. 4 (1994); and David Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy: The Foreign Policy of the Robes- pierrist Committee on Public Safety" (Ph. D. diss. , University of Washington, 1974}, 56-65, 94o 96-103.
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? 158 The fear of foreign plots, magnified by Dumouriez's treason, helped lead to the ouster of the Girondin leaders in June. These fears grew in the fall, when a Montagnard deputy in- formed the CPS that the republic faced a vast foreign conspiracy whose members included Convention deputies, foreign ministry officials, and Marie-Joseph Herault de Sechelles, a member of the CPS itself. See Mathiez, Revolution et les etrangers, 164? 6; and Silverman, "In- formal Diplomacy," 106-107.
159 Quoted in Mathiez, French Revolution, 419; and see also Silverman, "Informal Diplo- macy," 130.
160 Quoted in Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," 108 n. 5?
? ? The French Revolution
massacre of several French sailors by a group of English seamen, the CPS chose to respect Genoese neutrality during the fall of 1793. When an attempt to undermine English commerce with a discriminatory Navigation Act damaged relations with neutral states and brought French foreign trade to a standstill, the CPS promptly suspended the act and embarked on efforts to rebuild ties with neutral powers. 161
As noted earlier, the exigencies of war had also forced the republic to abandon its idealistic principles and systematically exploit conquered re- gions in order to sustain its war effort. The tension between universal ideals and selfish national interests was already apparent in the fall of 1792, and the decree of December 15, 1792, was the first step toward a more self-serving policy. The issue was moot so long as France was on the defensive, but when its military fortunes improved, the Convention or- dered army commanders to renounce "every philanthropic idea previ- ously adopted by the French people with the intention of making foreign nations appreciate the values and benefits of liberty. " Now, the French armies were to "behave towards the enemies of France in just the same way that the powers of the Coalition have behaved towards them . . . and exercise . . . the customary rights of war. " In a sharp departure from its original ideals, therefore, the republic was now justifying the exploitation of occupied territories on the grounds that other great powers acted the same wayP62 As the French armies continued to advance, the exploitation of conquered territory became a way of life. The CPS established agencies of evacuation to coordinate the exploitation of foreign resources in May 1794, and Carnot, who was responsible for military mobilization, de- clared, "We must live at the expense of the enemy . . . , we are not entering his territory to bring him money. "163 Even measures of apparent restraint masked self-interested motives: prior to the occupation of Holland in Jan- uary 1795, the CPS informed its generals that "the interest of the Republic is to reassure the Dutch so that they do not emigrate with their riches. . . . It is necessary to safeguard the rights of property so that Holland will fur- nish us with provisions. "164
161 See Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," 86-8- 7, 92, 135-38.
162 Quoted in Blanning, French Revolution in Germany, 72; and see also Biro, German Policy, 1:191-<)2, 207-208.
163 When the French reoccupied Belgium in July, Carnot declared that "all that is found in Belgium must be sent back to France. . . . It is necessary to despoil the country and make it im- possible to furnish means for the enemy to return. " Although Carnot emphasized that French requisitions should be confined to the rich and that the occupiers should respect Belgian cus- toms, these restrictions were usually ignored in practice. See Silverman, "Informal Diplo- macy," 228-30; and Biro, German Policy, 1:230.
164 Quoted in Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 181. French policy in the Rhineland was evell\ more severe, and the winter of 1 793-94 became known as the "Plunder Winter. " See Blan- ning, French Revolution in Germany, chap. 3; and Biro, German Policy, 1 :205-207.
? ? A final sign of deradicalization was France's intermittent effort to im- prove its diplomatic position and negotiate an end to the war. During his tenure on the first CPS, Danton tried unsuccessfully to attract Sweden, Den- mark, the Ottoman Empire, and several other states into an alliance with France, while simultaneously seeking to isolate Austria by courting Prussia. Similarly, Lebrun made an indirect offer to support the Prussian acquisition of several smaller German states in April and extended Prussia a free hand in Poland in May. These concessions led to direct negotiations between French and Prussian agents. The minister of the interior told the Convention that peace might be imminent, but the negotiations were cut off when Dan- ton was removed froiJl the CPS in July. 165
French leaders' efforts to initiate talks with England and Austria were less successful. lebrun made a tentative overture to England through a Welsh tea dealer and intriguer named James Tilly Matthews, and although the Mon- tagnards permitted Lebrun to continue his efforts after his arrest in June, these informal contacts failed to bear fruit. 166 France also sent envoys to sev- eral ltalian courts to see if they would renew an alliance with France in ex- change for the release of Marie Antoinette, but this overly subtle attempt to probe Austrian intentions led nowhere. 167 Danton held private discussions with an English agent in December 1793 (with the apparent approval of the CPS). An agent was instructed to open indirect negotations with England at about the same time, while England made overtures to France via Phillipe Noel, the French envoy at Venice. Foreign Minister Franc;ois Deforgues es- tablished indirect and direct contacts with Prussia in a further attempt to sep- arate it from Vienna, and there is even some evidence that Robespierre sent an agent to explore the possibility of peace with Austria in May 1794. 168
These efforts failed for a number of reasons. France's bargaining position was initially quite weak, and the Coalition had little reason to make peace when its opponent seemed ready to collapse. The domestic climate within France was unfavorable as well, as any effort to pursue peace left one ex- posed to accusations of treason. Indeed, pressure from the Hebertists even- tually led the Convention to outlaw negotiations with states that did not recognize tlhe republic, resulting in the severing of direct diplomatic contacts with all countries except the United States and the Swiss Confederation. 169
165 On these various offers, see Biro, German Policy, 1 : 163-65; Von Sybel, French Revolution, 3:47-53; and Alphonse Aulard, "La diplomatie du premier Comite de salut public," in his Etudes et /e? orns sur Ia rroolutionfran? aise, 3d ser. (Paris: Felix Alcan, H)02), 121-22, 205.
166 Williams, "Missions of Williams and Matthews," 66o-65 and passim.
167 Aulard, "Diplomatie du premier Comite de salut public," 135-36.
168 Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," no--12, 14o-4- 7. Historians remain divided over
whether the latter negotiations actually took place; see Biro, German Policy, 1 :222-36.
169 The April 1793 decree renouncing support for "foreign patriots" had also imposed the death penalty for proposing negotiations with states "which have not previously solemnly rec-
ognized . . . the French nation. . . [and] its sovereignty. " Stewart, Documentary Survey, 426-27.
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? ? ? ? ? The French Revolution
This constraint forced Foreign Minister Deforgues to rely on indirect con- tacts, via neutral agents, and confined subsequent peace overtures to obscure and unreliable back channels. In addition, key members of the Coalition had different aims and interests, making it difficult to devise a settlement that would be acceptable to all. Finally, as a result of a series of French victories in the fall of 1793, an immediate peace seemed less necessary and the republic hardened its diplomatic position. Although states such as Prussia were in- creasingly willing to settle, prominent Jacobins now argued that only all-out war would gain them acceptable terms. As one member of the CPS, Bertrand Barere, told the Convention in January: "In wars of liberty there is only one means: it is to ruin and exterminate the despots. . . . There is neither peace
nor truce, nor armistice, nor any treaty to make with the despots until the Republic is consolidated, triumphant, and dictating peace to the nations. "170 Such statements reveal that the process of deradicalization was still incom- plete. They also illustrate how domestic divisions prevented France from splitting the alliance even when a separate peace was within reach.
In short, although the French Republic had not abandoned all of its ideo- logical principles, its policies in 1793-94 were a striking departure from the lofty visions that had driven France to war in 1792-93. And by mobilizing its latent potential and moderating its more unrealistic schemes, revolution- ary France escaped defeat once again.
Divisions within the opposing coalition played a key role in the survival of the revolution as well. Austria and Prussia were increasingly at odds; each blamed the other for their. poor performance in 1792, and Frederick William's commitment to the war declined even more after Prussia and Russia signed a secret agreement for a second partition of Poland in January 1793. Once the Allies reconquered Belgium in the summer of 1793, he an- nounced that Prussia would continue the war only if he were granted an- other subsidy. He ordered his generals to leave the French Army intact and to give only limited assistance to his Austrian ally. The allied advance re- sumed after England agreed to provide additional funds, but Prussia's com- mitment to the Coalition remained shaky at best. It vanished entirely after Austria and Russia mended fences and arranged a final partition of Poland in 1794, and Frederick William soon decided to abandon the war with France in order to preserve his gains nn the east. 171
170 Barere also invoked the fear of traitors by asking, "Who then dare to speak of peace? [Only] aristocrats, the rich, . . . the friends of conspirators, . . . bad citizens, false patriots. . . . What we need today is redoubled boldness against conspirators, . . . redoubled scrutiny against men who call themselves patriots. " Quoted in Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," 156-59; see Leo Gershoy, Bertrand Barere: A Reluctant Terrorist (Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1962), 157-59; 207-208.
