Conditions and Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance against a Revolutionary France in the Year 1852]

Written April 1851.

From the manuscript.

I take it as settled that any victorious Paris revolution in the year 1852 will immediately result in a war of the Holy Alliance against France.

This war will be entirely different from that of 1792-94, and the events of that time can in no way serve as a parallel.

I

The miracles of the Convention, in the military defeat of the Coalition, shrink considerably upon closer inspection, and one understands and even finds justified in many points Napoleon’s contempt for the 14 armies of the Convention; Napoleon was wont to say that the blunders of the Coalition had done most of the work, which is quite correct, and he still considered Carnot on St. Helena a mediocre mind.

In August 1792, 90,000 Prussians and Austrians invaded France. The King of Prussia wanted to march directly on Paris; Brunswick and the Austrian generals did not. No unity of command; now hesitation, now rapid advance, constantly changing plans. After crossing the Argonne defiles, Dumouriez confronts them at Valmy and St. Menehould. The Allies could have bypassed him and left him standing undisturbed; he would have had to follow them to Paris and, with reasonably tolerable procedure, would not even have been dangerous in their rear. But they could also have proceeded more safely and beaten him, which was easy, since they had more and better troops, as the French themselves admit. Instead, they deliver to him the ridiculous cannonade of Valmy, where during the battle, indeed during the column attack itself, the generals veer more than once from the bolder to the more timid opinion. The two

attacks themselves were miserable in terms of mass, force, spirit (fighting spirit) — the fault not of the soldiers, but of the vacillations in command; they were barely attacks, at most demonstrations. A resolute advance along the whole line would certainly have overthrown the French volunteers and demoralised regiments. After the battle, the Allies again stood about irresolute, until the soldiers fell ill.

In the campaign of Jemappes, Dumouriez was victorious because he, half instinctively, was the first to oppose the Austrian system of cordons and infinitely extended fronts (from Ostend to the Meuse) with mass concentration. But the following spring he fell — as a result of his craze for conquering Holland — into the same error; the Austrians, on the contrary, advanced in concentrated fashion; result, the battle of Neerwinden and the loss of Belgium. At Neerwinden as well as especially in the smaller engagements of this campaign, it became apparent that the French volunteers, the much-vaunted heroes, unless they were constantly under the eyes of Dumouriez, fought no better than the South German “Volkswehr” of 1849. Then Dumouriez went over, the Vendée rose up, the army was fragmented and discouraged, and if the 130,000 Austrians and English had marched resolutely on Paris, the revolution was bankrupt and Paris was captured — exactly as in the previous year, if such stupidities had not occurred. Instead, the gentlemen laid themselves before the fortresses, set themselves to conquering, en détail (piecemeal), the smallest advantages one after another with the greatest expenditure of strategic pedantry, and frittered away a full six months.

The French army, which still held together after Lafayette’s defection, can be estimated at 120,000 men. The volunteers of 1792 at 60,000. In March [17]93, 300,000 men were raised. In August, when the levée en masse (mass levy) was decreed, the French army must therefore have been at least 300,000–350,000 strong. The levée en masse brought it about 700,000. All deductions considered, the French at the beginning of [17]94 took the field against the Coalition with about 750,000 men, significantly more than the Coalition against France.

From April 1793 to October, the French were beaten everywhere, only that the defeats had no decisive result — thanks to the Coalition’s dawdling system. From October onwards, successes alternated — in winter the campaign was suspended, in the spring of [17]94 the levées en masse entered the battle line with full effect; result, victories on all

sides in May, until finally in June that of Fleurus decides the fate of the Revolution.

The Convention, and the Ministry of 10 August before it, thus had time enough to arm. From 10 August [1792] to March [17]93 nothing happened — the volunteers hardly count. In March [17]93 the 300,000 men were raised — from March to the following March the Convention had full time and freedom to arm, a full year, of which ten months when the revolutionary party was freed from all obstacles by the overthrow of the Girondins. And in a country of 25 million, which possessed its normal contingent of able-bodied population, bringing together a million soldiers, 750,000 active combatants against a foreign enemy (3% of the population) is, however new it was at that time, no witchcraft when one has a year’s time.

With the exception of the Vendée, I count the internal insurrections, militarily speaking, as nil. Except for Lyon and Toulon, they were pacified in 6 weeks without a sword-stroke; Lyon was taken by levées en masse, Toulon by a striking foray of Napoleon, by a resolute assault and by faults of the defenders.

The 750,000 men who were led against the Coalition in 1794 had at least 100,000 old soldiers from the monarchy and 150,000 others, partly from the volunteers, partly from the levy of the 300,000, men accustomed to war through continual fighting for 18 or 12 months, respectively; in addition, of the 500,000 new soldiers at least half had already taken part in the engagements of September, October and November [17]93, and the youngest must have been at least 3 months in the battalion when they were led against the enemy. Napoleon, in the Spanish campaign, reckons 3–4 weeks for the time of drilling, of the école de bataillon (battalion school). Leaving aside the subalterns and staff officers, who among the Coalition at that time were certainly better on average, the French army of [17]94, thanks to the time left to it for organisation, thanks to the eternally resultless fighting system of the Allies — a system which demoralises a tried and tested, especially aggressive army and disciplines the enemy’s, if it is young and holds the defensive, and accustoms it to war — the French army of 1794 was, therefore, no raw, roaring, enthusiastic free corps “ready to die for the Republic”, but a very fair army (a very respectable army), certainly equal to the enemies. The generals of the French were in 1794 in any case much better, although they made blunders enough; but the guillotine ensured the unity of command and the harmony of operations wherever — what happened only by exception — the representatives did not commit stupidities on their own hook. Le noble Saint-Just en fit plusieurs. (The noble Saint-Just made several of them.)

