The Oxford History of the French Revolution

by William Doyle

  The last time military service had been imposed, it had triggered off the uprising in the Vendée and civil war. Then as now, the government imposing it had been violently anti-clerical, scorning popular religious feelings. And its response to defiance and defeat had been one of terror. The Directory seemed to be bringing the Revolution full circle; with no prospect of a stable and durable settlement of the problems which for the best part of a decade had torn France, and much of Europe too, apart. In the course of the ensuing year even the army, which had hitherto sustained and defended the Directory, would come to this dispiriting conclusion. Then the end of the Revolution would at last be in sight.

  15

  Occupied Europe, 1794–1799

  Pitt’s decision to send a squadron to the Mediterranean in the spring of 1798 was a bold gamble. It involved depleting the Channel fleet by eight capital ships, leaving it with far from overwhelming superiority to the known strength of the French navy in the western ports. And when the order was sent out, on 29 April, the British cabinet had known for six weeks that an uprising was imminent in Ireland, and that its leaders expected French help. The French had proved in December 1796 that they could mount a major expedition against Ireland and elude the British fleet. Only bad luck had prevented them from landing. Three months later they actually did land a small force of released convicts and desperadoes on the coast of Pembrokeshire in the hope that they might launch a British chouannerie. They were soon rounded up—but the fragility of British command of the seas stood exposed.

  All this immeasurably encouraged Irish revolutionaries. Since 1795 the United Irishmen had worked to establish a country-wide organization by integrating themselves with the network of agrarian secret societies, the Defenders, which had grown up over the preceding decade. The Defenders were not much interested in politics. Originating in sectarian rivalry for land in Ulster, they had become general redressers of rural grievances, with overwhelmingly local concerns. But they inherited age-old traditions of French help; and as soaring population, poor harvests, and economic disruption resulting from the war brought increasing hardship to the Irish countryside, they seemed ripe for integration into the insurrectionary plans of Ireland’s urban radicals, who were now dreaming of national independence. Though the failure of Hoche’s expedition disappointed them, it fired their hopes for the future. Numbers taking the United Irish oath soared in 1797, and as the British fleet mutinied they impatiently awaited a new French landing. In fact there was little hope of that, especially after Hoche died in September. Remembering how Ireland had failed to stir even when the 1796 expedition had appeared in Bantry Bay, French strategists wanted tangible evidence of a rebellion, rather than promises, before even thinking of a further attempt. And while such mutual misunderstandings bedevilled hopes for an Irish revolution, the Dublin government took vigorous measures to pre-empt any uprising by disarming the most suspect areas. Starting with Ulster in the spring of 1797, it allowed an undisciplined soldiery to terrorize the countryside with floggings, burnings, and torture. The yield of hidden arms was so encouraging that these methods began to be applied further south. The United leaders began to fear that their organization would be broken before it could act. On the vaguest of rumours that the French were planning to come again in 1798, they resolved to rise. But informers had leaked their plans to the government, and on 12 March their Dublin leaders were arrested. When second-rank members precipitated a rising in Leinster in May it was squashed within days. So was another outbreak a few weeks later in Ulster. But by then sectarian panic had spread south to Wexford, a hitherto tranquil area, where no activity had been expected. There Catholic bands, whose numbers soon reached 20,000, massacred Protestants and repelled inadequate military units sent against them. A ragged rebel army marched north, but, instead of breaking out of the locality, encamped on Vinegar Hill. There, just three weeks after the Wexford outbreak began, they were pounded to pieces by heavy artillery. By the end of June the rebellion was over—or almost. News of its early success, however, had by now reached Paris, and desperate attempts were made to cobble together new task forces to help the rebels. Eventually just over a thousand men landed at Killala, in remote Mayo, on 22 August. Hundreds flocked to join them, although the Godless French were bemused to find themselves identified as soldiers of the Blessed Virgin. Some skirmishes were even won as the force marched inland to where United Irishmen (thin on the ground in Connacht) were reputedly massing. But by September there were 30,000 government troops in Ireland, and a third of them confronted General Humbert on 8 September at Ballinamuck. After token resistance, he surrendered. Other, smaller expeditions sent from France in the meantime fared no better. One of them contained Wolfe Tone, who was brought in chains to Dublin, and only evaded execution by cutting his own throat.

