by Tom Anderson
As 1795 wore on, though, and all such people were either executed or fled the country, any hope that the killing machines would slow proved a vain one. Robespierre believed first and foremost in the ‘purity’ of the Revolutionary French state. Though he supported the idea of exporting the revolution eventually, this would have to wait until France herself was free from any reactionary elements. ‘Reactionary elements’, it rapidly became clear, were essentially defined as those who did not agree with Robespierre.
March 1796 saw the events from which many historians draw the start of the Terror. A group of Parisian counter-revolutionaries, their cell having been discovered, were attacked by Sans-Culotte irregulars led by Georges Hébert himself, who took delight in personally supervising the destruction of churches and other symbols of the ancien régime by the mob. Notre Dame herself had been reduced to merely a warehouse for storing power and shot. Thus, when the counter-revolutionaries took refuge in the Église Saint-Sulpice,[164] apparently one of Paris’ few major surviving church buildings, Hébert was determined to see their defeat with his own eyes. He ordered them to be burned out. A mistake.
As soon as the first Sans-Culotte had dropped his smoking carcass[165] through the church window, it exploded. Hébert had been wrong –unbeknownst to him, his men had already converted this church just as they had Notre Dame, and the counter-revolutionaries had known it. They sacrificed their own lives to take the others with them, detonating the huge powder store that the Revolutionaries had kept here for dealing with just this sort of incident.
The explosion was sufficiently powerful to devastate a large chunk of the surrounding streets south of the Seine, with hurled fragments of statue and gargoyle landing in a rain of fire as far as the Île de la Cité—a dramatic scene captured by François-André Vincent in Le feu de ciel (Fire From Heaven), his last painting and often considered his greatest. Vincent was in hiding at the time, his name having been added to Robespierre’s ever-expanding list, and it was only by chance fortune (if that word can be used) that he was a witness to the dramatic scene of burning debris raining down around Notre Dame—perilously, given its current purpose.
The fire spread and destroyed perhaps one-sixth of the city before it was put out. Hébert himself, of course, and all the Sans-Culottes were virtually vaporised. No remains were ever found, and when there is no body and no confirmation of death, any man can claim to be acting in the name of he who has vanished. That was as true under the Consulate, with its power concentrated in three men, as it had been under any decadent kingdom with pretenders to the throne— a point which many Royalist writers made at the time and continue to do so today.
It never took much for Paris to erupt into mob violence, and the church explosion was a particularly potent trigger, being easy to portray as the wrath of God against the Revolution. Counter-revolutionaries fought the new Garde Nationale, commanded by Jean de Lisieux, which absorbed or destroyed all remaining Parisian Sans-Culotte militias in the process. Lisieux was aided by his contacts in the “Boulangerie” or “Steam Circle”, as the group of technological and military thinkers working on Cugnot’s technology were known. Lisieux, who at that point was known for his grandstanding, used some of the new Cugnot applications to the full. One of Cugnot’s latest works was a huge armoured steam-wagon with holes in the sides for musketeers within to shoot out. He called it “La Tortue”, the Tortoise. Experiments had shown it was too slow and cumbersome to be of much use in the field, but it worked well enough on the wider of Paris’ streets. After the Tortues had cleared the mob from the Champs-Élysées, Lisieux stood atop the flat roof of one of the Tortues and waved the Bloody Flag, accompanied by cheers from his followers. This may seem peculiar given the man’s later reclusive behaviour, but these were the days when he was making his name.
The counter-revolutionary rising was short and Lisieux’s rapid crackdown was effective at suppressing it, but it had two important consequences. One was that Robespierre, having lost his chief lieutenant Hébert, degenerated further into paranoia. Of course, the fact that the counter-revolutionaries had come seemingly from nowhere only fed his belief that ‘impurity’ was always lurking behind the next corner. The second consequence was that Jean de Lisieux was catapulted into a new position of power, effectively having assimilated the Paris mob into his Garde Nationale. He who controlled the mob ruled Paris, and both Lisieux Robespierre knew it.
