The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France 1791-1794
by John A Lynn
Westview Press £17.50

In the preface to the 1996 paperback edition of The Bayonets of the Republic, which first appeared in 1984, the author reminds us that his motive in writing it was to demonstrate how his subject matter and the methodology of social history could tell us a great deal more about the way armies fight than what he calls "new modern history" which, in his view, tends to dwell on peripheral matters, avoiding the "hard business" of warfare. The Bayonets of the Republic is essentially about the Armée du Nord but concentrates on the hard business, that basis of all military history - the study of men in battle. As such it is required reading.

Nevertheless, in recognizing that it is essential for the reader to have a modicum of peripheral knowledge, the opening chapter to Section One places the 'Nord' in its historical perspective, or as John Lynn puts it, in the broad flow of revolutionary events. This is followed by a chapter of general theory on morale and motivation, but from page 43 onwards the book is a detailed analysis of the kind of men who filled the its ranks, and how the 'Nord' fought the way it did and why.

The main part of the book is divided into two sections entitled Composition, Control and Motivation (Section Two), and Doctrine, Training and Tactics (Section Three). Section Two contains five chapters in which the nature of the soldiers and the officer corps is examined, together with the application of discipline, their political education and the factors that motivated them. In Section Three we are treated to a further five chapters covering Doctrine, Training and Tactics and this, I thought, was the most interesting part of the book.

Chapter 8 deals with the cult of the bayonet and associated tactical developments, it is followed in Chapter 9 by a discussion of the role played by the artillery, already a highly professional arm, and the cavalry. Chapter 10 is devoted to training, followed by an examination of line and column on the battlefield in Chapter 11 and, finally, in Chapter 12, a similar examination of open order combat. Section Three, by itself, is a quite superb piece of highly professional analysis.

The final part of the book comprises a conclusion, consisting of a summary of the author's findings, and a useful appendix listing documented examples of the various tactics of the 'Nord' in practice.

In Bayonets of the Republic, the popular mythology of the sans-culottes is demolished a piece at a time and the reader is left with the impression of a largely infantry army that learned from its mistakes, trained hard when it was able to but, above all, adapted to the circumstances in which it found itself, made use of terrain, exploited its own strengths and the enemy's weaknesses, and shaped the tenets of the Règlement of 1791 to its own purposes.

It is of interest to note that the line appeared to remained a popular a formation, for all the roles one would expect of it, including as a waiting formation prior to forming column for the attack and, on some occasions, for the attack itself. I am not entirely convinced by the author's comparison of the attack column with the divisional column. Although it is true that the advantage of the attack column was speed of deployment into line, and that, unlike the divisional column, its component divisions comprised different platoons from those of the permanently established divisions of the battalion, the appearance and function of the two columns was indistinguishable.

I also think the description of the column of platoons as a route formation is possibly misleading. The frontage of a platoon would not have been sufficiently small to negotiate 18th Century roads in Flanders and the Low Countries, indeed, the 60 foot wide road remains a comparative rarity in this part of the world to this day. Route columns tended to be on section frontages, or smaller, which would have doubled near the battlefield and the approach march made in platoon columns and this, I think, is the possible implication of the author's evidence in this context.

By the author's own admission the precise nature of French skirmisher tactics at this period is largely lost to us, but it is evident that it developed into as disciplined a tactic in its own way as any other in the 'Nord's' repertoire. The popular concept of undisciplined horde tactics is clearly very much a generalization. The author establishes that, in accordance with the Règlement of 1791, the third rank provided skirmishers and points to Houchard's order that 64 men in each battalion were to be selected as tirailleurs.

It is also evident that here in the 'Nord' was the emerging universal infantryman equally capable of functioning in whatever role was required of him. I would, however, query the author's claim that the Prussian and English light infantry favoured rifled weapons over smooth-bored. The light infantry of both these nations carried smooth-bore muskets throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, rifles being reserved for specialist units such as the Jäger and the 95th.

In his conclusion, which puts the experience of the Armée du Nord in context, the author warns the reader against applying his analysis beyond 1791-1794, even to other French armies during the same period. Although this is fair comment, the massing of artillery in Napoleonic style, for example, was not seen in the 'Nord' and the cavalry of the Republic bore no comparison to the arm it later became during the Empire, it is evident that it was here in the developing flexible and complementary manoeuvre tactics of the Armée du Nord that the seeds of what has been, so obviously, erroneously called 'Napoleonic' warfare were sown. Clearly, that subaltern officer of artillery, who until 1793 spent most of his time on leave and in Corsica, was in no position to influence the tactical tool he would later inherit.

The Bayonets of the Republic is a distinguished work written at the scholarly rather than popular level and complex though it is, the author expresses himself with lucidity. The book is a comprehensive examination and concise summary of the various factors that made the 'Nord' what it was, all of which are examined in a logical progression, with well reasoned analysis of all the key issues constructed around sound research, evidenced in the thoroughly footnoted comments and references to specific sources, all complemented by a comprehensive bibliography.

The analysis of warfare is always a difficult business, doubly so at the kind of distance from the events this book describes. Nevertheless, Bayonets of the Republic is a model example of how to do it, and sets a challenging standard to those who would attempt to imitate it.

More Book Reviews

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