  The Irish uprising of 1798 never had any real chance of success. Much of Ireland was untouched by it, and many of those involved had only the vaguest notion of what their French allies stood for. The latter had neither the resources nor the commitment, by 1798, to support it as it would have required for Ireland to be detached from the British Crown or merely become, as so many of them dreamed, a British Vendée. But (unless the Polish struggle of 1794 against the partitioning powers is counted) it was the largest pro-French uprising of the revolutionary decade. It terrified both the Protestant Ascendancy who ruled Ireland and their backers in London, who had little to cheer them until news of Nelson’s Egyptian victory arrived at the beginning of October. And, although not comparable in concentrated savagery with the carnage in Warsaw on 4 November 1794, it produced perhaps 30,000 victims in 3½ months—a similar number to the Terror in France, but over a shorter period, and from a population barely one-sixth the size. And if, at this or some lesser cost, it had succeeded, the objectives of the peasant rebels, their educated urban leaders, and their French allies were far from clear or mutually compatible. The United Irish conspirators liked to imagine that, having helped them to freedom, their French liberators would leave them alone to seek their own destiny. ‘Undoubtedly,’ Wolfe Tone told a French general in July 1796,1 ‘the French must have a very great influence on the measures of our Government, in case we succeed, but … if they were wise, they would not expect any direct interference.’ Optimistic to the last, Tone discounted the general’s ominous response: ‘It might be necessary, as it was actually in Holland, where, if it were not for the continual superintendence of the French, they would suffer their throats to be cut again by the Stadtholder.’

  The Dutch Republic was the only region reached by the French armies where sympathy with the revolutionary cause was at all widespread. Patriots driven underground since 1787, and ordinary people outraged at the undisciplined behaviour of British and Prussian soldiers brought in to prop up William V, welcomed the French armies initially as liberators. The punitive peace treaty of 1795 came as a shock, but one whose impact those who now took power in Holland hoped would pass. Adopting the slogan Liberty, Equality, Fraternity at a time when it was being washed off buildings all over France, the first sister republic set about endowing itself with a more rational and democratic constitution than the age-old Union of Utrecht. But it took almost a year to decide how this should be done, and when eventually it was agreed (under mounting French pressure) that the means should be a national Convention rather than the traditional Estates-General, the body elected in March 1796 was soon immobilized by quarrels between advocates of a unitary state and Federalists. More radical elements favoured unity, and when the objections of more traditionally minded deputies brought discussion to an impasse, patriot clubs tried to bring pressure on the Convention in the well-tried Parisian manner. One of the most spectacular of these episodes was the mutiny of certain Amsterdam National Guard units against the conservative city authorities early in May. It was thwarted without loss of life, but coinciding as it did with the exposure of Babeuf’s conspiracy in France, it alerted the occupying army to the dangers of Dutch radicalism. Closer French control of t
he Batavian Republic, as Wolfe Tone was told a few weeks later, was evidently necessary. From then on the French applied steady pressure in favour of a unitary solution, and their troops were increasingly conspicuous on the streets of the major cities. Yet the eventual draft constitution, finalized in May 1797, fudged the federal issue. Submitted to a plebiscite the following August, it pleased nobody, and public endorsement by the French ambassador sealed its fate. It was rejected by 108,761 votes to 27,955. A new Convention was therefore elected, to begin the task afresh; but once more it was soon stalemated. But by now the Fructidor coup in France had removed the men of caution from the Directory and the Councils, and the Great Nation was more inclined than ever to assert its authority over its clients. The destruction of the Dutch fleet at Camperdown only confirmed the contempt felt in Paris for the ineffectiveness of the Batavians. Fructidor itself offered a model for how to get out of a political impasse, and it was eventually followed. On 22 January 1798, 22 Federalists were expelled from a Convention surrounded by troops under French orchestration. Others resigned in protest. A provisional Directory was proclaimed to handle the Republic’s affairs until a constitution took effect. A draft of such a constitution had in fact already been prepared, and over the next few weeks only a few minor amendments were made. In April it was put to another referendum, and this time it was accepted by 153,913 to 11,587.