171 In the words of Paul Schroeder, "the allied coalition was wrecked more by internal divi- sions than French victories. " Transformation ofEuropean Politics, 138; also see Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder, 27-48.
[971
? ? Revolution and War
England's leaders tried to transform the coalition into a unified alliance, but their own priorities were far from clear and not always compatible with the aims of nts putative allies. Having entered the war solely to halt French expansion, the government gradually came to view the restoration of the
monarchy as an essential strategic objective. 172 English leaders were them- selves divided on what strategy to follow. Like their allies, they proved un- able to resist the lure of territorial acquisitions. Even though the main road to victory lay in the battlefields of the Low Countries and the Rhineland, England sent nearly seven thousand troops to seize the French colonies in the Caribbean and another five thousand to support a counterrevolutionary uprising at Toulon. 173 These diversions weakened the coalition's military ef- fort and rekindled Spanish opposition to English colonial expansion, leav- ing Spain more susceptible to subsequent French blandishments.
Instead of banding together against revolutionary France, in short, the members of the First Coalition were more interested in acquiring territory for themselves than in forging a strategy that might have made such acqui- sitions possible. The combined effects of French mobilization and allied dis- unity were soon apparent: French victories at Hondschoote and Wattignies halted the Alllied advance in the fall of 1793, and an Allied attempt to re- sume the initiative in April 1794 was soundly defeated. The French armies won a decisive victory at Tourcoing in May and had reoccupied Brussels, Antwerp, and Liege by midsummer, along with most of the left bank of the Rhine. The Spaniards and Sardinians were driven back in the south, and the counterrevolutionary rebellions inside France were beginning to subside as well. By the fall of 1794, the threat to the republic had been lifted and France had resumed its expansionist course.
From Thermidor to the Directory. As noted earlier, the easing of the foreign danger in the spring allowed rifts to reemerge within the CPS and the Con- vention. Convinced that the Indulgents and the Hebertists posed threats to the revolution, Robespierre and his followers now took the offensive against both. After mending fences with Danton and cultivating the sans-culottes with a series of generous economic decrees, the CPS brought the Hebertists
m Thus, the commissioners in Toulon were informed that "the acknowledgement of an hereditary monarchy . . . affords the only probable ground for restoring regular government in France," and a royal manifesto in October 1793 invited the French to "join the Standard of an Hereditary Monarchy, . . . in order to unite themselves once more under the Empire of Law, of Morality, and of Religion. " In 1794, Pitt remarked that he "had no idea of any peace being secure, unless France returned to a monarchical system. " Quoted in Mitchell, Under- ground War, 34; Cobban, Debate on the French Revolution, 46o-62; and McKay and Scott, Rise of the Great Powers, 27J.
173 See Michael Duffy, Sugar, Soldiers, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987); and Ehrman, Reluc- tant Transition, esp. 303.
? ? The French Revolution
before the Paris tribunal and executed them on March 23. Danton and sev- eral associates followed them to the guillotine two weeks later, leaving Robespierre and his supporters free to wage war against suspected counter- revolutionaries in the name of the Republic of Virtue. The law of 22 Prairial (June 10, 1794) streamlined the work of the revolutionary tribunals and broadened the list of capital offenses, and the guillotines claimed over two thousand victims in the next two months alone. 174
The Great Terror marked the final stage of the Jacobin republic. Now con- vinced that Robespierre sought to establish a personal dictatorship, a faction within the CPS organized a coup. Robespierre defended his actions by again invoking the danger of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy, but the deputies had finally turned against him and he was arrested and subsequently exe- cuted on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794), along with Saint-Just and several others.
The Jacobin dictatorship had saved the republic, but Robespierre's suc- cessors began dismantling it as soon as he was gone. 175 The Jacobin Club was banned in November, and a White Terror soon arose against suspected Jacobins. The end of the revolutionary dictatorship did not bring political stability, however, and food shortages, rising prices, and an extremely cold winter sparked violent demonstrations by the Parisian sans-culottes in Ger- minal and Prairial, Year III (April-May 1795). Unlike in past upheavals, however, the demonstrators were quickly suppressed by government troops. 176 Even more important, the end of the Terror allowed royalists, Girondins, emigres, and loyal Catholics to reenter political life. Given the enduring divisions within French society (which had been exacerbated by the revolution and the Terror), it was now nearly impossible for any gov- ernment to gain broad popular support.
The political weakness of the Thermidorean regime was institutionalized by the Constitution of the Year III. Enacted in September 1795, the new con- stitution established a bicameral Assembly chosen by indirect elections, with suffrage restricted to males over twenty-one and participation in the
174 The ouster of the Hebertists and Dantonists is described in Thompson, French Revolution, 452-60. For Robespierre's vision of the ideal republic, see Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled, 275-77; and Thompson, Robespierre, 45<r-55, 485-96. On the magnitude of the Terror, see Donald Greer, The Incidence ofthe Terror in the French Revolution: A Statistical Interpretation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935); and Schama, Citizens, 836-37.
175 The Convention quickly repealed the law of 22 Prairial, curtailed the use of terror, abol- ished price controls, suspended the levee en masse, and abandoned reliance on the represen- tants en mission. Several Girondin deputies were readmitted to the Convention, and the CPS also offered an amnesty to the rebels in the Vendee and partially restored freedom of religion. See Lefebvre, French Revolution, 2:137-42; Stewart, Documentary Survey, 538-552; and Denis Woronoff, The Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 1 794-1 799, trans. Julian Jackson (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1-10, 2<r-22.
176 According to Lefebvre, the government's victory over the popular forces in Paris on 3 Prairial marks "the date which should be taken as the end of the Revolution. Its mainspring was now broken. " French Revolution, 2:144-45.
? [991
? ? second electoral stage limited by strict property qualifications. Executive powers were assigned to a five-man Directory chosen by the two legislative Councils, and one-third of each Council and one of the five directors were to be replaced each year. 177 Intended as a safeguard against dictatorship, these measures deprived the executive of stability and authority. Not only was the executive vulnerable to disputes among the directors, but its membership was constantly changing owing to the rotation of deputies in the Councils. 178 Moreover, by seeking to restore the moderate order envisioned in the Con- stitution of 1791 (minus the monarchy, of course}, the Directory guaranteed its own unpopularity. Royalists rejected it because there was no king, die- hard republicans opposed the property restrictions and preferred the more egalitarian Constitution of 1793, and both groups remained fearful that the other might regain power. Thus, the Directory rested on an extremely nar- row political base and faced repeated challenges from resurgent royalists and unrepentant republicans alike. 179 Even before the constitution was com- pleted, evidence of increasing royalist strength led the leaders of the Con- vention to decree that two-thirds of the seats in the new Councils would be chosen from among their own ranks. This measure, which guaranteed that moderate republicans would control the new Councils, provoked a two-day
uprising by Parisian royalists on 12-13 Vendemiaire , Year IV (October 4-5, 1795). Hardly an auspicious beginning, this turmoil was a clear indication of the Directory's shaky foundation. 180
These problems were compounded by irregular food supplies, growing disparities of income, alternating periods of inflation and deflation, and en- during budgetary problems. Recurrent counterrevolutionary disturbances did nothing to help the French economy, and although the Directory ex- ploited its foreign conquests relentlessly, these gains were negated by the
m For the text of the new Constitution, see Stewart, Documentary Survey, 571-612; for analyses of its provisions, see Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and Directory, 29-31; Martyn Lyons, France under the Directory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 18-20; Sutherland,France,272-'75;andLefebvre,FrenchRevolution,2:16o-4-6 .