Marginal note on mass tactics: 1. The first crude idea of it arose from the lucky manoeuvre of Jemappes, which was more instinctive than militarily calculated. It arose from the chaotic state of the French army, which needed superior numbers merely to have some military self-confidence; mass had to replace discipline. Carnot’s share in this invention is not at all clear. — 2. This mass tactic remained in the crudest state and was, for example, not applied at Tourcoing and Fleurus in 1794 (the French and Carnot himself made the grossest blunders), until finally Napoleon in 1796, by the six-day Piedmontese campaign and the real annihilation of a superior force en détail, showed people what they had been heading for, without having become clear about it before. — 3. As for Carnot himself, the fellow becomes more and more suspect to me. I cannot of course pass definitive judgement; I do not have his dispatches to the generals. But from what is available, his chief merit seems to have consisted in the boundless ignorance and incapacity of his predecessors Pache and Bouchotte, and in the total unfamiliarity of the whole rest of the comité de salut public (Committee of Public Safety) with military matters. Dans le royaume des aveugles le borgne est roi. (In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.) Carnot, an old engineer officer, himself having been a representative with the Army of the North, knew what a fortress, an army, needs in matériel, etc., and specifically what the French lack. He likewise necessarily had a certain notion of the manner in which the military resources of a country like France are set in motion, and since in the case of a revolutionary levée en masse, where in any case much waste (loss) occurs, a little more or less squandering of resources does not matter, provided only that the main purpose, rapid mobilisation of these resources, is achieved, one need not exactly ascribe great genius to Carnot in order to explain his results. What makes me doubt the invention of mass warfare that is attributed to him pour sa part (for his part) is especially that his most far-reaching plans of 1793–94 were based precisely on the opposite manner of war; he divided the French armies, instead of concentrating them, and operated against the flanks of the enemy in such a way that the latter was thereby himself concentrated. Then his later career, the knight-errantry of virtue under the Consulate, etc., his brave defence of Antwerp — the defence

of a fortress is on average the best post for a mediocre, methodical officer possessed of a certain tenacity to distinguish himself, and besides, the siege of Antwerp in 1814 did not last 3 months — finally his attempt in 1815, in the face of the centralised 1,200,000 soldiers of the Coalition and under a completely altered system of war, to force upon Napoleon the means of [17]93, and his philistinism in general, all this does not speak greatly for Carnot’s genius. And then, where has it occurred that a decent fellow would have, as he did, slithered his way through Thermidor, Fructidor, Brumaire, etc.

Summa summarum. The Convention was saved solely and alone because the Coalition was not centralised and it thereby obtained a full year’s time to arm. It was saved as old Fritz was saved in the Seven Years’ War, as Wellington was saved in Spain in 1809, although the French were quantitatively and qualitatively at least three times stronger than all their opponents and only paralysed their colossal power by the marshals, once Napoleon was gone, playing every possible kind of dirty trick on one another.

The Coalition has long since moved beyond the stupidities of [17]93. It is splendidly centralised. It was already by 1813. The Russian campaign of 1812 made Russia the centre of gravity of the whole Holy Alliance for the continental war. Her troops formed the main mass, around which only later Prussia, Austria, etc., grouped themselves, and they remained the main mass right into Paris. Alexander was de facto commander en chef <commander-in-chief> of all the armies (i.e. the Russian general staff behind Alexander). Since 1848, however, the Holy Alliance has been constructed on a much more solid basis. The development of the counter-revolution [18]49-51 has brought the continent, with the exception of France, vis-à-vis Russia into the position in which the Confederation of the Rhine and Italy found themselves vis-à-vis Napoleon, pure vassalage. Nicolas, id est Paskewitsch, is the unavoidable dictator of the Holy Alliance en cas de guerre <in case of war>, just as Nesselrode already is en temps de paix <in time of peace>.

Furthermore, as regards the modern art of war, it was fully developed by Napoleon. Until the advent of certain conditions, of which more below, nothing remains but to imitate Napoleon, as far as conditions permit. This modern art of war, however, is universally known. In

Prussia it has been crammed into every second lieutenant even before his examination for officer cadet, as far as it can be crammed. As for the Austrians, in the Hungarian campaign they became acquainted with their bad, specifically Austrian generals and eliminated them—the Windischgrätzes, Weldens, Götzes and other old women. On the other hand—since we are no longer writing a “N[eue] Rh[einische] Z[ei tung]”, we no longer need to entertain any illusions—Radetzky’s two campaigns in Italy, the first excellent, the second masterly. Who helped him in this is immaterial; at any rate, the old fellow has bon sens <sound common sense> enough to grasp the ingenious ideas of others. The defensive position in 1848 between the 4 fortresses of Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago, Verona, all 4 sides of the quadrilateral well covered, and his defence of this position, until he received help, in the midst of an insurrectionary country, would be a masterpiece, had not his holding out been enormously facilitated by the miserable leadership, the disunity and the perpetual vacillation of the Italian generals, the intrigues of Charles Albert, and the support of the reactionary aristocrats and priests in the enemy camp. Nor is it to be forgotten that he sat in the most fertile country in the world and was untroubled about the maintenance of his army.—The campaign of [18]49, however, is for