Hébert was quickly declared dead by the National Legislative Assembly, although it did not stop some impostors making further comeback attempts – the most celebrated of which was the case of Josué Dechardin, who fooled the people of distant Gascony that he was Hébert sent on a special mission. He extracted money, women and privileges from the terrified Gascon locals for a full year, until the fate of the real Hébert was published and he high-tailed it out of town with the more portable parts of Bordeaux’s treasury. This case too is often quoted by Royalist writers.
In the aftermath of the rising, Robespierre unilaterally chose Lisieux as the new Consul, realising that he had no real choice lest he provoke the Paris mob. However, this enraged both the remaining Mirabeauiste faction of the NLA—which still believed that the Revolution should be a force for democracy—and Danton’s splinter faction of the majority Jacobins, as Danton had saw himself as next in line to be Consul. Robespierre reacted predictably, hauling off about a third of the NLA to be summarily executed as enemies of the People, including Danton, and then reducing the suffrage to Sans-Culottes only.[166] Lisieux’s power grew, eclipsing the resentful third consul Jean Marat, and Robespierre continued to personally sign so many death warrants that he barely had enough time to consider any other state business. This upsurge of the Terror was partly an attempt to undermine Lisieux’s support, as Robespierre saw how powerful he was becoming, but this largely failed – not least because it was men loyal to Lisieux who actually ran the chirurgiens and phlogisticateurs. And while Robespierre was consumed with organising the Terror, Lisieux was quietly taking over much of the day-to-day business of the state…
*
From: “The Jacobin Wars – the Italo-German Front” by Joshua H. Calhoun (University of New York Press, 1946)—
The early stages of the Franco-Austrian war had been indecisive, with Boulanger stopping the Austrian thrust through Flanders through first battle and then diplomacy. 1796 ended with no real change from 1794, with France holding a few towns in Savoy and Austria a few in Lorraine, but none of the decisive, dramatic shifts that people had expected from one side or the other. That now changed. Both sides had built up their forces and prepared for a war-winning stroke.
Ferdinand IV’s Austria focused on calling more German states to their side: the loss of Flanders had been a bitter betrayal, particularly considering that it had been Hapsburg machinations which had originally placed Charles Theodore on his throne. Saxony, the most powerful German state after Austria itself, ceased to sit on the fence and finally entered the war when Flemish troops occupied the Archbishopric of Trier in what was called ‘Charles Theodore’s Road’, connecting Flanders with the Palatinate so that both could be held against attack. Trier’s Archbishop was a younger son of the Wettin ruling family of Saxony, making the incident a personal one for the fading Elector Frederick Christian II.
The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia on the other hand was already at war with France, but had suffered losses in the 1796 campaigning season as the people of Genoa overthrew their ancient Republic and were occupied by French forces under General Lazare Hoche, handing France a dagger pointed at the heart of Piedmont.
The French, meanwhile, focused on training their existing troops according to Boulanger’s ideas and in recruiting more men for the army and the Garde Nationale, whose secondary role was to repulse foreign invasions and organise resistance against occupiers. Ironically, Robespierre’s Terror actually helped recruitment, as many young Frenchmen decided that they were less likely to be killed if they went to a foreign field and were shot at by Germans
, as opposed to staying at home quietly and waiting for their name to eventually, inevitably come up on Robespierre’s list of enemies of the people. Technically conscription was already in force, but at this stage it was difficult to enforce outside the Île-de-France where the Revolutionaries exerted absolute power. As before, their looser control over wider France was essentially a relic of the Bourbons’ centralising policies, in which it was customary to do whatever Paris said and thus control appeared to be easily obtained without direct enforcement. The exception to this was western France, but most Revolutionaries did not realise that their power over those regions was only theoretical until later on…
During the winter of 1796, the “Boulangerie” became effectively France’s high command in all but name. Far from being disgraced as Robespierre had planned, Boulanger was now drawing up strategic war plans for all France’s armies. His eventual plan for the 1797 campaigning season was called Poséidon. The code name was chosen to confuse British agents into thinking it was a naval plan, perhaps making them believe that Britain was in danger of being invaded (which, as over half the French fleet had been destroyed or gone over to the exiled Dauphin, was simply not the case). In truth the plan was so-named because of Poseidon’s trident: it was a three-bladed stroke.