178 The director to be replaced each year was chosen by drawing lots. For the changing composition of the Directory, see Jones, Longman Companion to the French Revolution, 82-83; Albert Goodwin, "The French Executive Directory-ARevaluation," in The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations, ed. Frank Kafker and James M. Laux, 2d ed. (Malabar, Fla. : Krieger, 1989); and M. J. Sydenham, The First French Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), J2J-41.
179 According to Sutherland, "the Directory has a totally justified reputation as one of the most chaotic periods in modem French history. " France, 279? For a dissenting view, see Good- win, "French Executive Directory. "
180 The Vendemiaire uprising marked the political debut of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose troops fired the "whiff of grapeshot" that helped defeat the royalist groups. See Rude, Crowd in the French Revolution, chap. n; Jacques Godechot, The Counterrevolution: Doctrine and Ac- tion, 1789-1804, trans. Salvator Attanasio (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 26o-62; Sydenham, First French Republic, 76-82; and Harvey Mitchell, "Vendemiaire: A Reval- uation," Journal ofModern History JO, no. 3 (1958), 191-202.
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? [too]
? The French Revolution
damage done to French foreign trade. The Directory did much to stabilize French fiscal policy over the longer term, but the short-term costs were se- vere and contributed greatly to the country's political weakness. 181
The Foreign Policy of the Directory. The political divisions within France and the weakness of the new regime had important effects on French foreign policy and its conduct of the war. To begin with, there was no con- sensus on what France's war aims should be. 182 Royalists favored the re- nunciation of prior French conquests, seeing that as the swiftest route to peace and a restoration of the monarchy. Moderates within the Directory sought only limited territorial acquisitions, on the grounds that further ex- pansion would undermine French power and lead to incessant warfare. 183
The dominant position, however, was held by the advocates of "natural borders," whose ranks included most of the leading figures of the Thermi- dorean period and the first Directory. According to this view, France's bor- ders had been "ordained by nature" and consisted of the Atlantic, the Pyrenees, the Alps, and most importantly, the Rhine. To obtain these limits, France would have to annex Belgium and the entire left bank of the Rhine, including German states belonging to Prussia and Austria or falling under Francis II's protection in his capacity as head of the Holy Roman Empire.
To justify prolonging the war, supporters of "les grandes limites" argued that expansion to the Rhine would greatly enhance French security. As Mer- lin de Douai told the Convention in December 1794: "We want [a peace] guaranteed by our own power and the powerlessness of our enemies ever to harm us. " Another member of the CPS, Fran\ois-Antoine Boissy d'Anglas, told the Convention that the borders designated by nature would protect France from "all invasion . . . for a long series of centuries," and Jean-Jacques Cambaceres, a prominent Thermidorean, declared, "When a nation has risen in arms against invasion, . . . it should use its power to ensure that [its rights] will be respected forever. " Others suggested that France required additional territory in order to counter the Prussian and Austrian gains in Poland and
181 Economic conditions and policies under the Directory are summarized in Sydenham, First French Republic, 96-100, 182-86; Goodwin, "French Executive Directory," 326-32; Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, chap. 4; Lyons, France under the Directory, chaps. 4-5, 12; and Michel Bruguiere, "Assignats," in Furet and Ozouf, Critical Dictionary, 426-)6.
182 On the different positions, see Ross, European Diplomatic History, no-112; Lyons, France under the Directon;, 19<>-91; Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 27, 61-63; and Biro, German Policy, 2:488-<)8, 5oo-5o6.
183 Thus, Camot told the CPS in July 1794- "We could, if we so wished, plant the liberty tree on the banks of the Rhine and unite to France all the former territory of the Gauls, but how- ever seductive this system might be, . . . France can only weaken herself and sow the seeds of an endless war by expanding her territory in this way. " It should be noted that Camot's views on this issue fluctuated greatly. See Richet, "Natural Borders," 76o-61; Biro, German Policy, 1 :235, 263, 2:504-505; and Blanning, French Revolution in Germany, 75?
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preserve the balance of power; as Jean-Fran<<;ois Reubell put it, "The object of the pacification of France should be not so much to acquire indemnities, as to restore that equilibrium on which its safety depends. " Supporters of expan- sion also emphasized the wealth of the neighboring regions and argued that
annexation would redeem France's inflated currency, bolster the French economy, and sustain its military effort. And to combat the assertion that oc- cupation or annexation would be unpopular, advocates claimed that the local populations believed "they have all to gain by being French. "184
The advocates of expansion lacked the political power to impose their preferences arbitrarily, and obtaining the "natural borders" would in any case require additional military successes. So long as Reubell was the dom- inant figure in the Directory, however, this group had the greatest influence over French war aims. Reubell was especially interested in protecting the French position in his native Alsace, and his control over foreign policy en- sured that the goal of les grandes limites was never entirely abandoned. 185
Several other factors strengthened the expansionist thrust of French for- eign policy and reduced the prospects for peace. The first was economic: be- cause the ravaged French economy could not keep the army supplied, it had become reliant on requisitions and levies from the occupied territories. Thus, the Directory told General Moreau that he should "nourish the Army with the fruit of its courage" and reminded General Jourdan that "the great art of war is to live at the expense of the enemy. "186
France's dependence on the lands it occupied was compounded by the in- dependence of local representatives and military commanders and also by the opportunities for personal enrichment that occupation afforded. The Di- rectory had abandoned the Jacobin system of central supply and given pri- vate contractors the task of supplying the army. This policy allowed the generals even greater freedom of action and created a powerful domestic constituency whose financial well-being was sustained by war. 187 To make
184 These quotations are from Biro, German Policy, 1:263, 335, 427-38, 2:513; and Blanning, French Revolu tion in Germany, 74?
? ? 185 See Gerlof D. Homan, ]ean-Franfois Reubell: French Revolutionary, Patriot, and Director (1747-1807) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), esp. 89.
186 As Blanning notes, "neither in nature, scope, nor intensity was the exploitation of the Rhineland exceptional. The conditions which dictated exploitation-the penury of the gov- ernment, the size of the armies, the scale of the war-applied with roughly equal force to all other parts of French-occupied Europe. " See his French Revolution in Germany, chap. 3, esp. 127-28; and Biro, German Policy, 2:65o-6o.
181 Thus, one French official admitted, "Our expedition [across) the Rhine . . . was due en- tirely to pecuniary considerations. . . . Our incursion into a rich and defenseless country was to proaire us the money of which we were in such dire need. " Quoted in Geoffrey Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe, 177o-187o (London: Oxford University Press, 1982), 92-93. On the growing independence of the army, see lyons, France under the Directory, 155-58. Ac- cording to Woronoff, by 1796 "the war was no longer concerned with national defense, but with conquest-or even merely plunder. " Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 64? 7, 74?
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matters worse, the deep divisions within French society and the lack of broad popular support forced the Directory to rely on the army to keep it- self in power. Bonaparte's "whiff of grapeshot" had halted the Vendemiaire uprising, and military support would be needed to defuse the royalist chal- lenge in Fructidor, Year V (September 1797) and the neo-Jacobin resurgence
of Floreal, Year VI (April 1798). Thus, the Directory had become dependent on the goodwill of its generals, and the army and its suppliers had become addicted to expansion, a combination wholly fatal to any serious effort to make peace.
. There is also evidence that the directors feared that peace would bring ad- verse domestic consequences-and greater royalist influence-unless they obtained tangible gains from the war. Abbe Sieyes told a Prussian diplomat in May 1795, "We need to obtain a glorious peace," and he later warned that the Directory "would be lost if peace were made. " Other directors feared that peace would expose them to charges of corruption, force the discharge of proroyalist troops, and reveal that economic hardship in France was due to their own mistakes rather than the war. The danger of direct military in- terference was equally worrisome; as one of the directors put it, "Make peace! And what will you do with the generals? Would they cultivate greens? "188
In short, although several directors recognized that a negotiated settle- ment was desirable, six years of revolution and war had created a formida- ble engine of expansion. Some of the directors now opposed further expansion, and in the words of Martyn Lyons, the foreign policy of the Di- rectory "oscillated between the defence of [the] natural frontiers, . . . and the creation of semi-independent sister republics," depending on shifts of mili- tary fortune and which faction enjoyed the dominant position in the execu- tive. 189 Despite the growing desire for peace and several promising diplomatic opportunities, therefore, the Directory was unable to take France out of the war.