Austrians unheard of
. The Piedmontese, instead of blocking the road to Turin at Novara and Mortara (a line 3 miles long) with concentrated mass, which was the best course, or pushing forward from there on Milan in 2-3 columns, deploy themselves from Sesto to Piacenza—a line of 20 miles, with 70,000 men, only 3,500 men per German mile <7,420 m> and 3-4 strong days’ marches from one wing to the other. Miserable concentric operation against Milan, whereby they were everywhere too weak. Radetzky, seeing that the Italians are applying the old Austrian system of [17]92, operates against them exactly as Napoleon would have done. The Piedmontese line was cut in two by the Po, a sack-like, gross error. He breaks through the line close by the Po, separates the 2 southern from the 3 northern divisions by inserting a mass of 60,000 men between them, attacks the 3 northern divisions (scarcely 35,000 men concentrated) rapidly with his whole force, throws them into the Alps, and cuts both corps of the Piedmontese army from one another and from Turin. This manoeuvre, which ended the campaign in 3 days and which is copied almost literally from the one made by Napoleon in 1809 at Abensberg and Eggmühl, the most ingenious of all Napoleonic manoeuvres, proves in any case that the Austrians are far from still parading as the old “slowly forward, always forward”

; it was precisely the rapidity
here that decided everything. The acts of treachery by the aristocrats and the Ramorinos facilitated the matter, particularly through exact intelligence on the position and plans of the Italians, as did the villainy of the Savoyard brigade at Novara, which did not fight but plundered. But, militarily speaking, the wretched deployment of the Piedmontese and Radetzky’s manoeuvre are completely sufficient to explain the success. These two facts must have had this result under all circumstances.—The Russians, finally, are, by the nature of their army itself, reliant on a system of warfare that comes very close to the modern one. Their army consists, as to the main body, of massive, semi-barbarous, and hence ponderous, infantry and numerous semi-barbarous, light, irregular cavalry (Cossacks). The Russians have, in decisive engagements, in great battles, never acted otherwise than with masses; Suvorov already understood this at the storming of Ismail and of Ochakov. The mobility which they lack is partially replaced by the irregular cavalry, which swarms around them on all sides and masks every movement of the army. It is precisely this ponderous massiveness of the Russian army which, however, makes it excellently suited to form the core, the reserve, the pivot, of a coalition army, whose operations must always be somewhat slower than those of a national army. The Russians played this role with distinction in 1813 and [18]14, and hardly a battle plan occurs in these years where the massive Russian columns do not immediately stand out before all others through their depth and density.

The French have scarcely been regarded as the pre-eminent bearers of the Napoleonic tradition since 1812. This tradition has more or less passed over to all the great European armies; in each it has provoked a revolution, mostly already in the last years of the Empire; by each the Napoleonic system has been adopted in strategy and tactics, so far as this harmonises with the character of the army. The levelling influence of the bourgeois epoch is also palpable here; the old national peculiarities are likewise in the process of disappearing in the armies, and the French, Austrian, and Prussian armies, even for the most part the English, are, for Napoleonic manoeuvres, machines organised into a fairly equal degree of efficiency. This does not prevent them from otherwise having very different qualities, in combat, etc. But of all the (great) European armies, only the Russian, semi-barbarous one, is capable of a tactics and strategy of its own, because it alone is not yet ripe for the fully developed modern system of warfare.

As for the French, by the petty war in Algeria they have even broken the thread of the Napoleonic tradition of great warfare

. It remains to be seen whether this war of robbery compensates its detrimental consequences for discipline by the advantages of accustoming men to war; whether it accustoms the men to hardships or breaks them through over-exertion; finally, whether it does not also spoil the generals’ coup d’œil <rapid grasp of a situation> for great warfare. At any rate, the French cavalry is being ruined in Algiers; it is unlearning its force <strength>, the closed choc <attack>, and is accustoming itself to a skirmishing system in which the Cossacks, Hungarians and Poles will always remain superior. Of the generals, Oudinot disgraced himself before Rome and only Cavaignac distinguished himself in June—all of these, however, are still no grandes épreuves <great tests of proven ability>.

The chances of superior strategy and tactics are therefore, on the whole, at least as much on the side of the Coalition as on that of the revolution.

III

But will not a new revolution, which brings a wholly new class to power, also, like the first, call forth new means of war and a new conduct of war, compared to which the present, Napoleonic one will appear just as antiquated and impotent as that of the Seven Years’ War appeared before that of the first revolution?

Modern warfare is the necessary product of the French Revolution. Its prerequisite is the social and political emancipation
of the bourgeoisie and the parcel peasants
. The bourgeoisie supplies the money, the parcel peasants supply the soldiers. The emancipation of both classes from feudal and guild fetters is necessary, in order to be able to raise the present colossal armies; and the degree of wealth and culture bound up with this stage of social development is likewise necessary in order to procure the material of weapons, ammunition, provisions, etc., required for modern armies, to produce the necessary number of educated officers, and to give the soldier himself the necessary intelligence.

I take the modern system of warfare as Napoleon fully developed it. Its two pivots are: massiveness of the means of attack in men, horses and guns, and mobility of these means of attack. Mobility is the necessary consequence of massiveness. Modern armies cannot, like the small armies of the Seven Years’ War, march back and forth for months on an area of 20 miles.

