The invasion of France, 1792

Prussia’s main thrust into northern France came in the early weeks of August 1792, just days after the massacre of the Swiss guards at the Palais des Tuileries and the arrest of the royal family. It followed closely the plan drawn up between the two erstwhile enemies earlier in the year, with the armies of the Habsburg Monarchy positioned in the Austrian Netherlands and along the border of France in Anterior Austria. As Brunswick advanced, the Habsburg forces did little to threaten the French armies on either side of the Prussian route, enabling a French force under General Charles François Dumouriez to immediately threaten Brunswick’s lines of communication.

Before Brunswick’s invasion, Dumouriez had been directed towards the border with the Austrian Netherlands, in a further attempt to defeat the Habsburg armies in the province. With the Habsburg force under the Duke of Teschen showing little if any forward initiative, Dumouriez now marched his force to the east - towards the Prussians heading through the Forest of Argonne. Here, he was able to cross the communication lines of the veteran Prussian commander, swiftly jeopardising the enemy army’s viability before engaging in battle.

Military theory of the eighteenth century

The stability and continuity of communication back to a central point of supply was a key principle of war during the eighteenth century. Threatening the support of the enemy army was thought to be just as vital as bringing it to battle. This was especially true of the Prussian and Habsburg commanders, who were influenced by the writings of Heinrich von Bülow and Henry E H Lloyd, themselves both veterans of the Prussian army.According to their contemporary, Johann Georg J Venturini, battle was the least effective way of overcoming an enemy’ s strategy, as it carried the greatest risk of compromise. Indeed, past Habsburg generals such as field marshals Leopold Joseph von Daun and Franz Moritz von Lacy, who were so lethargic in the attack against Frederick the Great during the Seven Years War, advocated the avoidance of battle altogether, as this safeguarded the integrity of one’s forces.

Evaluations of such cautious and defensive approaches have been specific and critical in their findings. Twentieth-century military writings on the Napoleonic and Revolutionary Wars focused on the shortcomings of the Habsburg army’s staff command and control. Informed both by each other and by specific schools of thought, these works concentrated extensively on the perceived operational and tactical inadequacies of those forces under the direct control of Archduke Charles of Austria, Duke of Teschen, the foremost Habsburg commander of the Napoleonic Wars.

Yet until the work of Michael Hochedlinger, little research had been undertaken to uncover the interconnection between the Habsburg strategic culture and the administrative institutions, state finances and standing army that had informed and sustained the modernisation of the Habsburg Monarchy.

Furthermore, consistent with past military writing on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the aggressive change in French tactics was previously considered a clear and plausible allegory for the change in governance in France versus the conservative Monarchs of the time.

This was not, however, the case, as the initial campaigns of the first coalition were a clear extension of the operational strategies of the proceeding years, and not an immediate revolution in military affairs brought about by the introduction of mass conscription. While the French infantry was significantly made up of volunteers who could not apply the control and drill of regular troops, the commanders and line officers were still men of the Old Regime and applied their knowledge and operated as such.

The Battle of Valmy

Thus, the French response to Brunswick’s attempted invasion was to threaten his lines of communication, with the expectation that the Prussian commander would turn to face the threat, rather than press on to an undefended Paris. Brunswick’s army had already been campaigning a month before encountering Dumouriez, and the exhaustion of the troops – now suffering from dysentery – prevented him from continuing towards Paris. This provided him with no other option than to seek the French out and defeat them in battle.

To compound Brunswick’s situation, the Habsburg armies had done very little to hold the other French forces in place, leaving François Christophe Kellermann, who commanded a significant force in Metz, to approach Brunswick from the east and threaten his right flank. What followed was a small exchange of cannon fire between the Prussian forces emerging from the woods of Argonne and the artillery veterans of Dumouriez and Kellerman’ s forces. The fierce resistance provided by the French, who were made up of a majority of regular troops, was enough to repulse the initial foray of Brunswick’s line infantry.

