We received the following press release.--RL

Paddy Griffith was a senior lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for sixteen years, and is the well known and popular author of numerous books and articles on the history of warfare including BATTLE TACTICS OF THE WESTERN FRONT, 1916-8 and THE VIKING ART OF WAR.

His brilliant new book is THE ART OF WAR OF REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE, 1789-1802 which shows how, although the French revolutionary armies lost most of the battles, they won most of the campaigns. They were able to achieve ultimate success over the armies of Austria, Prussia, Britain and Spain. Paddy Griffith vividly captures the verve and excitement of these campaigns crucial to the history of Europe and clearly demonstrates that French armies were the most powerful in the world, even before Napoleon's legendary military machine.

Covering the diverse and rich period between the Fall of the Bastille and the Peace of Amiens, this authoritative work throws new light on the character of the French armies, the merits of their generals, and the performance of both during the large-scale and hard-fought battles of the period.

With chapters on army organisation, operations in the various theatres of war, the navy, the Representatives on Mission, the Government's relationship with the armies, the armies in battle and the important personalities of the period such as Dumouriez, Jourdan, Hoche and Carnot, this book is a superb and wide-ranging insight into a key turning point in the history of warfare.

ISBN 1-85367-335-8. 240 x 159mm. Hardback. 320 pages, 41 Illustrations, 31 maps and diagrams, 26 tables.

List of Contents:

Preface
Acknowledgements
Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations
Note on Chronology and Dates.

"The Most Powerful State the World had Ever Seen"

i) Which Came First - the Revolution or the Wars?
ii) The Global Perspective
iii) The Pillage System

The Government at War

i) Legislature, Executive and Bureaucracy
ii) The Organisation of Victory

Representatives on Mission

i) Men of Exceptional Ability and Power
ii) Key Links in the Chain of Command

Generals

I) The Dilema of Nobility
ii) The Alleged 'Youth' of Revolutionary Generals
iii) Schools for Generals

Theatres of War

i) The Belgian Frontier
ii) The Rhineland and Rhine Frontier
iii) The Alpine Frontier
iv) The Spanish Frontier
v) Coastal Defence and Internal Security in Western France
vi) Offensive Overseas Projects Based in Western France

Army and Staff Organisation

i) Divisions and Corps
ii) Headquarters Staffs

Operations

i) The Organisation of Marches
ii) An Army Subject to Panic
iii) Some Ways to Cheat
iv) The Cordon System

Battles

i) Skirmishes
ii) The Assault
iii) Cavalry
iv) Casualties

The Special Arms

i) Artillery
ii) Engineers

Unconventional Armies
The Navy
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

EXTRACTS FROM THE NEW BOOK:

"Exhortations to use the cold steel were nevertheless particularly common during the early years of the Revolution, when it was generally acknowledged that the troops were poorly trained for firing, assuming they even had muskets. Indeed, in one of their classic panics (on Mount Faron, Toulon, 30 September 1793), the volunteers even seemed amazed that the enemy did have muskets, and indignantly exclaimed 'They're firing shot!'. Unfortunately a lack of muskets was not only commonplace among the French, but it also implied a still greater lack of bayonets, and in fact there was usually a very great scarcity of that easily-snapped weapon. Amid the shortages on the Eastern Pyrenees, Representative Fabre called for warfare by other means: 'You have no guns, but you have pikes, pitchforks, hatchets. It doesn't matter what the instrument is, so long as it carries death!' In fact one of the rare cases of a successful pike charge had taken place in that theatre in September 1793, at Parades, when two Spanish cannon had been captured; while at Tresserres on 30 April 1794 it would be felt useful to hold 8,000 unarmed requisitioned troops in the third line, visible to the enemy, in order 'to add to the overall effect of the army's dispositions by the imposing superiority of numbers."

"There can be no doubt that French cavalry was generally badly inferior to its opponents; but apart from moments when the cavalry retired back into its own infantry, thereby panicking them as well, it should not get written off as an entirely bad job. There seems little reason to suppose that generals would have preferred to do without whatever horsemen they could get hold of. Besides, even poor French cavalry units did sometimes enjoy rare moments of glory. For example when the Austrian cuirassiers devastatingly counter-attacked General Burcy's infantry at Gundershoffen on 26 November 1793, and the newly-mounted 11th French Hussars ran back into their own men, the 2nd Chasseurs a Cheval held their ground steadfastly and saved the day - although not, alas, the life of the ex-gendarme Burcy himself, who was 'literally hacked to pieces by sabre cuts'."

THE ART OF WAR OF REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE is due for release in Great Britain in August (£20.00) and in the United States in September ($39.95).

GREENHILL BOOKS
Park House
1 Russell Gardens
London NW11 9NN
Tel: 0181 458 6314
Fax: 0181 905 5245
E-mail: LionelLeventhal@compuserve.com

Stackpole Books
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
GREENHILL NAPOLEONIC WARS BOOK NEWS IS INFORMATION FROM GREENHILL BOOKS, LONDON (LionelLeventhal@compuserve.com)

Back to 3rd Quarter 98 List of News Items

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com