They cannot carry all their
provisions with them in magazines. They must fall upon a district like a swarm of locusts, forage right and left within the range of their cavalry, and must move on when everything is consumed. The magazines are sufficient, if only they are adequate for unforeseen contingencies; they are emptied and refilled every moment; they must follow the rapid march of the army and can therefore seldom reach the point of covering the army’s needs for even one month. The modern system of warfare is therefore, in a poor, semi-barbarous, sparsely populated country, impossible in the long run. The French perished slowly from this impossibility in Spain, rapidly in Russia. The Spaniards, however, perished from the French in return, their country was enormously sucked dry, and the Russians cannot even apply their own ponderous system of mass warfare for long in Poland, nor at all in Russia proper, so long as they have no railways. The defensive on the Dnieper and the Dvina would ruin Russia.

But this mobility also requires a certain degree of education in the soldier, who must in many cases know how to help himself. The considerable extension of patrolling and foraging, of outpost duty, etc., the greater activity demanded of every soldier, the more frequent repetition of cases in which the soldier acts individually and is reliant on his own intellectual resources, finally, the great significance of the skirmisher engagement, the success of which depends on the intelligence, the coup d’œil and the energy of each individual soldier—all presuppose a greater degree of education in the non-commissioned officer and soldier than was the case under old Fritz. A barbarous or semi-barbarous nation, however, has no such degree of education among the masses to show, that the first 500,000-600,000 men whom one raises could, on the one hand, be disciplined, trained mechanistically, and at the same time obtain or retain this coup d’œil for the petty war. The barbarians have this coup d’œil of the robber by nature, e.g. the Cossacks; but they are for that reason just as incapable <unable> of regular military service, as conversely the serf-like Russian infantrymen are of proper skirmishing.

This general average degree of education, which the modern system of warfare presupposes in every soldier, is found only in the most developed countries: in England, where the soldier, however raw a peasant he was, goes through the civilising school of the towns; in France, where the emancipated

Parcel peasants and the cunning mob of the towns (remplaçants <substitutes for those who purchase exemption from military service>) form the army; in North Germany, where feudalism has either likewise been destroyed or has assumed plus ou moins <more or less> bourgeois forms and where the towns furnish a considerable contingent to the army; finally, after the recent wars, it appears to exist also, at least in a part of the Austrian army which is recruited from the least feudal regions. Apart from England, parcel cultivation everywhere forms the basis of the army, and the army is all the more suited to the modern war system the closer the position of the parcel peasant approaches that of the free proprietor.

But not only the mobility of the individual soldier, that of the masses themselves also presupposes the level of civilisation of the epoch of the bourgeoisie. The sluggishness of the pre-revolutionary armies is closely bound up with feudalism. The mass of officers’ equipages alone prevented any movement. The armies crawled along as slowly as the entire movement. The emergent bureaucracy of the absolute monarchies brought somewhat more order into the administration of materiel, but its alliance with the haute finance <high finance> simultaneously organised embezzlement en gros, and where the bureaucracy benefited the armies in any way, it harmed them doubly through the spirit of schematism and pedantry which it instilled in them. Witness <Zeuge> old Fritz himself, in his own most exalted person. Russia still labours under all these drawbacks; the Russian army, everywhere cheated and fleeced, is starved, and on the march the fellows drop like flies. Only the bourgeois state feeds its troops tolerably and can therefore count on the mobility of its army.

As regards mobility, this is in every respect a property of bourgeois armies. Mobility, however, is not only the necessary supplement to mass character, it often also replaces it (Napoleon in Piedmont 1796).

But mass character is just as much a special property of modern civilised armies as mobility.

However different the method of recruitment may be – conscription, Prussian Landwehr, Swiss militia, levée en masse – the experience of the last 60 years proves that under the regime of the bourgeoisie and the free parcel peasants, in no people’s war can more than 7 per cent of the population be called to arms, i.e., about 5 per cent actively employed.

France in the autumn of 1793, taken at 25 million, could accordingly have raised 1,750,000 soldiers and 1,250,000 actual combatants. The 1,250,000 were at this time at the frontiers, before Toulon, in the Vendée – counting both sides here – pretty much in existence. In Prussia – now 16 million – 7 and 5 per cent would amount to 1,120,000 men and 800,000 men. The whole Prussian force, line and Landwehr, however, scarcely amounts to 600,000. This example shows what 5 per cent already means for a nation.

Eh bien <Well> – if France and Prussia can easily call 5 per cent of their population to arms and, in case of necessity, even 7 per cent, Austria in the most extreme case summons at most 5 and Russia barely 3 per cent. 5 per cent for Austria would be 1,750,000 – taken at 35 million. In 1849 Austria had strained every nerve. It had approx. 550,000 men. The Hungarians, whose forces had been doubled by the Kossuth notes, had perhaps 350,000. I add another 50,000 Lombards who evaded conscription or who served in the Piedmontese army – total 950,000 men, i.e., not yet 2 2/3 per cent of the population; with the Croatian borderers, who lived under exceptional conditions, contributing at least 15 per cent of their population. – Russia has, at a low estimate, 72 million inhabitants; at 5 per cent it ought therefore to be able to raise 3,600,000. Instead, it has never been able to raise more than 1,500,000, regulars and irregulars together, and of these to lead at most 1,000,000 against the enemy in its own country, i.e., its total force was never more than 2 1/12 per cent, its active force never more than 1 7/18 or 1 39/100 per cent. The thin population on an enormous area, the lack of communications and the low national product explain this very simply.

Like mobility, the mass of the means of attack is a necessary result of the higher level of civilisation, and specifically the modern proportion of the armed mass to the total population is incompatible with any social condition that stands below the emancipated bourgeoisie.

Modern warfare therefore presupposes the emancipation of the bourgeois and the peasants; it is the military expression of this emancipation.

