One Mars Unshackled: The French Revolution in World-Historical Perspective1
1. "Mars Unshackled" is a phrase borrowed from Martin van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 96. This article originated as a keynote address, "Reconsidering the French Revolution in World-Historical Perspective," delivered by Theda Skocpol at the Eighteenth Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1850, held in Birmingham, Alabama, 25-27 February 1988. That address was subsequently published in pp. 3-22 of the 1988 Consortium's Proceedings (Athens: Department of History, University of Georgia, 1988); and a slightly expanded version appeared in Social Research 56, 1 (Spring 1989): 53-70. Meyer Kestnbaum has contributed further research on changes in the French military to this substantially revised version of the essay. Changes were also made in response to comments by anonymous reviewers for the University of California Press. [BACK]
2. Karl Griewank, "Emergence of the Concept of Revolution," in Revolution: A Reader , eds. Bruce Mazlish, Arthur Kaledin, and David B. Ralston (New York: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 13-17; and Arthur Hatto, "'Revolution': An Inquiry into the Usefulness of an Historical Term," Mind 58 (1949): 495-517. [BACK]
3. François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution , trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pt. 2, sec. 1. [BACK]
4. Alfred Cobban, The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1968). [BACK]
5. Richard C. Cobb, The Police and the People: French Popular Protest, 1789-1820 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). [BACK]
6. Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). [BACK]
7. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968). [BACK]
8. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). [BACK]
9. Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 15.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 235.
13. Ibid., p. 236.
14. Ibid.,p. 16. [BACK]
9. Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 15.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 235.
13. Ibid., p. 236.
14. Ibid.,p. 16. [BACK]
9. Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 15.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 235.
13. Ibid., p. 236.
14. Ibid.,p. 16. [BACK]
9. Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 15.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 235.
13. Ibid., p. 236.
14. Ibid.,p. 16. [BACK]
9. Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 15.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 235.
13. Ibid., p. 236.
14. Ibid.,p. 16. [BACK]
9. Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 15.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 235.
13. Ibid., p. 236.
14. Ibid.,p. 16. [BACK]
15. Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution , trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955; originally 1858). [BACK]
16. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class , p. 21.
17. Ibid., emphasis added. [BACK]
16. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class , p. 21.
17. Ibid., emphasis added. [BACK]
18. See George V. Taylor, "Revolutionary and Nonrevolutionary Content in the Cahiers of 1789: An Interim Report," French Historical Studies 7 (1972): 479-502. [BACK]
19. One of the best overviews of the final decades of the Old Regime, stressing the interaction of geopolitics and domestic politics, remains C. B. A. Behrens, The Ançien Régime (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1967). A more recent discussion along the same lines is Bailey Stone, "The Geopolitical Origins of the French Revolution Reconsidered," Proceedings of the 1988 Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1850 , ed. David M. Vess (Athens: Department of History, University of Georgia, 1988), pp. 250-262. [BACK]
20. William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 57. [BACK]
21. Geoffrey Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe, 1770-1870 (Suffolk, England: Fontana Paperbacks, 1982), pp. 50-52; van Creveld, Command in War , pp. 60-62; Peter Paret, "Napoleon and the Revolution in War," in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Modern Age , ed. Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 127-128; and John R. Elting, Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grand Armée (New York: Free Press, 1988), pp. 6-22. [BACK]
22. Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1989), pp. 61-63. Schama opposes any explanation of the Old Regime's demise which stresses structural contradictions, preferring to highlight instead the policy choices of royal ministers. But this poses a false opposition between structural and policy-based accounts. As Schama himself points out, "the ministers of Louis XVI were painfully impaled on the horns of a dilemma" (p. 62). This is what "structural contradictions" translate into in human terms: constrained choices where no options are really likely to resolve the problems the policies are meant to address. [BACK]
23. Doyle, Oxford History , pp. 51, 63-65. [BACK]
24. Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution , p. 52. [BACK]
25. See Michael L. Kennedy, The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution: The First Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); and Isser Woloch, Jacobin Legacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), chap. 1. [BACK]
26. Woloch, Jacobin Legacy , p. 6.
27. Ibid., p. 7. [BACK]
26. Woloch, Jacobin Legacy , p. 6.
27. Ibid., p. 7. [BACK]
28. See especially Samuel F. Scott, The Response of the Royal Army to the French Revolution: The Role and Development of the Line Army, 1787-93 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); John A. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791-94 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984); and Gunther Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (London: B. T. Batsford, 1977), chap. 4; William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), chap. 6, esp. p. 192; and Elting, Swords Around a Throne , chap. 3. [BACK]
29. McNeill, Pursuit of Power , p. 192; van Creveld, Command in War , chap. 3; and Elting, Swords Around a Throne , chap. 3. [BACK]
30. Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe , chaps. 4-5; Paret, "Napoleon and Revolution in War," p. 127 and passim. [BACK]
31. Lynn, Bayonets of the Republic , p. 64.
32. Ibid., pp. 64-65. [BACK]
31. Lynn, Bayonets of the Republic , p. 64.
32. Ibid., pp. 64-65. [BACK]
33. Carl von Clausewitz, On War , trans, and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 592. For additional parts of von Clausewitz's analysis of the scale of war during the Revolution, see pp. 585-594 and 609-610. [BACK]
34. Rothenberg, Art of Warfare , pp. 16-19. [BACK]
35. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class , p. 227.
36. Ibid., p. 233. [BACK]
35. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class , p. 227.
36. Ibid., p. 233. [BACK]
37. Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution , pp. 126-127. [BACK]
38. Van Creveld, Command in War , chap. 3, esp. pp. 96-102; Paret, "Napoleon and Revolution in War," pp. 127-130, 136-138; and Elting, Swords Around a Throne , chaps. 4, 5, and 20. [BACK]
39. Rothenberg, Art of Warfare , p. 126, and chap. 5. This paragraph also draws on the text and references of Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions , pp. 196-198. [BACK]
40. Rothenberg, Art of Warfare , p. 132. [BACK]
41. John Lynn, "A Conflict of Principles: The Army of the Revolution and the Army of the Empire." Proceedings of the 1988 Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750—1850 , ed. David M. Vess (Athens: Department of History, University of Georgia, 1988), pp. 507-519. [BACK]
42. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 40-42, 73-74.
43. Ibid., chap. 2; and Elting, Swords Around a Throne , chaps. 27-28. [BACK]
42. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 40-42, 73-74.
43. Ibid., chap. 2; and Elting, Swords Around a Throne , chaps. 27-28. [BACK]
44. Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe , chap. 9; Paret, "Napoleon and Revolution in War," pp. 129-133; Elting, Swords Around a Throne , chap. 26; and Gunther Rothenberg, "The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon," The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 28, 4 (1988): 771-793. [BACK]
45. For discussion of the ways French military innovations compelled competitor nations to implement similar transformations, see Best, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe , chaps. 5, 10-14; and Paret, "Napoleon and Revolution in War." Thus, revolutionary France not only loosed "democracy" on the modern world, it also launched new modes of warfare that were also imitated and reworked by other nations. [BACK]
46. Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1984). [BACK]
47. For further exploration of the Iranian Revolution in comparative perspective, see Theda Skocpol's "Rentier State and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian Revolution," Theory and Society 11 (1982): 265-284; and "Social Revolutions and Mass Military Mobilization," World Politics 40 (1988): 147-168. [BACK]