The Art of War in the Western World by Jones Archer

Author:Jones Archer [Archer, Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, History, Technology & Engineering, Military art and science, Military art and science - History, Military history, Military, Military Science
ISBN: 9780252069666
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2000-12-18T23:00:00+00:00

“with tears in their eyes, that they preferred the ancient regime a thousand times more than our constitution, since at least then no one carried off their property.” The government sought to control the troops but faced the same difficulties encountered in the Thirty Years’ War. The great Lazare Carnot, who had charge of the republic’s war effort, noted that he and “the generals found it impossible to stop the disorders; the drunken soldiers heard nothing, and the number guilty was too great to think of a violent punishment, which moreover, would have been impossible to execute in such a circumstance.” When trying to move these men toward the enemy, Carnot found that “they were almost all drunk, more or less... The soldiers’ packs were so full of things they had stolen that they could no longer carry them.”

Seeing such military evils result from a return to the old methods, Carnot concluded: “If every soldier who steals a pin is not shot on the spot you will never accomplish anything.” But the French soldiers continued to squander much of the republic’s political capital and undermined this vital basis of their conquests. Just as Antiochus VII of Syria converted his welcome in Mesopotamia into aversion, so the French alienated their supporters.

When the behaviour of Napoleon s troops provoked an uprising in Milan in 1796, this typified the conduct of French troops. In the same year one French general reported from Germany: “I am doing my best to control the plundering, but the troops have not been paid for two months, and the ration columns cannot keep up with our rapid marches; the peasants flee, and the soldiers lay waste empty houses.” Another general also reported from Germany that “the soldiers mistreat the country to the most extreme degree; I blush to lead an army that behaves in such an unworthy manner.”

When Prussian troops invaded France in 1814, they took revenge for these earlier depredations.

The result: the Prussians antagonised the otherwise apathetic French populace, converting them into active opponents. But the war ended too quickly for this hostility to affect military operations.

The lack of money, discipline, and good management that had permitted this behaviour on the part of the French soldiers had contributed to the erosion of the good will felt toward the French in the Low Countries, Italy, and Germany and the squandering of valuable political capital.

Initially, popular political support had provided one of the keys to the early French success in overcoming opposition in areas that had long defied French control. But in the largely rural Austrian empire the French could have found few allies and would have faced a serious problem in garrisoning and dominating such a large area. In Russia their campaign amounted to nothing more than a spectacular raid, and in Spain the French showed that against essentially national hostility they would need time as well as more ample forces if they were to subdue the country quickly without massacring a substantial part of the population.

An adequate ratio of force to space permitted the new battle-oriented strategy to conquer territory rapidly.

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