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Violence and the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars: massacre, conquest and the imperial enterprise

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14623528.2013.789180

1469-9494

Philip Dwyer,

Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

Abstract Violence and the French Revolution has generated a considerable body of work, much of which focuses on the processes leading toward the Terror, or aspects of the Terror and Counter-Revolution. In contrast, the violence committed by French troops abroad during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars has largely been neglected, treated as something peripheral to the dynamics of conquest or as something peculiar to the nature of mass revolutionary armies. This article argues that far from being peripheral, massacre was on the contrary a method used by the French state in an effort to impose rule on conquered territories and to assimilate them into the empire. The territorial expansion of the French empire and the subjugation of neighbouring states should consequently be seen as part of a colonizing enterprise. To that extent, the methods used by the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies to subdue recalcitrant populations were no more violent than earlier periods. However, the purpose of the subjugation differed radically from previous eighteenth-century European wars. French troops, imbued with a sense of their own cultural and political superiority, were bringing enlightenment and civilization to the rest of Europe. Notes The literature is too vast to cite here. For an overview of the theme of violence and the French Revolution see: Jean-Clément Martin, Violence et Révolution: Essai sur la naissance d'un mythe national (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2006); Colin Lucas, 'Revolutionary violence, the people, and the terror', in Keith Baker (ed.), The terror, Vol. 4, The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture (Oxford: Pergamon, 1994), pp. 57–79; Sophie Wahnich, La liberté ou la mort: essai sur la Terreur et le terrorisme (Paris: Éd. la Fabrique, 2003). For the former, Simon Schama, Citizens: a chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1990), p. iii. A good overview of the latter is in Mona Ozouf, 'War and terror in French Revolutionary discourse (1792–1794)', Journal of Modern History, Vol. 56, No. 4, 1984, pp. 579–597. Beginning with George Rudé, The crowd in the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959); and more recently, Paule Petitier, 'Violences populaires dans l'Histoire de la Révolution française de Michelet: de la foule révolutionnaire à la mécanique du massacre', in Mathias Bernard, Philippe Bourdin, Jean-Claude Caron (eds.), La voix & le geste, une approche culturelle de la violence socio-politique (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2005), pp. 273–92. The September Massacres of 1792 have, for example, generated a number of case studies, notably Pierre Caron, Les Massacres de Septembre (Mâçon: Protat frères, 1935); Frédéric Bluche, Septembre 1792: logiques d'un massacre (Paris, 1986); and Timothy Tackett, 'Rumor and revolution: the case of the September massacres', in French history and civilization. Papers from the George Rudé seminar, Vol. 4, 2011, pp. 54–64, who is working on a monograph on the subject. See also David Andress, Massacre at the Champ de Mars: popular dissent and political culture in the French Revolution (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000). Reynald Secher, Le Génocide franco-français: la Vendée-Vengé (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986); Mark Levene, Genocide in the age of the nation state. Vol. 2, The rise of the west and the coming of genocide (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 103–161. For the debates on the use of the word 'genocide' see Peter McPhee, 'Review of Reynald Secher, A French genocide: the Vendée', H-France Review, Vol. 4, No. 26 (March 2004), http://www.h-france.net/vol4reviews/mcphee3.html. The former is postulated by Schroeder, The transformation of European politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 56; the latter by David A. Bell, The first total war: Napoleon's Europe and the birth of warfare as we know it (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007), pp. 44–51; and more recently Steven Pinker, The better angels of our nature: the decline of violence in history and Its causes (London: Viking, 2011). For this period see, T. C. W. Blanning, 'Liberation or occupation? Theory and practice in the French Revolutionaries' treatment of civilians outside France', in Mark Grimsley and Clifford J. Rogers (eds.), Civilians in the path of war (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), pp. 111–136; and the essays by Michael Rowe, 'Civilians and warfare during the French Revolutionary wars', and Michael Broers, 'Civilians in the Napoleonic wars', in Linda S. and Marsha L. Frey (eds.), Daily lives of civilians in wartime Europe, 1618–1900 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 93–132 and pp. 133–174; Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.), War in an age of revolution, 1775–1815 (Washington, DC: Cambridge University Press, 2010). See Charles J. Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon: guerrillas, bandits and adventurers in Spain, 1808–1814 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004); Michael Broers, Napoleon's other war: bandits, rebels and their pursuers in the age of revolutions (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010); John Lawrence Tone, 'Partisan warfare in Spain and total war', in Chickering and Förster, War in an age of revolution, pp. 243–259. Jean-Paul Bertaud, La Vie quotidienne des soldats de la Révolution: 1789–1799 (Paris: Hachette, 1985), pp. 274–289; Blanning, 'Liberation or occupation?', p. 127. See, Jean-Marc Lafon, 'La contre-insurrection, une invention française? Généalogie d'une pratique (1792–1849)', http://pedagogie.ac-montpellier.fr./hist_geo/defense/cercle7.htm. See Michael Broers, Europe under Napoleon 1799–1815 (London: Arnold, 1996). Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin (eds.), Histoire du terrorisme: de l'Antiquité à Al Qaida (Paris: Bayard, 2006), p. 111. Charles J. Esdaile, The wars of Napoleon (London: Longman, 1995), p. 300, estimates a figure of one million civilian losses. Cited in Nicolas Cadet, 'Violences de guerre et transmission de la mémoire des conflits à travers l'exemple de la campagne de Calabre de 1806–1807', Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No. 348, April–June 2007, p. 153. Not enough, it would appear, to make a lasting impression on local popular memory, pp. 158–162. Esteban Canales, '1808–1814: démographie et guerre en Espagne', Annales historiques de la Révolution française, Vol. 336, April–June 2004, pp. 37–52; Vicente Pérez Moreda, 'Las crisis demográficas del periodo napoleónico en España', in Emilio La Parra López (ed.), La guerra de Napoleón en España: reacciones, imágenes, consecuencias (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2010), pp. 305–332. Broers, Napoleon's other war, p. 126. Donald Greer, The incidence of the Terror during the French revolution: a statistical interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935); Richard Louie, 'The Incidence of the Terror: a critique of a statistical interpretation', French Historical Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1964, pp. 379–389; Francois Furet and Mona Ozouf, Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française, p. 162. Peter Paret, Internal war and pacification: the Vendée, 1789–1896 (Princeton, NJ: Center of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 1961), p. 68, for the former; the latter by Bell, The first total war, p. 156; Patrice Gueniffey, La politique de la terreur (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), p. 235. Jean-Clément Martin, Violence et Révolution, p. 205, despite the fact that he has attempted to view extreme violence as an integral part of the revolutionary process, tends to portray violence, war and its excesses as unusual. Howard Brown, 'Napoleon Bonaparte, political prodigy', History Compass, Vol. 5, June 2007, p. 1392, argues that the 'Vendée and Spain are noteworthy because their atrocities were not typical of warfare in the period'. Well, the Vendée and Spain are possibly exceptions because of the extent and the horror of the violence committed, but really it is only a question of scale. When referring to the Vendée, he believes that the 'customary rules of war disappeared for a certain number of political and military leaders as for soldiers or militants'. This view is shared by Peter Browning, The changing nature of warfare: the development of land warfare from 1792 to 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 47, who argues that the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were 'relatively civilized'; and Mayer, The furies: violence and terror in the French and Russian revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 538, who asserts that, 'On the whole… the French armies spared civilians and there was little scorching of the earth'. Reported in Georges Bangofsky, 'Les Étapes de Georges Bangofsky, officier lorrain. Extraits de son journal de campagnes (1797–1815)', Mémoires de l'Académie de Stanislas, Vol. 2, 1905, p. 291. Jean-Marc Lafon, 'Le pogrom antifrançais de Valence (5–6 juin 1808)', in Frédéric Rousseau and Burghart Schmidt (eds.), Les 'dérapages' de la guerre du XVIe siècle à nos jours—Kriegsverbrechen vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zum Gegenwart (Hamburg: Dobu Verlag, 2009), pp. 85–96. Eugène Labaume, Relation circonstanciée de la campagne de Russie (Paris: Pancoucke, 1815), pp. 271, 274. The military tradition of sacking towns and villages has been little studied. One can consult Elenz Benzoni, 'Les sacs des villes à l'époque des guerres d'Italie (1494–1530): les contemporains face au massacre', in David El Kenz (ed.), Le massacre, objet d'histoire (Paris: Seuil, 2005), pp. 157–170; Fritz Redlich, De Praeda Militari. Looting and Booty, 1500-1800 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1956), pp. 23–24. See Gunter Rothenberg, 'The age of napoleon', in Michael Howard, George J. Andreopoulos and Mark R. Shulman (eds.), The laws of war: constraints on warfare in the western world (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 93; Charles Esdaile, The Peninsular war: a new history (London: Penguin, 2002), pp. 386–387; Jack A. Meyer, 'Wellington and the Sack of Badajoz: a "beastly mutiny" or a deliberate policy?', Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750–1850, 1991, pp. 251–257. Jacques Godechot, 'Les variations de la politique française à l'égard des pays occupés 1792–1815', in Occupants-occupés, 1792–1815 (Brussels: Université libre, Institut de sociologie, 1969), pp. 19–31. Michael Broers, 'Revolt and repression in Napoleonic Italy, 1796–1814', in Chickering and Förster, War in an age of revolution, 1775–1815, pp. 197–217, stresses the economic causes of the anti-French revolts in Italy during what he calls the first invasions, from 1796–99. See Blanning, The French Revolution in Germany: occupation and resistance in the Rhineland, 1792–1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 83–134. Nicolas Marcel, Campagnes du capitaine Marcel, du 69e de ligne, en Espagne et en Portugal (1804–1814) (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1913), pp. 37–38. According to Alexandre Bellot de Kergorre, Journal d'un commissaire des guerres pendant le Premier Empire (1806–1821) (Paris: La Vouivre, 1997), p. 20, where he cites one unspecified example of villages being 'reduced to ashes' on the frontier with Prussia during the war of 1806–8. Paul Verhaegen, La Belgique sous la domination française, 3, La guerre des paysans, 1798–1799, 5 Vols (Brussels and Paris: Goemaere and Plon, 1926), Vol. II, pp. 285–726; Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, 7 Vols (Brussels: Lamertin, 1902–1932), Vol. 6, pp. 109–117. Yves-Marie Bercé, Révoltes et révolutions dans l'Europe moderne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1980), p. 238; Georges-Henri Dumont, Histoire de la Belgique: des origines à 1830 (Brussels: Le Cri édition, 2005), p. 392. Correspondance de Napoléon Ier : publiée par ordre de l'empereur Napoléon III, 32 Vols (Paris: Plon, 1858–70), Vol. 11, No. 9678. Emmanuel de Las Cases, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, 2 Vols (Paris: Flammarion, 1983), Vol. 1, p. 864; Félix Bouvier, 'La révolte de Pavie (23–26 mai 1796)', Revue historique de la Revolution française, Vol 2 (1911), pp. 519–539; Giacomo Lumbroso, I Moti popolari contro i Francesi, alla fine del secolo XVIII, 1796–1800 (Florence: F. Le Monnier, 1932), pp. 15–30. Thierry Lentz (ed.), Correspondance générale: Tome premier, Les apprentissages, 1784–1797 (Paris: Fayard, 2004), pp. 460–461; Carlo Zaghi, La Rivoluzione francese e l'Italia, studi e ricerche (Napoli : Editrice Cymba, 1966), pp. 148–468. Gilles Candela, L'armée d'Italie: des missionnaires armés à la naissance de la guerre napoléonienne (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011), pp. 317–318. Correspondance de Napoléon I, Vol. 13, No. 10573. Haegele, ed., Napoléon et Joseph, p. 284 (8 August 1806). Vincent Haegele (ed.), Napoléon et Joseph Bonaparte: correspondence intégrale 1784–1818 (Paris: Tallandier, 2007), p. 293 (17 August 1806). This type of recommendation can hardly be taken at face value. The French had just finished putting down a revolt in Calabria with the greatest difficulty. Haegele, Napoléon et Joseph, pp. 167–168 (8 March 1806); p. 179 (31 March 1806). Milton Finley, The most monstrous of wars: the Napoleonic guerrilla war in southern Italy, 1806–1811 (Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), p. 49; Jacques Rambaud, Naples sous Joseph Bonaparte, 1806–1808 (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1911), p. 143. Christopher Duggan, The force of destiny: a history of Italy since 1796 (London: Allen Lane, 2007), pp. 23, 55. Arjun Appadurai, 'Dead certainty: ethnic violence in the era of globalization', Public Culture, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1998, pp. 225–247. Martin, Violence et Révolution, p. 201. Laurence Montroussier, Ethique et commandement (Paris: Economica, 2005), pp. 159, 160. Jean-Clément Martin, 'Massacres: Vendée au XVIIIe siècle… au XIXe', in Martin, Révolution et