Although modern writers think of Poséidon as being a great triumph of strategic thinking, in fact it was largely a compromise between conflicting interests. General Ney favoured a head-on blow against the Austrians in Lorraine, arguing that they had no other choice lest the Austrians break through, take Nancy and be in a position to march on Paris. General Hoche argued that they should build on his successes in Piedmont and attack the Austrians through Northern Italy and the Alps. In the end Boulanger, taking advantage of his army’s great numbers, decided to do both. The central stroke, at Switzerland, was a hasty late addition once French agents there reported the populace were ready to rise in the name of the Republic. This was, in fact, a gross exaggeration (possibly at Robespierre’s orders as he tried to undermine Lisieux’s plans) but Switzerland was unable to put up much resistance in the event.
Of course, the plan incorporated some of Cugnot’s new inventions, primarily improved steam fardiers for artillery: most of the more ambitious ones remained on the drawing board. However, in April 1797 Surcouf demonstrated his first steam-powered ship, an ugly-looking tug that wallowed drunkenly, low in the water. Its great strength was that it could tow larger ships far more effectively than the existing methods of letting down the small rowboats to tow or, on smaller frigates, using the emergency oars. Surcouf successfully towed the frigate Cap-de-Mort from Toulon Harbour out into the Mediterranean and back on a calm day when no British ships were able to come near, demonstrating the fact that steam could free a ship from its reliance on the winds and tides. The Vápeur-Remorqueur saw a great deal of work in Cugnot’s secondary workshops around Toulon, with Surcouf and his engineers improving on the design, trying to make it suitable at first for the Mediterranean and then for the high seas. Surcouf also envisaged a Vápeur-Galère, a steam-galley which would have the same advantages as an ordinary war galley (freedom from the wind), but lacking oars would not have its fragility, and would be able to fight on the rough Atlantic seas…like La Manche for example.
For the moment, though, steam remained largely a tool of the artillery and occasionally self-propelled carriages for the Revolutionary elite and some generals in the field. They were far from stealthy, though, as the steam plumes were visible from miles away, especially on a cold day.
Another important innovation in the field of battle was the war-balloon, invented by Jean-Pierre Blanchard—his own work a refinement of early experiments by the Montgolfier brothers. France had already led the world in aeronautical experiments under the ancien régime, and this was continued under the Revolution – despite their pedigree they undoubtedly evoked the same revolutionary novelty as steam engines. Balloons were thus far subject to the whim of the wind—although after Blanchard joined the ‘Boulangerie’ and after drinking most of a dead aristocrat’s confiscated wine-cellar, the innovators briefly planned to try and mount a steam engine on there. Such ideas were well ahead of their time, and so for now balloons were typically fixed to the ground by ropes, observers being sent up before a battle to survey the land. Between battles the deflated balloons were often transported on yet more Cugnot steam carriages. Some generals, including Boulanger’s deputy Thibault Leroux, tried keeping the balloon up there throughout the battle and having the observers signal down with flags, but the limited nature of what signals could be sent meant that this was not as useful as it might have been. Nonetheless, this attempt also illustrates the interest in new communication methods in the Republic, which would come to fruition a few years later.
General Leroux was given command of the thrust into Switzerland, the middle prong of Poséidon, while Ney took command of the left wing into Lorraine and Hoche into Savoy. 1797 was the year of breakthrough for the French. Mozart could have stopped them, perhaps, but he had been disgraced after Boulanger’s diplomatic coup and was cooling his heels from Vienna at the time, his command given to the less imaginative Count Joseph Kinsky.
Ney’s task was the most difficult, as the Austrians had concentrated their own forces, the Saxons and the Hessians on the Lorraine front. Despite the French still possessing a slight numerical superiority, the Austrians defeated Ney at the Battle of Saint-Dié and went on to occupy Nancy, as Ney had feared. However, France was saved when a messenger brought the word that Saxony had a new Elector who had changed policies, withdrawing from the war with France due to a war breaking out with Brandenburg (q.v.). The Saxon army returned to Saxony, leaving the Austrians outnumbered. The Austrian General, a native Lorrainer named Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser who had fought for France in his youth, still might have had a reasonable chance at shattering the Republic if he marched on Paris. Yet he was cautious, and remained entrenched at Nancy, penetrating no further and waiting for reinforcements that did not come. The Hapsburgs were too busy fighting on other fronts.