TheCollapseoftheFirstCoalition. France'sinabilitytomakepeacewases- pecially tragic in light of its favorable military position. Amsterdam had fallen to the French in January 1795, and Dutch sympathizers quickly pro- claimed a "Batavian Republic" and signed a one-sided treaty of alliance in May. 190 Tuscany made peace in February, and peace talks between Prussia
? 188 Quoted in Biro, German Policy, 1:375, 2:509-10; and see also Rothenburg, "Wars of the French Revolution," 214-15.
189 See Lyons, France under the Directory, 190--<)l; and also Blanning, French Revolution in Ger- many, 75?
190 ThetextofthetreatyisinStewart,DocumentarySurvey,567-71. Fordetailsontheoccu- pation and negotiations, see Scharna, Patriots and Liberators, 178-210; and Palmer, Democratic Revolution, 2:18<>-92.
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and France took on new life. Frederick William, whose finances were dwin- dling rapidly, had no reason to continue fighting now that his ambitions in Poland had been satisfied. 191 His decision was simplified by England's re- luctance to grant additional subsidies and Vienna's collusion with Russia in a third partition of Poland, and Prussia and France signed a peace treaty in Basel in April. The German princes of the Holy Roman Empire accepted Prussian mediation in their own negotiations with France, and Spain signed a peace treaty with France at the end of July. 192
England's efforts to hold the Coalition together were undermined by mil- itary setbacks of its own. Although England had seized several French and Dutch colonies, the occupation of Toulon had to be abandoned at the end of
1793 and the expedition to Santo Domingo had turned into a costly quag- mire. 193 The French conquest of Holland had confined English forces on the continent to Hanover, and an amphibious landing in Brittany in June 1795 was a total failure. Convinced by French emigres that the expedition would spark a large counterrevolutionary uprising, the English landed an army of some thirty-three hundred emigres at Camac on June 27, where they were joined by several thousand members of the local resistance. But the quarrel- some emigres failed to coordinate their actions with their local allies, and the expedition was quickly "trapped like rats" (as the French commander put it) on the narrow Quiberon Peninsula. Efforts to evacuate them were only partially successful, and more than six hundred emigres were captured and executed. The fiasco marked the emigres' last major effort to spark an armed counterrevolution in France. 194
By the fall of 1795, therefore, the main counterrevolutionary efforts in France had been quelled and the coalition against France had been re- duced to England, Austria, and a handful of German and Italian states. The fate of the Rhineland awaited a final peace settlement with Austria and the lesser German states, but the Convention had already voted to annex Belgium and Liege on 9 Vendemiaire, Year III. The decision not to annex the left bank outright also reflected France's reluctance to antago- nize Prussia (which it hoped to draw into an alliance at a later date), and
191 Frederick William told an English envoy in February that despite his "invariable abhor- rence of the Fre111ch principles, . . . it was necessity alone that governed his conduct, and . . . another campaign would completely exhaust his treasure. " Quoted in Biro, German Policy, 1:340.
192 The Treaty of Basel established a neutral zone along the northeastern border and per- mitted French troops to remain in Prussian territory on the left bank of the Rhine pending "the general pacification between France and the Germanic Empire. " See Stewart, Documen- tary Survey, 563-67; and Biro, German Policy, vol. 1, chaps. 8--c). On the negotiations between France and Spain, see Von Sybel, French Revolu tion, 4:357-66.
193 See Duffy, Sugar, Soldiers, and Seapower, pt. 1 .
'94 A detailed account of the Quiberon raid is in Hutt, Chouannerie and Counterrevolution, 2:269-325.
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the Directory made delicate inquiries regarding peace with Austria at about this time as well.
Unfortunately for France, the dismantling of the Jacobin dictatorship had undermined its capacity to mobilize the nation for war, and its mili- tary forces fell to fewer than 450,000 men by the fall of 1795. 195 Russia joined the Coalition in September (though it did not participate in the fighting), and the final partition of Poland allowed Austria to devote greater attention to France. England granted Austria another loan in May, and Austria won a series of important victories in September and October and were threatening the French positions by November. 196 Convinced that more favorable terms would be forthcoming, the Austrians now re- jected the French peace offers. England's response was similar: although Pitt had beg\Jln secret peace negotiations following the passage of the new French constitution in September, the talks foundered over the Direc-
tory's refusal to relinquish Belgium. 197
The campaigns of 179fHj7 struck the final blow against the First Coali- tion. The Directory intended the brunt to fall on Germany while the Army of Italy tied up Austrian forces and acquired "bargaining chips" for subse- quent negotiation. The French armies resumed the offensive in May, took Frankfurt and Nuremburg by the end of July, and occupied Munich and Ulm in August. Combined with Bonaparte's victories in Italy (see below), these successes led to renewed peace talks with Austria and a series of armistices with the lesser German states. The prospect of a Franco-Austrian settlement convinced Prussia to cede its territories on the left bank in ex- change for territorial concessions elsewhere, and the new understanding was enshrined in the Treaty of Berlin in July. Although it remained contin- gent on the Imperial Diet's consent, the agreement brought France closer to formal annexation of the Rhimiland. 198 Military reversals soon undermined these diplomatic achievements, however; Austrian forces under Charles V defeated the French forces at Altenkirchen in September and drove another French army back across the Rhine shortly thereafter.
195 Alan Forrest reports that France had 750,000 men in arms in September 1794, fewer than 500,000 a year later, only 400,000 in July 1796, and roughly 325,000 by September 1798. Con- scripts and Deserters: The Army and French Society during the Revolution and Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 34?
196 Austria's victories were facilitated by the dilatory conduct of the commander of the French Army of the Rhine, Jean-Charles Pichegru, who was collaborating with a group of royalist emigres and receiving bribes from English intelligence agents in Switzerland. See Mitchell, Underground War, 6o-6J, 1 1 8-24; Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 53-54; Palmer, Democratic Revolution, 2:227.
197 In addition to retaining Belgium, the French insisted that England relinquish its colonial conquests, and Pitt concluded that England would have to wait "for the return of reason in our deluded enemy. " Quoted in Ehrman, Reluctant Transition, 6o7; see also Rose, "Struggle with Revolutionary France," 261-65; and Ross, European Diplomatic History, 1 15-16.
198 On the Treaty of Berlin, see Biro, German Policy, 615-19.
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In Italy, by contrast, the French armies won a series of stunning victories that eventually forced Austria to negotiate in earnest. Under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Army of Italy took Piedmont in April, forced Sardinia to make peace in May, and followed up these victories with a suc- cessful invasion of Lombardy. Milan fell on May 15. Venice, Verona, and the papacy had agreed to armistices by the end of June. The French then de- feated a detachment of Austrian reinforcements in August and trapped them at Mantua, which fell after a long siege in February 1797.
Although Reubell and several other directors opposed "revolutionizing" Italy for fear that it would prolong the war, Bonaparte had ignored their ob- jections and set up a number of "republican" governments in the wake of his victorious army. 199 After establishing a new regime in Lombardy and proclaiming a "Cispadane Republic" in December 1796, he created "Vene- tian" and "Ligurian" republics in May and June and, in July, combined Lombardy and the Cispadane Republic into the "Cisalpine Republic. " To- gether with the Batavian Republic in Holland, these new states comprised the "sister republics" of revolutionary France. Nominally independent and equipped with constitutions similar to the French, they endured the same
"benefits" of French occupation that Belgium and the Rhineland had.
? ? ? terfere in any manner in the government of other powers. "155 By the fall, Robespierre was insisting the revolution should be spread not by force but by example, telling the Convention that "the French are not afflicted with a mania for rendering any nation happy and free despite itsel? . "156 Similarly, when it became clear that efforts to "promote liberty" via propaganda and
subversion were undermining French relations with several neutral powers (such as the United States and the Swiss Confederation), France's leaders re- called their agents and suspended their subversive efforts. 157
The waning of revolutionary internationalism was accompanied by a growing xenophobia, once again triggered by the pervasive fear of foreign plots. 158 In December, Robespierre accused foreign revolutionaries such as Anacharsis Cloots of dragging France into a dangerous and unprofitable war, informing the Jacobin Club, "! distrust without distinction all those for- eigners . . . who endeavour to appear more republican and energetic than we are. "159 While serving as representant en mission in Alsace in December, Saint-Just disbanded a group of local republicans who advocated universal liberty; one of his assistants advised Robespierre "not to listen to these cos- mopolitan charlatans and to trust only in ourselves. " The CPS denied a pe- tition for assistance from a group 'of Dutch revolutionaries in March, and nt eventually dissolved the foreign legions that the Assembly had created in
1792. Thus, by 1794 the earlier visions of a universal crusade for liberty had faded almost completely. 160
Moderation was also apparent in French policy toward neutral states. De- spite an improving military posture, pressure from local officials, and the
155 As Da11t1 on told the deputies: "In a moment of enthusiasm you passed a decree whose motive was doubtless fine . . . [but) this decree appeared to commit you to support a few p<? ? triots who might wish to start a revolution in China. Above all we need to look to the preser? vation of our own body politic and lay the foundation of French greatness. " Quoted i111 Blanning, French Revolution and Germany, 70; and see also Stewart, Documentary Survey, 426-27.