The emancipation of the proletariat will also have its own particular military expression, will create a specific, new method of warfare. Cela est clair. <That is clear> It can even already be determined what the material bases of this new warfare will be.

But as far as the mere conquest of political power by the present confused French and German proletariat, which partly forms the tail of other classes, is removed from the real emancipation of the proletariat, which consists in the abolition of all class antagonisms, just so far removed is the initial warfare of the revolution to be expected from the warfare of the really emancipated proletariat.

The real emancipation of the proletariat, the complete elimination of all class distinctions and the complete centralisation of all means of production in Germany and France, presupposes the co-operation of England and at least a doubling of the means of production now existing in Germany and France. But precisely this likewise presupposes a new kind of warfare.

The great discoveries of Napoleon in the science of war cannot be eliminated by a miracle. The new science of war must be just as necessary a product of the new social relations as that created by the Revolution and Napoleon was the necessary result of the new relations given by the Revolution. Just as, however, in the proletarian revolution the point for industry is not to abolish steam engines but to multiply them, so for warfare the point is not to reduce mass character and mobility, but to raise them to a higher power.

The precondition of Napoleonic warfare was increased productive forces; the precondition of every new improvement in warfare must likewise be new productive forces. Railways and electric telegraphs will already now, in European wars, occasion quite new combinations for a talented general or minister of war. The gradual increase in productive forces and therewith in population has likewise given scope for larger mass concentrations. In France, instead of 25, 36 millions, 5 per cent no longer yields 1,250,000 but 1,800,000 men. In both cases the power of the civilised countries has increased proportionately over that of the barbarian ones. They alone have large railway networks, and their population has grown twice as fast as that of Russia, for example. – All these calculations prove, by the by, how utterly impossible a lasting subjugation of Western Europe under Russia is and how more impossible it becomes with every day.

The power of the new warfare to be generated by the abolition of classes cannot, however, consist in the fact that the available 5 per cent form ever more significant masses with the growth of the population. It must consist in being placed in a position no longer to call 5 or 7 per cent, but 12–16 per cent of the population, i.e., half to two-thirds of the adult male population – the healthy people from 18 to 30 or up to 40 years of age – to arms. But just as Russia cannot increase its available force from 2–3 per cent to 5 per cent without a complete revolution of its whole internal social and political organisation and, above all, of its production, so Germany and France cannot raise their available force from 5 to 12 per cent without revolutionising their production and more than doubling it. Only when the average labour of each individual, by machines etc., is worth twice as much as now can twice the number be spared from labour – even if only for a short time, for the 5 per cent have never been kept on foot for long in any country.

If the conditions for this are fulfilled, if national production is sufficiently increased and centralised, if classes are abolished – which is absolutely necessary (the Prussian one-year volunteer, as long as he is not a non-commissioned officer or a Landwehr officer, will, because of his social, aristocratic position, never be a usable soldier alongside the peasants and the louts) – then only the limit of the population capable of bearing arms is the barrier to actual recruitment, i.e., in the most extreme emergency, 15–20 per cent of the population can momentarily be armed and 12–15 per cent actually led against the enemy. These enormous masses, however, presuppose a quite different mobility from that of even the present armies. Without a complete railway network they can neither concentrate nor be fed, nor be kept supplied with munitions, nor move. And without electric telegraphs they cannot be directed at all; but since with such masses it is not possible for the strategist and the tactician (who commands on the battlefield) to be one and the same person, the division of labour enters here. The strategic operations, the co-operation of the various corps, must be directed from the central point of the telegraphic lines; the tactical ones by the individual generals. That under these circumstances wars can and must be decided in a still far shorter time than even under Napoleon is clear. The cost factor makes it necessary, the necessarily decisive effect of every blow with such masses makes it unavoidable.

In mass and strategic mobility these armies must, therefore, be already quite unprecedentedly formidable. Tactical mobility (in patrolling, skirmishing, on the battlefield) must likewise be considerably greater in such soldiers; they are more robust, more supple, more intelligent than anything that present society can produce.

Unfortunately, however, all this can only be carried out after many years and at a time when such mass wars can no longer occur for lack of an adequate enemy. In the first period of the proletarian revolution the first conditions for all this do not exist, least of all in the year 1852.

The proletariat in France now certainly forms barely double the percentage of the population that it did against 1789. Then the proletariat – at least from 92 to 94 – was as stirred up and in tension <Spannung> as it will only soon be again. Already then it turned out that in revolutionary wars with violent internal convulsions the mass of the proletariat is needed for employment at home. The same will again now be the case, and probably more so than ever, since the chances of the immediate outbreak of civil wars increase with the advance of the Allies. The proletariat will therefore be able to send only a small contingent to the active army; the main source of recruitment remains the mob and the peasants. That is to say, the revolution will have to wage war with the means and according to the method of general modern warfare.

Only an ideologist could ask whether, with these means—an active army of 4–5 per cent of the population—it might not be possible to create new combinations, to invent new, surprising methods of employment. Just as one cannot quadruple the product on the loom without replacing the moving force, hand labour, by steam, without inventing a new means of production that has little more in common with the old hand-loom, so one cannot produce new results in the art of war with the old means. Only the production of new, more powerful means makes possible the achievement of new, grander results. Every great commander who makes an epoch in military history through new combinations himself either invents new material means or he is the first to discover the correct use of new material means invented before his time. Between Turenne and old Frederick lies the revolution in infantry—the displacement of the pike and the matchlock by the bayonet and the flintlock—and the epoch-making element in the military science of old Frederick consists in the fact that, within the limits of the warfare of his day, he remodelled and perfected the old tactics in accordance with the new instruments. Just as Napoleon’s epoch-making merit consists in his having found the sole correct tactical and strategic employment for the enormously larger army masses made possible by the revolution, and having moreover developed this so thoroughly that, on the whole, modern generals, far from being able to surpass him, can only try to copy him in their most brilliant and skilful operations.