  Two years after the French conquest, therefore, the Dutch ancien régime was at last swept away. The Estates-General, and the provinces they represented, went the same way as the Stadtholderate. So did the once-powerful guilds, the oligarchical, self-perpetuating city councils, and the established Church. The Batavian Republic was now to be one and indivisible, organized into eight roughly equal departments. A bicameral legislature, elected by all male citizens earning a living, would make the laws. In turn, the legislature would select an executive of five Directors. It was a far more democratic constitution than any adopted in France during the 1790s—but then the Dutch had practised representative government (of a sort) for centuries before 1789, and the constitution’s drafters felt confident in leap-frogging the relative novices who had given them the chance to build on their traditions. What they did not feel confident of was the continuing support of their fellow citizens. Those purged in January were kept in prison, and their supporters throughout the country were now systematically ejected from all posts of influence. And in May, with French support, they decided to guarantee their constitution by the same means the Convention in Paris had used to launch the constitution of the Year III: by perpetuating themselves. They decreed that the first elections would only choose one-third of the new legislature. The other deputies would be made up of themselves, to be deemed already elected. The result was uproar. The press, enjoying a freedom also long established in Dutch tradition, denounced the cynicism of the new Directory. From Paris it began to look as if once more the Dutch had failed to establish revolutionary stability. Having dealt with resurgent Jacobinism at home in the coup of Floréal, the French government was now keen to curb radical excesses elsewhere. Abandoning Delacroix, the ambassador who had orchestrated a year of French intrigue at The Hague, they raised no objection when Daendels, an ambitious Dutch general, launched a coup against the Batavian Directory. Having quarrelled publicly with his political masters on 16 May, Daendels ostentatiously travelled to Paris to lobby higher authority. He returned on 10 June a popular hero, cheered by all the regime’s now multifarious opponents. And, while a new French commander, Joubert, stood obligingly aside, on 12 June Daendels and his men cashiered the Directory and arrested the most vocal members of the legislature. Amazingly, Daendels did not seize power for himself. He handed it over at once to those imprisoned since January. They disclaimed all desire to perpetuate themselves, too. Instead, they called elections, and by the end of July a new legislature was in session. The constitutional life of the Batavian Republic began at last to function normally: and it did so, with regular elections, until yet another new regime in Paris decided it was unsatisfactory in the spring of 1800.

  Map 5. The expansion of revolutionary France

  Whether it would have gone on unmolested for even that long without the difficulties France was now experiencing elsewhere, with the renewal of war, seems doubtful. Dutch political life remained volatile, and the Republic persistently failed to live up to the standards of support and subservience expected by the Great Nation of its little sisters. For their part, fewer and fewer Dutchmen felt much benefit from the association. ‘What fruits, until now’, asked a moderately patriotic newspaper founded in the summer of 1798,2 ‘have the people plucked from the liberty tree, planted in the Winter of 1795? To tell the truth, not much.’ The intervening years had brought heavier taxation, and added defeat on the sea to that already sustained on land. In August 1799 an Anglo-Russian force landed in the north after the mutinous remnants of the Dutch navy surrendered to a British squadron with William V’s son on board. Only 10,000 French troops were by then stationed in the Republic, although it was still paying under the 1795 treaty for 25,000. A joint force eventually defeated the invaders, and compelled their withdrawal—but only after two months of fighting in which the British confirmed their reputation as pitiless marauders. And war against the island state had meanwhile brought ruin to Dutch trade. Overseas colonies were ruthlessly picked off, and the Republic’s ports were blockaded. Colonial goods so basic to many of the industries built up in the Republic over two centuries were either cut off or only got through at exorbitant cost. Shipbuilding and all the trades connected with it languished. Such was the price of alliance with a power bent on war to the finish with Great Britain. Nor did France offer any compensatory advantages. The army of occupation, frequently undisciplined and always demanding, paid for its requisitions until 1797 in worthless assignats. And for commercial purposes the sister republic was treated anything but fraternally. High tariff barriers excluded Dutch manufactures from what was now Europe’s largest area of free exchange, and they cut off Dutch territories lost in 1795 from economic partners of immemorial standing. The unemployment resulting from these disruptions placed intolerable strains in turn on a system of poor relief that had once been the envy of Europe. A disestablished Church now demanded funds for its upkeep that had hitherto gone, partly at least, to charity, and the role of pastors in co-ordinating relief was no longer unquestioned. In the greater cities, between a quarter and a half of the population found itself demanding relief, and municipalities went deeply into debt to provide it. Even then it was never enough. In a once-flourishing fishing port, an English traveller observed nothing but ‘impoverishment and decay. The harbour was crowded with fishing vessels no longer employed … the quay was covered in long grass and a melancholy assemblage of beggars importuned us for relief wherever we walked.’3