156 Robespierre also emphasized the need to stop "our generals and our armies [from in- terfering) in [others') political affairs; it is the only means of preventing intrigues which can terminate our glorious revolution. " Quoted in Biro, German Policy, 1:18? 9.
157 See Eugene R. Sheridan, "The Recall of Edmund Charles Genet," Diplomatic History 18, no. 4 (1994); and David Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy: The Foreign Policy of the Robes- pierrist Committee on Public Safety" (Ph. D. diss. , University of Washington, 1974}, 56-65, 94o 96-103.
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? 158 The fear of foreign plots, magnified by Dumouriez's treason, helped lead to the ouster of the Girondin leaders in June. These fears grew in the fall, when a Montagnard deputy in- formed the CPS that the republic faced a vast foreign conspiracy whose members included Convention deputies, foreign ministry officials, and Marie-Joseph Herault de Sechelles, a member of the CPS itself. See Mathiez, Revolution et les etrangers, 164? 6; and Silverman, "In- formal Diplomacy," 106-107.
159 Quoted in Mathiez, French Revolution, 419; and see also Silverman, "Informal Diplo- macy," 130.
160 Quoted in Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," 108 n. 5?
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massacre of several French sailors by a group of English seamen, the CPS chose to respect Genoese neutrality during the fall of 1793. When an attempt to undermine English commerce with a discriminatory Navigation Act damaged relations with neutral states and brought French foreign trade to a standstill, the CPS promptly suspended the act and embarked on efforts to rebuild ties with neutral powers. 161
As noted earlier, the exigencies of war had also forced the republic to abandon its idealistic principles and systematically exploit conquered re- gions in order to sustain its war effort. The tension between universal ideals and selfish national interests was already apparent in the fall of 1792, and the decree of December 15, 1792, was the first step toward a more self-serving policy. The issue was moot so long as France was on the defensive, but when its military fortunes improved, the Convention or- dered army commanders to renounce "every philanthropic idea previ- ously adopted by the French people with the intention of making foreign nations appreciate the values and benefits of liberty. " Now, the French armies were to "behave towards the enemies of France in just the same way that the powers of the Coalition have behaved towards them . . . and exercise . . . the customary rights of war. " In a sharp departure from its original ideals, therefore, the republic was now justifying the exploitation of occupied territories on the grounds that other great powers acted the same wayP62 As the French armies continued to advance, the exploitation of conquered territory became a way of life. The CPS established agencies of evacuation to coordinate the exploitation of foreign resources in May 1794, and Carnot, who was responsible for military mobilization, de- clared, "We must live at the expense of the enemy . . . , we are not entering his territory to bring him money. "163 Even measures of apparent restraint masked self-interested motives: prior to the occupation of Holland in Jan- uary 1795, the CPS informed its generals that "the interest of the Republic is to reassure the Dutch so that they do not emigrate with their riches. . . . It is necessary to safeguard the rights of property so that Holland will fur- nish us with provisions. "164
161 See Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," 86-8- 7, 92, 135-38.
162 Quoted in Blanning, French Revolution in Germany, 72; and see also Biro, German Policy, 1:191-<)2, 207-208.
163 When the French reoccupied Belgium in July, Carnot declared that "all that is found in Belgium must be sent back to France. . . . It is necessary to despoil the country and make it im- possible to furnish means for the enemy to return. " Although Carnot emphasized that French requisitions should be confined to the rich and that the occupiers should respect Belgian cus- toms, these restrictions were usually ignored in practice. See Silverman, "Informal Diplo- macy," 228-30; and Biro, German Policy, 1:230.
164 Quoted in Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 181. French policy in the Rhineland was evell\ more severe, and the winter of 1 793-94 became known as the "Plunder Winter. " See Blan- ning, French Revolution in Germany, chap. 3; and Biro, German Policy, 1 :205-207.
? ? A final sign of deradicalization was France's intermittent effort to im- prove its diplomatic position and negotiate an end to the war. During his tenure on the first CPS, Danton tried unsuccessfully to attract Sweden, Den- mark, the Ottoman Empire, and several other states into an alliance with France, while simultaneously seeking to isolate Austria by courting Prussia. Similarly, Lebrun made an indirect offer to support the Prussian acquisition of several smaller German states in April and extended Prussia a free hand in Poland in May. These concessions led to direct negotiations between French and Prussian agents. The minister of the interior told the Convention that peace might be imminent, but the negotiations were cut off when Dan- ton was removed froiJl the CPS in July. 165
French leaders' efforts to initiate talks with England and Austria were less successful. lebrun made a tentative overture to England through a Welsh tea dealer and intriguer named James Tilly Matthews, and although the Mon- tagnards permitted Lebrun to continue his efforts after his arrest in June, these informal contacts failed to bear fruit. 166 France also sent envoys to sev- eral ltalian courts to see if they would renew an alliance with France in ex- change for the release of Marie Antoinette, but this overly subtle attempt to probe Austrian intentions led nowhere. 167 Danton held private discussions with an English agent in December 1793 (with the apparent approval of the CPS). An agent was instructed to open indirect negotations with England at about the same time, while England made overtures to France via Phillipe Noel, the French envoy at Venice. Foreign Minister Franc;ois Deforgues es- tablished indirect and direct contacts with Prussia in a further attempt to sep- arate it from Vienna, and there is even some evidence that Robespierre sent an agent to explore the possibility of peace with Austria in May 1794. 168
These efforts failed for a number of reasons. France's bargaining position was initially quite weak, and the Coalition had little reason to make peace when its opponent seemed ready to collapse. The domestic climate within France was unfavorable as well, as any effort to pursue peace left one ex- posed to accusations of treason. Indeed, pressure from the Hebertists even- tually led the Convention to outlaw negotiations with states that did not recognize tlhe republic, resulting in the severing of direct diplomatic contacts with all countries except the United States and the Swiss Confederation. 169
165 On these various offers, see Biro, German Policy, 1 : 163-65; Von Sybel, French Revolution, 3:47-53; and Alphonse Aulard, "La diplomatie du premier Comite de salut public," in his Etudes et /e? orns sur Ia rroolutionfran? aise, 3d ser. (Paris: Felix Alcan, H)02), 121-22, 205.
166 Williams, "Missions of Williams and Matthews," 66o-65 and passim.
167 Aulard, "Diplomatie du premier Comite de salut public," 135-36.
168 Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," no--12, 14o-4- 7. Historians remain divided over
whether the latter negotiations actually took place; see Biro, German Policy, 1 :222-36.
169 The April 1793 decree renouncing support for "foreign patriots" had also imposed the death penalty for proposing negotiations with states "which have not previously solemnly rec-
ognized . . . the French nation. . . [and] its sovereignty. " Stewart, Documentary Survey, 426-27.
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This constraint forced Foreign Minister Deforgues to rely on indirect con- tacts, via neutral agents, and confined subsequent peace overtures to obscure and unreliable back channels. In addition, key members of the Coalition had different aims and interests, making it difficult to devise a settlement that would be acceptable to all. Finally, as a result of a series of French victories in the fall of 1793, an immediate peace seemed less necessary and the republic hardened its diplomatic position. Although states such as Prussia were in- creasingly willing to settle, prominent Jacobins now argued that only all-out war would gain them acceptable terms. As one member of the CPS, Bertrand Barere, told the Convention in January: "In wars of liberty there is only one means: it is to ruin and exterminate the despots. . . . There is neither peace
nor truce, nor armistice, nor any treaty to make with the despots until the Republic is consolidated, triumphant, and dictating peace to the nations. "170 Such statements reveal that the process of deradicalization was still incom- plete. They also illustrate how domestic divisions prevented France from splitting the alliance even when a separate peace was within reach.