To sum up, the revolution will have to fight with modern means of war and modern art of war against modern means of war and modern art of war. The chances of military talent are at least as great for the coalition as for France: *Ce seront alors les gros bataillons qui l’emporteront.* [It will then be the heavier battalions that carry the day.]

IV

Let us now see what battalions can be brought into the line of battle and how they can be employed.

1. Russia. The Russian army, on a peace footing, amounts nominally to 1,100,000 men, in reality to about 750,000. Since 1848 the government has been constantly at work to reach an effective strength on a war footing of 1,500,000 men, and Nicholas and Paskevich have carried out inspections in person practically everywhere. To make a modest estimate, Russia has now really attained the full peace establishment—1,100,000 men. From this we deduct, at a high estimate:

For the Caucasus &emsp; 100,000 men

Russia proper &emsp; 150,000 men

the Polish provinces &emsp; 150,000 men

Sick, detached, etc. &emsp; 150,000 men

&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; 550,000 men.

There remain available 550,000 men for active employment abroad. That is scarcely more than Russia actually sent across the frontiers in 1813.

2. Prussia. The magnificent army, if the entire Landwehr of the first and second levy, supernumeraries and all, were called up, would amount to at least 650,000 men. The government can, however, at most mobilise 550,000 men for the moment. I reckon only 500,000. These need to detach only little beyond the second levy (150,000 men) for garrisons, etc., since everywhere the gradual calling up of the supernumeraries and of the new conscription for the following year—which Nicholas will certainly see to—as well as the Russians incessantly marching through would form a sufficient reserve against any attempt at insurrection at home. Besides, they will have fewer sick, as they concentrate in their own country and have a shorter march to the Rhine than the Russians. I nevertheless deduct one half, as with the Russians, leaving the other half available:

250,000 men.

3. Austria. Has under arms and on furlough, who can be with the army just as quickly as the Prussian Landwehr, a low estimate of 600,000 men. Here again I deduct one half, since in at least two-thirds of the monarchy the Russians who follow up will serve as a reserve in the interior until new reserves are formed and will keep the centres of insurrection in check. There remain available against the enemy—

300,000 men.

4. The German Confederation. Since these gentlemen live near the Rhine and the entire coalition marches through their territory, they need almost no garrisons for the interior; all the less so because at the first successes of the coalition against France the reserve armies would be drawn up right across Germany, from north to south. The German Confederation provides at least

120,000 men.

5. The Italian governments, the Danes, Belgians, Dutch, Swedes, etc., I provisionally put at

80,000 men.

The total mass of coalition troops thus amounts to 1,300,000 men, who are either already under arms or can be called up immediately. All the estimates are deliberately too low. The deductions for sick alone are so large that from convalescents, etc., alone a second army of 350,000 men can be formed on the French frontier two months after the opening of operations. But since nowadays no government is so unreasonable as to begin a war without, simultaneously with the march-out of the active army, ordering new levies, as strong as possible, and sending them after the first army, this second army is bound to turn out considerably stronger.

The troops of the first army (the 1,300,000 men) can be completely concentrated in about 2 months, in the following way: That the Prussians and Austrians can have their above contingents available in 2 months can no longer be doubted since the armaments of last November. As for the Russians, their three definitive points of concentration are first Berlin, Breslau and Cracow or Vienna (see below). From Petersburg to Berlin is about 45 days’ march; from Berlin to the Rhine 16, together 61 marches of 5 German miles each. From Moscow to Breslau 48 marches, from Breslau to Mainz 20, together 68 marches. From Kiev to Vienna 40, from Vienna to Basle 22, together 62 marches. If we add the days of rest, which under the above strenuous marches can under no circumstances be omitted for Russian troops, it is clear that even the troops stationed in Moscow, Petersburg and Kiev can comfortably be on the Rhine in three months, on the assumption that the men simply march on foot and that the railways and transport by wagon are not brought into use.

These means, however, can be employed almost everywhere in Germany, and at least partially in Russia and Poland, and would certainly shorten the transport of the troops as a whole by 15–20 days. The main body of the Russian troops, however, is already concentrated in the Polish provinces, and as soon as the political situation makes a crisis likely, still more troops will be directed there, so that the starting points of the line of march will be not Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev, but Riga, Vilna, Minsk, Dubno, Kamenets, i.e., the line of march is shortened by about 60 miles—12 days’ march and 4 days’ rest. At the same time a large part of the infantry—especially those coming from the more distant stations—will be able to be conveyed at least every third day or rest day for 5 miles, so that for this part the rest days count as marching days. The *matériel* of the artillery, the ammunition and supplies would then be left to the railways, while the draught teams and gun crews would march or ride and thus in any case arrive earlier than in the previous manner.

After all this, it seems to me there is nothing to prevent the concentration of the coalition army on the Rhine from taking place in the following way two months after the outbreak of the revolution <The manuscript reads: verhindern>:

First army: 1. &emsp; First line on the Rhine and before Piedmont:

&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; Pr[ussians], Austr[ians], etc. &emsp; 750,000 men

&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; Russians &emsp; 300,000 men

&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; 1,050,000 men.

