The Army of the French Revolution

The Army of the French Revolution
Author: Jean Paul Bertaud
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2019-02-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691656193

Jean-Paul Bertaud is the leading French authority on the army of the French Revolution, and La Revolution armee is the authortative treatment of the firest great national, patriotic, revolutionary, and mass army, engaged in what has been called the first total war: that between revolutionary France and the other European powers. The book is a successful attempt to integrate military history with social and political history and thereby to depict the army as a "school for the republic" that by subtle changes after 1795 made way for the Napoleonic regime. The distinguished historian R.R. Palmer presents the first translation of this work into English in a volume that will quickly become indispensable for French historians, historical sociologists, and political scientists interested in armies and revolutions. The theme of the book is suggested by its French title: "the Revolution armed." That is, the book is primarily about the Revolution, and specifically the Revolution in its relation to armed force. This revolution, and this army, activated the idea of the citizen-soldier exemplified by the ancient classical republics, and favored by Jean-jacques Rousseau and other eighteenth-century thinkers, but never before realized on so large and portentous a scale as in France in the 1790s. Jean-Paul Bertaud is Professor of Modern History at the University of Paris I (the Sorbonne). He has published widely in France on aspects of the French Revolution. R.R. Palmer is Professor Emeritus at Yale University and author of numerous books, including the two-volume The Age of the Democratic Revolution (1959 and 1964), Twelve Who Ruled (1941), and The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution (1985), all published by Princeton University Press. He has translated many works from the French, most recently The Two Tocquevilles, Father and Son: Herve and Alexis de TOcqueville on the Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton, 1987). Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The French army 1750–1820

The French army 1750–1820
Author: Rafe Blaufarb
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2021-02-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526158906

This book examines the transformation of the French military profession during the momentous period that saw the death of royal absolutism, the rise and fall of successive revolutionary regimes, the consolidation of Napoleonic rule and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after the Empire’s final collapse. Crossing traditional chronological boundaries, it brings together periods in French history that are usually treated separately and challenges established views of change and continuity during the Age of Revolution. Based on a wealth of archival sources, this book is as much a social history of ideas like equality, talent, and merit as a military history.

From Yorktown to Valmy

From Yorktown to Valmy
Author: Samuel F. Scott
Publisher:
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1998
Genre: History
ISBN:

Based upon exhaustive research in archives in the United States and France, From Yorktown to Valmy provides a detailed study of some sixty-five hundred officers and soldiers of the French expeditionary corps that served under Rochambeau in the American Revolution. It traces their experiences in this country after their departure from France in the spring of 1780, their role in the victory over Cornwallis, their return to France and resumption of peacetime duties from 1783 to 1789, and their reactions to revolution in their own country and the war that followed. The author's focus on these men and their regiments, the only substantial force of foreign allies ever to serve on American soil for an extended period of time, affords the opportunity to assess the impact of these momentous events upon the lives of rather ordinary people. In turn, their experiences also provide a remarkable means of evaluating -- in personal, concrete terms -- connections between the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, since these soldiers constituted a representative cross-section of the French army during this critical period, their fate and the service of their units exemplify and elucidate the development of the entire French army during the most dramatic transformation in its history.