In short, although the French Republic had not abandoned all of its ideo- logical principles, its policies in 1793-94 were a striking departure from the lofty visions that had driven France to war in 1792-93. And by mobilizing its latent potential and moderating its more unrealistic schemes, revolution- ary France escaped defeat once again.
Divisions within the opposing coalition played a key role in the survival of the revolution as well. Austria and Prussia were increasingly at odds; each blamed the other for their. poor performance in 1792, and Frederick William's commitment to the war declined even more after Prussia and Russia signed a secret agreement for a second partition of Poland in January 1793. Once the Allies reconquered Belgium in the summer of 1793, he an- nounced that Prussia would continue the war only if he were granted an- other subsidy. He ordered his generals to leave the French Army intact and to give only limited assistance to his Austrian ally. The allied advance re- sumed after England agreed to provide additional funds, but Prussia's com- mitment to the Coalition remained shaky at best. It vanished entirely after Austria and Russia mended fences and arranged a final partition of Poland in 1794, and Frederick William soon decided to abandon the war with France in order to preserve his gains nn the east. 171
170 Barere also invoked the fear of traitors by asking, "Who then dare to speak of peace? [Only] aristocrats, the rich, . . . the friends of conspirators, . . . bad citizens, false patriots. . . . What we need today is redoubled boldness against conspirators, . . . redoubled scrutiny against men who call themselves patriots. " Quoted in Silverman, "Informal Diplomacy," 156-59; see Leo Gershoy, Bertrand Barere: A Reluctant Terrorist (Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1962), 157-59; 207-208.
171 In the words of Paul Schroeder, "the allied coalition was wrecked more by internal divi- sions than French victories. " Transformation ofEuropean Politics, 138; also see Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder, 27-48.
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England's leaders tried to transform the coalition into a unified alliance, but their own priorities were far from clear and not always compatible with the aims of nts putative allies. Having entered the war solely to halt French expansion, the government gradually came to view the restoration of the
monarchy as an essential strategic objective. 172 English leaders were them- selves divided on what strategy to follow. Like their allies, they proved un- able to resist the lure of territorial acquisitions. Even though the main road to victory lay in the battlefields of the Low Countries and the Rhineland, England sent nearly seven thousand troops to seize the French colonies in the Caribbean and another five thousand to support a counterrevolutionary uprising at Toulon. 173 These diversions weakened the coalition's military ef- fort and rekindled Spanish opposition to English colonial expansion, leav- ing Spain more susceptible to subsequent French blandishments.
Instead of banding together against revolutionary France, in short, the members of the First Coalition were more interested in acquiring territory for themselves than in forging a strategy that might have made such acqui- sitions possible. The combined effects of French mobilization and allied dis- unity were soon apparent: French victories at Hondschoote and Wattignies halted the Alllied advance in the fall of 1793, and an Allied attempt to re- sume the initiative in April 1794 was soundly defeated. The French armies won a decisive victory at Tourcoing in May and had reoccupied Brussels, Antwerp, and Liege by midsummer, along with most of the left bank of the Rhine. The Spaniards and Sardinians were driven back in the south, and the counterrevolutionary rebellions inside France were beginning to subside as well. By the fall of 1794, the threat to the republic had been lifted and France had resumed its expansionist course.
From Thermidor to the Directory. As noted earlier, the easing of the foreign danger in the spring allowed rifts to reemerge within the CPS and the Con- vention. Convinced that the Indulgents and the Hebertists posed threats to the revolution, Robespierre and his followers now took the offensive against both. After mending fences with Danton and cultivating the sans-culottes with a series of generous economic decrees, the CPS brought the Hebertists
m Thus, the commissioners in Toulon were informed that "the acknowledgement of an hereditary monarchy . . . affords the only probable ground for restoring regular government in France," and a royal manifesto in October 1793 invited the French to "join the Standard of an Hereditary Monarchy, . . . in order to unite themselves once more under the Empire of Law, of Morality, and of Religion. " In 1794, Pitt remarked that he "had no idea of any peace being secure, unless France returned to a monarchical system. " Quoted in Mitchell, Under- ground War, 34; Cobban, Debate on the French Revolution, 46o-62; and McKay and Scott, Rise of the Great Powers, 27J.
173 See Michael Duffy, Sugar, Soldiers, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987); and Ehrman, Reluc- tant Transition, esp. 303.
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before the Paris tribunal and executed them on March 23. Danton and sev- eral associates followed them to the guillotine two weeks later, leaving Robespierre and his supporters free to wage war against suspected counter- revolutionaries in the name of the Republic of Virtue. The law of 22 Prairial (June 10, 1794) streamlined the work of the revolutionary tribunals and broadened the list of capital offenses, and the guillotines claimed over two thousand victims in the next two months alone. 174
The Great Terror marked the final stage of the Jacobin republic. Now con- vinced that Robespierre sought to establish a personal dictatorship, a faction within the CPS organized a coup. Robespierre defended his actions by again invoking the danger of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy, but the deputies had finally turned against him and he was arrested and subsequently exe- cuted on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794), along with Saint-Just and several others.
The Jacobin dictatorship had saved the republic, but Robespierre's suc- cessors began dismantling it as soon as he was gone. 175 The Jacobin Club was banned in November, and a White Terror soon arose against suspected Jacobins. The end of the revolutionary dictatorship did not bring political stability, however, and food shortages, rising prices, and an extremely cold winter sparked violent demonstrations by the Parisian sans-culottes in Ger- minal and Prairial, Year III (April-May 1795). Unlike in past upheavals, however, the demonstrators were quickly suppressed by government troops. 176 Even more important, the end of the Terror allowed royalists, Girondins, emigres, and loyal Catholics to reenter political life. Given the enduring divisions within French society (which had been exacerbated by the revolution and the Terror), it was now nearly impossible for any gov- ernment to gain broad popular support.
The political weakness of the Thermidorean regime was institutionalized by the Constitution of the Year III. Enacted in September 1795, the new con- stitution established a bicameral Assembly chosen by indirect elections, with suffrage restricted to males over twenty-one and participation in the
174 The ouster of the Hebertists and Dantonists is described in Thompson, French Revolution, 452-60. For Robespierre's vision of the ideal republic, see Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled, 275-77; and Thompson, Robespierre, 45<r-55, 485-96. On the magnitude of the Terror, see Donald Greer, The Incidence ofthe Terror in the French Revolution: A Statistical Interpretation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935); and Schama, Citizens, 836-37.
175 The Convention quickly repealed the law of 22 Prairial, curtailed the use of terror, abol- ished price controls, suspended the levee en masse, and abandoned reliance on the represen- tants en mission. Several Girondin deputies were readmitted to the Convention, and the CPS also offered an amnesty to the rebels in the Vendee and partially restored freedom of religion. See Lefebvre, French Revolution, 2:137-42; Stewart, Documentary Survey, 538-552; and Denis Woronoff, The Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 1 794-1 799, trans. Julian Jackson (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1-10, 2<r-22.
176 According to Lefebvre, the government's victory over the popular forces in Paris on 3 Prairial marks "the date which should be taken as the end of the Revolution. Its mainspring was now broken. " French Revolution, 2:144-45.
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? ? second electoral stage limited by strict property qualifications. Executive powers were assigned to a five-man Directory chosen by the two legislative Councils, and one-third of each Council and one of the five directors were to be replaced each year. 177 Intended as a safeguard against dictatorship, these measures deprived the executive of stability and authority. Not only was the executive vulnerable to disputes among the directors, but its membership was constantly changing owing to the rotation of deputies in the Councils. 178 Moreover, by seeking to restore the moderate order envisioned in the Con- stitution of 1791 (minus the monarchy, of course}, the Directory guaranteed its own unpopularity. Royalists rejected it because there was no king, die- hard republicans opposed the property restrictions and preferred the more egalitarian Constitution of 1793, and both groups remained fearful that the other might regain power. Thus, the Directory rested on an extremely nar- row political base and faced repeated challenges from resurgent royalists and unrepentant republicans alike. 179 Even before the constitution was com- pleted, evidence of increasing royalist strength led the leaders of the Con- vention to decree that two-thirds of the seats in the new Councils would be chosen from among their own ranks. This measure, which guaranteed that moderate republicans would control the new Councils, provoked a two-day
uprising by Parisian royalists on 12-13 Vendemiaire , Year IV (October 4-5, 1795). Hardly an auspicious beginning, this turmoil was a clear indication of the Directory's shaky foundation. 180
These problems were compounded by irregular food supplies, growing disparities of income, alternating periods of inflation and deflation, and en- during budgetary problems. Recurrent counterrevolutionary disturbances did nothing to help the French economy, and although the Directory ex- ploited its foreign conquests relentlessly, these gains were negated by the
m For the text of the new Constitution, see Stewart, Documentary Survey, 571-612; for analyses of its provisions, see Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and Directory, 29-31; Martyn Lyons, France under the Directory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 18-20; Sutherland,France,272-'75;andLefebvre,FrenchRevolution,2:16o-4-6 .