2. &emsp; Second line, reserve, 10 marches back, Russians &emsp; 250,000 men.

&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; total 1,300,000 men, as above.

Second army: 1. &emsp; Reserve of the minor allies—Prussians, Austrians, etc.—in process of concentration &emsp; 200,000 men.

2. &emsp; Russian reserve, on the march, 20 marches back &emsp; 150,000 men.

&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; 350,000 men

Both armies total &emsp; 1,650,000 men.

Actually, under present conditions barely 5–6 weeks are needed to bring 300,000 Russians to the Rhine, and in the same time Prussia, Austria and the minor allies can bring their above contingents to the Rhine; but in order to make proper allowance for the unforeseen obstacles that arise in every coalition, I assume a full two months. The disposition of the allied troops at the moment when Napoleon came from Elba was, in regard to a march into France, scarcely as favourable as the present one, and yet the Russians were on the Rhine when Napoleon fought the English and Prussians at Waterloo.

What resources has France to oppose to the allies?

1. The line amounts to about 450,000 men, of whom 50,000 cannot be spared in Algeria. From the remaining 400,000 we deduct the sick, the necessary minimum for fortress garrisons, smaller detachments in equivocal parts of the interior—there remain available at most 250,000 men.

2. The favourite device of the present Reds: recalling discharged soldiers to the colours, can be applied with success, compulsorily, at most to 6 age classes, i.e., from the 27th to the 32nd year. Each age class contributes to the conscription about 80,000 men. The ravages <Verwüstungen> of the Algerian war and climate, the ordinary mortality over 12 years, the falling away of those who have become unfit, of emigrants, and of those who contrive to evade re-enlistment in one way or another at a time when the administration in any case falls into disorder, reduce the 480,000 former recruits of these 6 age classes to at most 300,000 men liable to re-enter. Of these 150,000 are required for fortress garrisons, which will be taken mainly from this class of older, largely married men—leaves 150,000 men. Under reasonably skilful direction these can be mobilised in 2 months without difficulty.

3. The Volkswehr, volunteers, *volontaires*, *levée en masse*, or whatever one wants to call this subordinate cannon fodder. With the exception of some 10,000 *garde mobile* that could still be scraped together, not a man of them has any more familiarity with arms than any German civic guard. The French learn the trade more quickly, but 2 months is a very short time, and if Napoleon could push his recruits through the battalion school in 4 weeks, he managed that only with excellent cadres, whereas the first consequence of the next revolution will be the disorganisation even of the cadres of the line. Moreover, as is well known, our French revolutionaries are traditionalists, and their first cry will be: Levée en masse! *Deux millions d’hommes au frontières!* <Mass levy! Two million men to the frontiers!> The two million men would be fine and good if one could again expect such stupidities from the coalition as in ’92 and ’93 and had time to train the 2,000,000 men little by little. But that is out of the question. One must be prepared to have a million active enemy soldiers on the frontier within two months, and the point is to face this million with a chance of success.

If the French once again act as the traditional parrots of ’93, they will undertake the affair with the 2 million, i.e., they will undertake so much that the actual result, within the brief span, amounts to zero. The drilling and organisation of 2,500,000 men in 8 weeks, without cadres, in practice amounts to a senseless dissipation of all resources and to not reinforcing the army by a single serviceable battalion.

If, on the other hand, they have a proper war minister who possesses some knowledge of revolutionary wars and the methods of rapidly creating an army, and if no stupid obstacles based on ignorance and a craving for popularity are put in his way, he will keep within the bounds of the possible and can achieve much. Then one will more or less have to arrive at the following plan:

The armed force consists initially of two components: 1. a proletarian guard in the towns, a peasant guard in the countryside, insofar as the countryside is reliable, for internal service; 2. a regular army against invasion. – Garrison duty is performed by the proletarian and peasant guard; the army provides only the most necessary detachments. Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon, Metz, Lille, Valenciennes, the most important fortresses, which are also large towns, will require only a few line troops for their defence in addition to their own guard and a few peasant detachments from the surrounding area. The proletarian guards available in the interior, in so far as they consist of unemployed workers, will be assembled in a training camp and drilled by old officers and non-commissioned officers unfit for field service, in order to fill the gaps in the ranks of the active army. The camp can be established near Orléans – at the same time a threat to the legitimist regions.

The line, in so far as it is in France, must be tripled, raised from 400,000 to 1,100,000 men. This is done as follows: Each battalion is turned into

a regiment – the general promotion that is unavoidable in this process will inspire the officers and non-commissioned officers with no less respect for the revolution than the guillotine and the court martial. The inevitable expansion of the cadres is to be carried out as gradually as possible, and whatever officers can be won over will be won over. This is very important given the impossibility of conjuring up officers in two months. In any case, there is still so much national feeling among the middle and lower ranks of the French army that these fellows, with a little promotion, an energetic leadership of the war ministry and some chance of success, will do quite well at the beginning, especially once a few examples have been made of mutineers and deserters. The pupils of the military schools, the officials of the Ponts-et-Chaussées <administration of bridges and roads>, provide excellent artillery and engineer officers, and after a few actions those subordinate military talents so frequent among the French will begin to develop – men who know how to lead a company once they have been under fire.

As far as the soldiers themselves are concerned, the figures are as follows:

the line

400,000 men

the recalled reservists

300,000 men

still to be levied and trained

500,000 men

total

1,200,000 men

of which for sick

100,000 men

deducted

leaves

1,100,000 men

Of these, the following are to be actively employed:

Line

250,000 men

Recalled reservists

150,000 men

Recruits

400,000 men

800,000 men.