  By the turn of the century these tribulations had brought widespread disillusionment with the friendship and protection of France, yet no serious movement to break the link ever took shape. Even if it had been possible to renounce treaty obligations to so overwhelming a partner, there was no practical alternative. Neutrality was unsustainable without armed forces of unimaginable size and loyalty. Recalling the prince of Orange, for so long the natural response when republicanism failed, meant subservience to Great Britain, from where William V was issuing manifestos even more intransigent than those of Louis XVIII. British commanders during the invasion of 1799 reported that there was no natural groundswell of support for a prince likely to be even more of a foreign puppet than the Directors in The Hague. Perhaps this was because, despite repeated interference at every turn of the political roundabout in Paris, for much of the time the Dutch were left to run their internal affairs in their own way. This could hardly be said of other territories overrun by the French.

  The first conquests of the revolutionary armies had been in Belgium, and during the first occupation in 1792–3 the armies of Dumouriez looked on it as enemy territory to be used and exploited to the full. The de
crees annexing it to France in the spring of 1793 came too close to the Austrian reconquest to bring about any change in treatment. When the French returned, in June 1794, Belgium was once more dealt with as occupied enemy territory rather than a reconquered part of the Republic. Debate was certainly reopened in Paris on the drawbacks and advantages of reannexation, but while it went on Belgium was exploited for all it was worth. War taxes were levied, requisitions imposed to feed and supply the occupying armies, and as usual any compensation, if paid at all, came in assignats. In Belgium, declared Carnot on 11 July,4 the French must ‘take all we can … strip it … because it is a country devoted to the Emperor, with plenty of restitution to make to France’. Everything useful to the French war effort was to be removed, and targets totalling 109 millions in cash were set, though far from achieved, for military levies. A tellingly named ‘Agency for Trade and Extraction’ was established to co-ordinate the pillage, and its rapacity soon embarrassed even the representatives on mission. The chorus of complaint—in a language, too, that the French could understand—was deafening, and as 1794 drew to a close policymakers in Paris began to realize that the long-term repercussions of such a policy might seriously outweigh its short-term advantages. In February 1795 the commercial agency was dissolved, and in August nine territorial departments were established as the channels for all governmental action. The palimpsest of territories and jurisdictions which had survived a decade of attempts, whether Austrian or ‘patriot’, to reform it was thus finally rationalized. Complaints were numerous as the proposed new boundaries and jurisdictions were revealed, but anything seemed better than the anarchy and extortion of the preceding twelve months, and the common sense of the organization was soon widely acknowledged. But nobody could doubt, after the introduction of a French pattern of administration, what the next step would be. France had by now gained a slice of Dutch territory south of the Rhine mouths, and forced the Batavian Republic to recognize the reopening of the Scheldt. It was unthinkable to leave a no man’s land behind these gains, for all the warnings of respected figures like Carnot that the natural frontiers proclaimed in 1793 were a formula for interminable war. And so, on 1 October 1795, in one of its last acts, the Convention decreed the incorporation of Belgium into the French Republic.