178 The director to be replaced each year was chosen by drawing lots. For the changing composition of the Directory, see Jones, Longman Companion to the French Revolution, 82-83; Albert Goodwin, "The French Executive Directory-ARevaluation," in The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations, ed. Frank Kafker and James M. Laux, 2d ed. (Malabar, Fla. : Krieger, 1989); and M. J. Sydenham, The First French Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), J2J-41.
179 According to Sutherland, "the Directory has a totally justified reputation as one of the most chaotic periods in modem French history. " France, 279? For a dissenting view, see Good- win, "French Executive Directory. "
180 The Vendemiaire uprising marked the political debut of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose troops fired the "whiff of grapeshot" that helped defeat the royalist groups. See Rude, Crowd in the French Revolution, chap. n; Jacques Godechot, The Counterrevolution: Doctrine and Ac- tion, 1789-1804, trans. Salvator Attanasio (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 26o-62; Sydenham, First French Republic, 76-82; and Harvey Mitchell, "Vendemiaire: A Reval- uation," Journal ofModern History JO, no. 3 (1958), 191-202.
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damage done to French foreign trade. The Directory did much to stabilize French fiscal policy over the longer term, but the short-term costs were se- vere and contributed greatly to the country's political weakness. 181
The Foreign Policy of the Directory. The political divisions within France and the weakness of the new regime had important effects on French foreign policy and its conduct of the war. To begin with, there was no con- sensus on what France's war aims should be. 182 Royalists favored the re- nunciation of prior French conquests, seeing that as the swiftest route to peace and a restoration of the monarchy. Moderates within the Directory sought only limited territorial acquisitions, on the grounds that further ex- pansion would undermine French power and lead to incessant warfare. 183
The dominant position, however, was held by the advocates of "natural borders," whose ranks included most of the leading figures of the Thermi- dorean period and the first Directory. According to this view, France's bor- ders had been "ordained by nature" and consisted of the Atlantic, the Pyrenees, the Alps, and most importantly, the Rhine. To obtain these limits, France would have to annex Belgium and the entire left bank of the Rhine, including German states belonging to Prussia and Austria or falling under Francis II's protection in his capacity as head of the Holy Roman Empire.
To justify prolonging the war, supporters of "les grandes limites" argued that expansion to the Rhine would greatly enhance French security. As Mer- lin de Douai told the Convention in December 1794: "We want [a peace] guaranteed by our own power and the powerlessness of our enemies ever to harm us. " Another member of the CPS, Fran\ois-Antoine Boissy d'Anglas, told the Convention that the borders designated by nature would protect France from "all invasion . . . for a long series of centuries," and Jean-Jacques Cambaceres, a prominent Thermidorean, declared, "When a nation has risen in arms against invasion, . . . it should use its power to ensure that [its rights] will be respected forever. " Others suggested that France required additional territory in order to counter the Prussian and Austrian gains in Poland and
181 Economic conditions and policies under the Directory are summarized in Sydenham, First French Republic, 96-100, 182-86; Goodwin, "French Executive Directory," 326-32; Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, chap. 4; Lyons, France under the Directory, chaps. 4-5, 12; and Michel Bruguiere, "Assignats," in Furet and Ozouf, Critical Dictionary, 426-)6.
182 On the different positions, see Ross, European Diplomatic History, no-112; Lyons, France under the Directon;, 19<>-91; Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 27, 61-63; and Biro, German Policy, 2:488-<)8, 5oo-5o6.
183 Thus, Camot told the CPS in July 1794- "We could, if we so wished, plant the liberty tree on the banks of the Rhine and unite to France all the former territory of the Gauls, but how- ever seductive this system might be, . . . France can only weaken herself and sow the seeds of an endless war by expanding her territory in this way. " It should be noted that Camot's views on this issue fluctuated greatly. See Richet, "Natural Borders," 76o-61; Biro, German Policy, 1 :235, 263, 2:504-505; and Blanning, French Revolution in Germany, 75?
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preserve the balance of power; as Jean-Fran<<;ois Reubell put it, "The object of the pacification of France should be not so much to acquire indemnities, as to restore that equilibrium on which its safety depends. " Supporters of expan- sion also emphasized the wealth of the neighboring regions and argued that
annexation would redeem France's inflated currency, bolster the French economy, and sustain its military effort. And to combat the assertion that oc- cupation or annexation would be unpopular, advocates claimed that the local populations believed "they have all to gain by being French. "184
The advocates of expansion lacked the political power to impose their preferences arbitrarily, and obtaining the "natural borders" would in any case require additional military successes. So long as Reubell was the dom- inant figure in the Directory, however, this group had the greatest influence over French war aims. Reubell was especially interested in protecting the French position in his native Alsace, and his control over foreign policy en- sured that the goal of les grandes limites was never entirely abandoned. 185
Several other factors strengthened the expansionist thrust of French for- eign policy and reduced the prospects for peace. The first was economic: be- cause the ravaged French economy could not keep the army supplied, it had become reliant on requisitions and levies from the occupied territories. Thus, the Directory told General Moreau that he should "nourish the Army with the fruit of its courage" and reminded General Jourdan that "the great art of war is to live at the expense of the enemy. "186
France's dependence on the lands it occupied was compounded by the in- dependence of local representatives and military commanders and also by the opportunities for personal enrichment that occupation afforded. The Di- rectory had abandoned the Jacobin system of central supply and given pri- vate contractors the task of supplying the army. This policy allowed the generals even greater freedom of action and created a powerful domestic constituency whose financial well-being was sustained by war. 187 To make
184 These quotations are from Biro, German Policy, 1:263, 335, 427-38, 2:513; and Blanning, French Revolu tion in Germany, 74?
? ? 185 See Gerlof D. Homan, ]ean-Franfois Reubell: French Revolutionary, Patriot, and Director (1747-1807) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), esp. 89.
186 As Blanning notes, "neither in nature, scope, nor intensity was the exploitation of the Rhineland exceptional. The conditions which dictated exploitation-the penury of the gov- ernment, the size of the armies, the scale of the war-applied with roughly equal force to all other parts of French-occupied Europe. " See his French Revolution in Germany, chap. 3, esp. 127-28; and Biro, German Policy, 2:65o-6o.
181 Thus, one French official admitted, "Our expedition [across) the Rhine . . . was due en- tirely to pecuniary considerations. . . . Our incursion into a rich and defenseless country was to proaire us the money of which we were in such dire need. " Quoted in Geoffrey Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe, 177o-187o (London: Oxford University Press, 1982), 92-93. On the growing independence of the army, see lyons, France under the Directory, 155-58. Ac- cording to Woronoff, by 1796 "the war was no longer concerned with national defense, but with conquest-or even merely plunder. " Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 64? 7, 74?
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matters worse, the deep divisions within French society and the lack of broad popular support forced the Directory to rely on the army to keep it- self in power. Bonaparte's "whiff of grapeshot" had halted the Vendemiaire uprising, and military support would be needed to defuse the royalist chal- lenge in Fructidor, Year V (September 1797) and the neo-Jacobin resurgence
of Floreal, Year VI (April 1798). Thus, the Directory had become dependent on the goodwill of its generals, and the army and its suppliers had become addicted to expansion, a combination wholly fatal to any serious effort to make peace.