This lacklustre assault on a well-prepared line was enough to convince Brunswick of the futility of his situation. Unable to outmanoeuvre the French forces, and faced with assaulting them front-on with an equal size force low on morale and health, he had no choice but to withdraw. Although his forces were not pursued by the French, the dysentery that had plagued the army during the weeks leading up to the engagement of Valmy further weakened Brunswick’s force, and with it Prussia’s willingness to serve as an equal partner in the German coalition against Revolutionary France.

The defeat of Brunswick and the folly of his manifesto were clear for all to see but while the actions of the aged commander, eager to champion the causes of the émigrés his allies had no wish to serve, were wholly inadequate, the desire to maintain Prussia’ s armed forces in the west was understandable.

Aftermath

Although still formidable, Prussia under Frederick Wilhelm II was unprepared for war with a major European power, and with easier targets in the unstable Polish-Lithuanian region, it required a sizable armed force to serve as a reminder of the state’s potential while it continued negotiations with Saint Petersburg and Vienna. A loss or Pyrrhic victory on the battlefield in support of a potential and recent enemy in the Habsburgs was not worth the risk. Therefore, although Brunswick’s thrust into France was a disaster and strategically unsound, it could not be saved through battle. Instead, the integrity of his army was paramount both to secure the Palatinate and to support the pragmatic policies of his king.

The invasion of France, although in retaliation to the aggression of the new Montagnard government, was not a pan-imperial crusade in support of the deposed Old Regime, and the émigré forces serving under the command of Brunswick were more of a humoured nuisance. Victory would lead to the establishment of a French constitutional monarchy as was preferred by the late Emperor Leopold, relieving the Habsburg Monarchy of their centuries’ old Bourbon problem and providing them with the opportunity to dominate in central Europe and expand in the east.

The imminent removal of the Revolutionary government in Paris thus provided the Habsburg Monarchy with the perfect catalyst for the continuation of their pragmatic foreign policies of the eighteenth century and the chance for substantial territorial acquisitions. Yet through the actions of their new coalition partner, Prussia, this pragmatic and moderate strategy in the face of great upheaval was soon rendered anything but measured and was instead transformed into a conflict fuelled by ideology.

Conclusion

The defeat of the Prussian army and the subsequent victory of the French Armée du Nord over the Habsburg forces of Saxe-Teschen at Jenappes had less to do with the French Revolutionary zeal than summarised. Occurring thanks largely to the domestic pressures in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Austro-Ottoman Wars and the diverging strategic interests of Prussia, these victories were relatively minor. Moreover, they provided the new armies of France with victories and a platform to build a new military identity on. An identity which was promulgated throughout the nineteenth century and up until the First World War, which revered the volunteer soldier and the elan of the inspired patriot. This identity was later enforced by Anglo-American military historians during the interwar period and in popular narratives still remains today.

A further nuanced explanation of the Habsburg and Prussian soldiers facing the French must also be provided, as they were far from the mercenary automatons first thought. Recent research has found distinct enlightened monarchical patriotism and religious-regional identities consistently displayed throughout the Austro-Bohemian regiments, where much of the regular troops were raised.

However, that is for another time.

A couple of things. First, it's not true that the entirety of the French army was volunteers. There were definitely still regulars from the old royal army in the French Revolutionary Armies, including the first battles of the War of the First Coalition, like the ever important Valmy. A lot of the officers had fled, but officers do not an entire army make. Many of the actual soldiers remained behind, leaving a solid veteran core around which the new recruits and volunteers could assemble.

Second, the victory of a comparatively green French force over Coalition troops is usually ascribed to the role of a citizen army fighting for the fatherland versus a conscript army fighting for a ruler - that is to say that patriotism is one heck of a motivator. Instead of fighting for the glory of the king, the French were fighting for the soul of the nation itself - and I mean this literally, since had they been defeated at Valmy and Coalition forces been established in Paris, the Revolution would have likely been reversed as much as possible. On the other hand, coalition troops were, mostly, fighting for the goal of their monarchs.