General Leroux, meanwhile, successfully smashed the Swiss militias and occupied the whole Confederation by the end of 1797. A political plan by Robespierre and Lisieux meant that a new Swiss Republic was established under the leadership of an exiled Jean Marat, who had been sidelined by the other two Consuls. He was replaced by newly promoted Marshal Boulanger, revealing firstly how the Constitution was now worth less than the paper it was written on – Boulanger was not even an elected deputy – and secondly how much influence Lisieux now wielded over Robespierre, who hated and feared Boulanger.
Hoche, displaying a brilliance that made him perhaps the finest of France’s generals, fought a celebrated campaign through Piedmont, at one point successfully dividing his own force to take on two different – and superior – Austrian armies closing on him at Vercelli from north and south. Hoche’s risky gamble blunted the nose of the two armies sufficiently for the northern one under the Hungarian General József Alvinczi to pause at Omegna, expecting Hoche’s small thrust to be the vanguard of his full army. Alvinczi prepared to give battle, while Hoche wheeled, recombined all his forces and then smashed the southern Austrian army of Paul Davidovich. Two months later, he finally met Alvinczi east of Milan and won a less dramatic but no less convincing victory. By the end of the 1797 campaign season, Hoche had driven the Hapsburgs from much of Northern Italy. The autumn of 1797 saw a small thrust against Parma, successfully capturing the Spanish possession and striking a blow against a power that, so far, Revolutionary France had been forced to give ground to.
1797 ended with Austria having an army in a precarious but potentially useful position in Nancy that could form the core for a march on Paris. Many speculative romantics have argued that if the Austrians had reinforced that army and attacked Paris, the Revolution would have crumbled, its centralised power base removed in a coup de main. Who can say? As it was, Ferdinand IV was too concerned about the French gains in Switzerland and I
taly, which put them uncomfortably close to the Hapsburgs’ core territories. The Holy Roman Emperor withdrew Wurmser’s army from Nancy and prepared to move against French-occupied Switzerland and Piedmont in 1798.
But 1798 was also the year in which any attempt by Ferdinand IV at a united Imperial front crumbled irreparably…for it was the year when the Russian Civil War expanded to encompass all the Baltic states.
Chapter 29: Furore Normannorum
From George Spencer-Churchill the Younger’s ‘A History of Modern Warfare, Vol. III’ (1953)—
What is generally termed ‘the Baltic War’ of the late 1790s and early 1800s was in fact a convergence of several overlapping conflicts, even as the Baltic War itself overlapped with the wider Jacobin Wars by its effects on the Germanies. Most scholars would state that the core of the Baltic War was the Russian Civil War between Paul Romanov of Lithuania and the brothers Potemkin. It was the entry of other nations into the war that changed the makeup of the conflict from Russian Civil War to the War of the Russian Succession, and that intervention had its own deep roots, going back to the War of the Polish Partition or even earlier.
The international situation agreed by the Treaty of Stockholm (1771) had envisaged peace kept by a Russo-Prussian alliance that would dominate Eastern Europe. Lithuania was dynastically linked to Russia and Poland dismembered, with some parts annexed to Prussia, others to Russia, and the the remainder a rump kingdom placed in personal union with it. Swedish neutrality in the war had been bought by the cession of Courland to the Swedish monarchy and the guarantee of existing Swedish possessions in Northeast Prussia, Finland and Pomerania. However, at the time, most had imagined that a renewed war would come soon enough between the Russo-Prussian alliance and Sweden for control of the Baltic. Many speculative romantics have considered the possibility, but in fact what occurred was far from it. The predicted casus belli persistently failed to materialise, as Sweden enjoyed a period of peaceful and prosperous rule under King Charles XIII[167] and the Cap Party. Prussia continued to look northward to the Baltic, but Russia was increasingly distracted by eastward expansion and the occasional skirmish with the Ottomans in Moldavia and the Crimean Khanate. For more than twenty years, the precarious situation set up by the Treaty held, longer than most of its own writers had thought possible.