. There is also evidence that the directors feared that peace would bring ad- verse domestic consequences-and greater royalist influence-unless they obtained tangible gains from the war. Abbe Sieyes told a Prussian diplomat in May 1795, "We need to obtain a glorious peace," and he later warned that the Directory "would be lost if peace were made. " Other directors feared that peace would expose them to charges of corruption, force the discharge of proroyalist troops, and reveal that economic hardship in France was due to their own mistakes rather than the war. The danger of direct military in- terference was equally worrisome; as one of the directors put it, "Make peace! And what will you do with the generals? Would they cultivate greens? "188
In short, although several directors recognized that a negotiated settle- ment was desirable, six years of revolution and war had created a formida- ble engine of expansion. Some of the directors now opposed further expansion, and in the words of Martyn Lyons, the foreign policy of the Di- rectory "oscillated between the defence of [the] natural frontiers, . . . and the creation of semi-independent sister republics," depending on shifts of mili- tary fortune and which faction enjoyed the dominant position in the execu- tive. 189 Despite the growing desire for peace and several promising diplomatic opportunities, therefore, the Directory was unable to take France out of the war.
TheCollapseoftheFirstCoalition. France'sinabilitytomakepeacewases- pecially tragic in light of its favorable military position. Amsterdam had fallen to the French in January 1795, and Dutch sympathizers quickly pro- claimed a "Batavian Republic" and signed a one-sided treaty of alliance in May. 190 Tuscany made peace in February, and peace talks between Prussia
? 188 Quoted in Biro, German Policy, 1:375, 2:509-10; and see also Rothenburg, "Wars of the French Revolution," 214-15.
189 See Lyons, France under the Directory, 190--<)l; and also Blanning, French Revolution in Ger- many, 75?
190 ThetextofthetreatyisinStewart,DocumentarySurvey,567-71. Fordetailsontheoccu- pation and negotiations, see Scharna, Patriots and Liberators, 178-210; and Palmer, Democratic Revolution, 2:18<>-92.
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and France took on new life. Frederick William, whose finances were dwin- dling rapidly, had no reason to continue fighting now that his ambitions in Poland had been satisfied. 191 His decision was simplified by England's re- luctance to grant additional subsidies and Vienna's collusion with Russia in a third partition of Poland, and Prussia and France signed a peace treaty in Basel in April. The German princes of the Holy Roman Empire accepted Prussian mediation in their own negotiations with France, and Spain signed a peace treaty with France at the end of July. 192
England's efforts to hold the Coalition together were undermined by mil- itary setbacks of its own. Although England had seized several French and Dutch colonies, the occupation of Toulon had to be abandoned at the end of
1793 and the expedition to Santo Domingo had turned into a costly quag- mire. 193 The French conquest of Holland had confined English forces on the continent to Hanover, and an amphibious landing in Brittany in June 1795 was a total failure. Convinced by French emigres that the expedition would spark a large counterrevolutionary uprising, the English landed an army of some thirty-three hundred emigres at Camac on June 27, where they were joined by several thousand members of the local resistance. But the quarrel- some emigres failed to coordinate their actions with their local allies, and the expedition was quickly "trapped like rats" (as the French commander put it) on the narrow Quiberon Peninsula. Efforts to evacuate them were only partially successful, and more than six hundred emigres were captured and executed. The fiasco marked the emigres' last major effort to spark an armed counterrevolution in France. 194
By the fall of 1795, therefore, the main counterrevolutionary efforts in France had been quelled and the coalition against France had been re- duced to England, Austria, and a handful of German and Italian states. The fate of the Rhineland awaited a final peace settlement with Austria and the lesser German states, but the Convention had already voted to annex Belgium and Liege on 9 Vendemiaire, Year III. The decision not to annex the left bank outright also reflected France's reluctance to antago- nize Prussia (which it hoped to draw into an alliance at a later date), and
191 Frederick William told an English envoy in February that despite his "invariable abhor- rence of the Fre111ch principles, . . . it was necessity alone that governed his conduct, and . . . another campaign would completely exhaust his treasure. " Quoted in Biro, German Policy, 1:340.
192 The Treaty of Basel established a neutral zone along the northeastern border and per- mitted French troops to remain in Prussian territory on the left bank of the Rhine pending "the general pacification between France and the Germanic Empire. " See Stewart, Documen- tary Survey, 563-67; and Biro, German Policy, vol. 1, chaps. 8--c). On the negotiations between France and Spain, see Von Sybel, French Revolu tion, 4:357-66.
193 See Duffy, Sugar, Soldiers, and Seapower, pt. 1 .
'94 A detailed account of the Quiberon raid is in Hutt, Chouannerie and Counterrevolution, 2:269-325.
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the Directory made delicate inquiries regarding peace with Austria at about this time as well.
Unfortunately for France, the dismantling of the Jacobin dictatorship had undermined its capacity to mobilize the nation for war, and its mili- tary forces fell to fewer than 450,000 men by the fall of 1795. 195 Russia joined the Coalition in September (though it did not participate in the fighting), and the final partition of Poland allowed Austria to devote greater attention to France. England granted Austria another loan in May, and Austria won a series of important victories in September and October and were threatening the French positions by November. 196 Convinced that more favorable terms would be forthcoming, the Austrians now re- jected the French peace offers. England's response was similar: although Pitt had beg\Jln secret peace negotiations following the passage of the new French constitution in September, the talks foundered over the Direc-
tory's refusal to relinquish Belgium. 197
The campaigns of 179fHj7 struck the final blow against the First Coali- tion. The Directory intended the brunt to fall on Germany while the Army of Italy tied up Austrian forces and acquired "bargaining chips" for subse- quent negotiation. The French armies resumed the offensive in May, took Frankfurt and Nuremburg by the end of July, and occupied Munich and Ulm in August. Combined with Bonaparte's victories in Italy (see below), these successes led to renewed peace talks with Austria and a series of armistices with the lesser German states. The prospect of a Franco-Austrian settlement convinced Prussia to cede its territories on the left bank in ex- change for territorial concessions elsewhere, and the new understanding was enshrined in the Treaty of Berlin in July. Although it remained contin- gent on the Imperial Diet's consent, the agreement brought France closer to formal annexation of the Rhimiland. 198 Military reversals soon undermined these diplomatic achievements, however; Austrian forces under Charles V defeated the French forces at Altenkirchen in September and drove another French army back across the Rhine shortly thereafter.
195 Alan Forrest reports that France had 750,000 men in arms in September 1794, fewer than 500,000 a year later, only 400,000 in July 1796, and roughly 325,000 by September 1798. Con- scripts and Deserters: The Army and French Society during the Revolution and Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 34?
196 Austria's victories were facilitated by the dilatory conduct of the commander of the French Army of the Rhine, Jean-Charles Pichegru, who was collaborating with a group of royalist emigres and receiving bribes from English intelligence agents in Switzerland. See Mitchell, Underground War, 6o-6J, 1 1 8-24; Woronoff, Thermidorean Regime and the Directory, 53-54; Palmer, Democratic Revolution, 2:227.
197 In addition to retaining Belgium, the French insisted that England relinquish its colonial conquests, and Pitt concluded that England would have to wait "for the return of reason in our deluded enemy. " Quoted in Ehrman, Reluctant Transition, 6o7; see also Rose, "Struggle with Revolutionary France," 261-65; and Ross, European Diplomatic History, 1 15-16.
198 On the Treaty of Berlin, see Biro, German Policy, 615-19.
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In Italy, by contrast, the French armies won a series of stunning victories that eventually forced Austria to negotiate in earnest. Under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Army of Italy took Piedmont in April, forced Sardinia to make peace in May, and followed up these victories with a suc- cessful invasion of Lombardy. Milan fell on May 15. Venice, Verona, and the papacy had agreed to armistices by the end of June. The French then de- feated a detachment of Austrian reinforcements in August and trapped them at Mantua, which fell after a long siege in February 1797.
Although Reubell and several other directors opposed "revolutionizing" Italy for fear that it would prolong the war, Bonaparte had ignored their ob- jections and set up a number of "republican" governments in the wake of his victorious army. 199 After establishing a new regime in Lombardy and proclaiming a "Cispadane Republic" in December 1796, he created "Vene- tian" and "Ligurian" republics in May and June and, in July, combined Lombardy and the Cispadane Republic into the "Cisalpine Republic. " To- gether with the Batavian Republic in Holland, these new states comprised the "sister republics" of revolutionary France. Nominally independent and equipped with constitutions similar to the French, they endured the same
"benefits" of French occupation that Belgium and the Rhineland had.
