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Y315: The Changing Nature of Warfare 1792–1945

Depth study: The French Revolutionary Wars 1792–1802 — coalitions, conscription and interpretations

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on rapid signalling from 1794, the break-up of the First Coalition, Bonaparte in Italy, the Loi Jourdan, resistance to conscription, the peace settlements and debates over a new army and total war.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

How have historians questioned the idea that patriotism alone kept French soldiers fighting?

Key term

On what grounds has it been argued that these wars were the first total war?

Key term

What technical innovation allowed news to travel rapidly from the northern frontier to Paris from 1794?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What technical innovation allowed news to travel rapidly from the northern frontier to Paris from 1794?

    Model answer

    Chappe's optical semaphore telegraph, whose Paris to Lille line carried word of the recapture of Condé within an hour of the event.

  2. 2

    Why did the First Coalition break up?

    Model answer

    Its members had incompatible aims and were distracted by the partition of Poland, and Prussia and Spain made separate peaces at Basel in 1795, leaving Austria to fight on.

  3. 3

    How did Bonaparte's Italian campaign of 1796–1797 demonstrate the new French style of war?

    Model answer

    He moved fast, kept the Austrians and Piedmontese apart, beat them separately, lived off the country and turned battlefield success directly into the political settlement of Campo Formio.

  4. 4

    State what the Loi Jourdan of 1798 established.

    Model answer

    It made military service a permanent obligation for young Frenchmen, allowing the state to call up annual classes of conscripts rather than relying on emergency levies.

  5. 5

    How widespread was resistance to French conscription?

    Model answer

    Evasion, self-mutilation and desertion were common and whole regions concealed their young men, so the paper strength of the armies always exceeded the number actually present.

  6. 6

    Name the victories of 1800 that forced Austria to make peace, and state how the wars were finally ended.

    Model answer

    Marengo in Italy and Hohenlinden in Bavaria led Austria to accept the Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801, and the Treaty of Amiens with Britain in 1802 brought the Revolutionary Wars to a close.

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