contre-révolution en France 1789–1989. Les rouages de l'Histoire (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1996), p. 57; Colin Lucas, 'Revolutionary violence, the people and the terror', in Keith Michael Baker (ed.), The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture, Vol. 4 (Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, 1987–1994), pp. 57–79, here p. 72. See Howard G. Brown, 'Domestic state violence: repression from the Croquants to the Commune', Historical Journal, Vol. 42, No. 3, 1999, pp. 597–622. For Brown 'domestic state violence' is force that is deemed excessive and is hence discredited. He points to the outcry among certain elites when repression was extreme. There is little, however, about the deliberate use of extreme violence by the state to impose authority on recalcitrant peoples. Charles Tilly, 'Routine conflicts and peasant rebellions in seventeenth century France', in Robert P. Weller and Scott E. Guggenheim (eds.), Power and protest in the countryside: studies of rural unrest in Asia, Europe, and Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press. 1982), pp. 13–41. Bell, The first total war, p. 273; Finley, The most monstrous of wars, pp. 64–65. All of this is detailed in the report by Berthier in Services Historiques de l'Armée de Terre [SHAT], Correspondence, Armée de Naples, carton C-5, 4, 15 August 1806. SHAT, Corr. Armee de Naples, carton C-5, 4. Nicolas Cadet, 'Anatomie d'une "petite guerre", la campagne de Calabre de 1806–1807', Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle, Vol 30, 2005, pp. 73–74. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The art of warfare in the age of Napoleon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 120. On this point and the Vendée see, Jean-Clément Martin, 'Le cas de Turreau et des colonnes infernales: réflexion sur une historiographie', in Michel Biard, Annie Crépin and Bernard Gainot (eds.), La plume et le sabre: volume d'hommages offerts à Jean-Paul Bertaud (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2002), pp. 244–245. Broers, Napoleon's other war, pp. 48, 82. Broers, 'Civilians in the Napoleonic wars', p. 150. See David A. Bell, Cult of the nation in France: inventing nationalism, 1680–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 101–106, for a discussion of contemporary meanings of race. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 47; Bourgogne, Mémoires, p. 92 ; Jean Barada, 'Lettres d'Alexandre Ladrix', Bulletin de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie du Gers, Vol. 28, 1927, pp. 235–236. For French attitudes towards Germans see, Michael Rapport, '"The Germans are Hydrophobes": Germany and the Germans in the shaping of French identity', in Alan Forrest and Peter H. Wilson (eds.), The bee and the eagle: Napoleonic France and the end of the Holy Roman Empire, 1806 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 238–243. Auguste-Julien Bigarré, Mémoires du Général Bigarré, 1775–1813 (Paris: Grenadier, 2002), p. 200. Correspondance de Napoléon I, Vol. 11, No. 9550. Jean-René Aymes, 'La guerre d'Espagne dans la presse impériale (1808–1814)', Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No. 336, 2004, pp. 133–134. Auguste Thirion, Souvenirs militaires (Paris: Librairie des Deux Empires, 1998) p. 30. Louis-Florimond Fantin des Odoards, Journal du général Fantin des Odoards, étapes d'un officier de la Grande Armée, 1800–1830 (Paris, 1895), p. 211. Charles Corbet, A l'ère des nationalismes. L'opinion française face à l'inconnue russe (1799–1894) (Paris: Didier, 1967), pp. 63–73. Most historians agree that notions of 'human difference' in the eighteenth century are not the same as the racially based criteria of the nineteenth century. David A. Bell, 'Jumonville's death. war propaganda and national identity in eighteenth-century France', in Colin Jones and Dror Wahrman (eds.), The age of cultural revolutions: Britain and France, 1750–1820 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), p. 52. The modern-day massacre is treated in Wolfgang Sofsky, Traité de la violence (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), pp. 155–170. See, for example, Rothenberg, 'The age of Napoleon', p. 87; Franco della Peruta, 'War and society in Napoleonic Italy: the armies of the Kingdom of Italy at home and abroad', in John Davis and Paul Ginsborg (eds.), Society and politics in the age of the Risorgimento: essays in honour of Denis Mack Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 43. See, for example, Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser, exterminer: sur la guerre et l'État colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2005), esp. pp. 138–143. On the Palatinate see, John A. Lynn, 'A brutal necessity? The devastation of the Palatinate, 1688–1689', in Grimsley and Rogers, Civilians in the path of war, pp. 79–110.