What can be done with them will appear. The training of 400,000 to 500,000 men, however, as recruits for the line army, who are to be merged with the existing soldiers and the recalled reservists in the regiments and battalions, within two months, is not so exceedingly difficult if the work is taken in hand rapidly, le lendemain de la révolution <the day after the revolution>. All these reinforcements would affect the infantry and artillery; in two months one can

certainly train an infantryman and a gunner at least capable of simple gun service, but not a cavalryman. The increase in cavalry would therefore be very weak.

The entire arming plan presupposes that there is a proper war minister who understands how to appraise the political situation, who possesses strategic, tactical and detailed knowledge of all arms and who has the requisite portion of energy, swiftness and decisiveness <Entschlossenheit>, and who is given a free hand by the asses who will govern alongside him. But where is the “red” party in France to get such a fellow! On the contrary, the chances are that, as usual, an ignorant fellow who is believed, and who believes himself, as un bon démocrate <a good democrat>, naturally up to any post, will try to play the Carnot, that he will decree mass levies, dissolve everything completely, very soon come to the end of his wits, then abandon everything to the routine of old subordinate officials and allow the enemy armies to advance to the gates of Paris. Today, however, to resist a European coalition, one must be not Pache and Bouchotte, nor even Carnot; one would have to be Napoleon or have frightfully stupid enemies and frightfully good luck.

It must not be overlooked that in all the calculations of the coalition’s forces the minimum total strength and the maximum deductions have been assumed, so that with even moderately tolerable direction the disposable mass of troops will be larger and the necessary time for concentration shorter than stated here. For France, on the other hand, the assumptions are the reverse; the available time is taken as long as possible, the total force that may possibly be organized is taken as very high, the deductions are taken as small, so that the disposable mass of troops is assumed to be as large as possible. In a word: all these calculations represent – abstracting from unforeseen events and gross blunders by the allies – the most favourable possible case for the revolution.

In addition, it has been presupposed that the revolution and invasion do not immediately provoke civil war in the interior of the country. It is now, sixty years after the last civil war in France, impossible to determine to what extent legitimist fanaticism is capable of more than an ephemeral insurrection; it is, however, clear that to the same extent as the allies advance, the chances of a rising like that of 1793 in Lyon, Toulon, etc., of a momentary alliance of all politically overthrown classes and fractions, also increase. Here, too, however, let us assume the most favourable

case for the revolution, namely that the revolutionary proletarian and peasant guard is in a position successfully to disarm the rebellious departments and classes.

We shall speak presently of the chances that may be offered to the revolution by risings in Germany, Italy, etc.

V

We now come to the actual conduct of war.

If one sets one foot of a compass on the map on Paris and, with the distance from Paris to Strasbourg as the radius, describes a circle around Paris, the periphery of this circle touches the French frontier in the south between Grenoble and Chambéry, at Pont de Beauvoisin, follows it in a northerly direction via Geneva, the Jura, Basel, Strasbourg and Hagenau, and then follows the course of the Rhine to its mouth; if at individual points it departs from it, this distance never reaches the length of two days’ marches. If the Rhine were the frontier of France, then from the point where the Alps cease to cover this frontier as far as the North Sea, Paris would be equidistant from the frontier. The military system of France, with Paris as the centre, would have fulfilled all its geographical conditions. This simple arc of a circle from Chambéry to Rotterdam, which reduces all points of the only open frontier of France – and moreover the frontier that lies closest to the capital – to the uniform distance of about 70 German miles – 14 days’ marches – from Paris, and at the same time covers the frontier by a broad stream – that is the real military basis of the assertion that the Rhine is the natural frontier of France.

The same peculiar configuration of its course, however, also makes the Rhine the starting point of all concentric operations against Paris, for the various armies, in order to arrive simultaneously before Paris and simultaneously threaten Paris from different sides, must set out simultaneously from equidistant points. The operations of any counter-revolutionary coalition army against France must be concentric, dangerous as all concentric operations are in which the point of concentration lies within the enemy’s sphere or even forms his operational base: 1. because with Paris France is conquered; 2. because no part of the frontier lying within the range of the operations of French armies may be left uncovered, otherwise the French could, on the territory of the coalition, in the rear of its armies, provoke insurrections by sending armies

3. because the masses which any coalition must hurl against France require multiple lines of operation for their supply.

The frontier to be covered for both armies runs from Chambéry to Rotterdam. The Spanish frontier is left out of account for the time being. The Italian frontier from the Var to the Isère is covered by the Alps and recedes ever further from Paris, as it forms the tangent to the above circle. It can only come into consideration: 1. if the fortified defiles of the Savoy Alps, especially the Mont Cenis, are in French hands; 2. if it is intended to make a diversion on the coast, for which special reasons must be present; 3. if French armies, after the frontier has been secured at all other points, wish to proceed offensively as Napoleon did in 1796. For all other cases it lies too far away.

The active operations, both for the coalition and for France, are therefore limited to the line from Chambéry or the Isère to the North Sea, and to the territory lying between this line and Paris. And it is precisely this part of France that presents a terrain which seems made for defence and whose mountain and river systems could hardly be better desired from a military point of view.

From the Rhône to the Moselle the frontier is covered by a long mountain chain that is difficult to cross and passable only at certain points: the Jura, which is joined by the Vosges, whose extension in turn is formed by the Hochwald and Idarwald. Both ranges run parallel to the frontier, and the Vosges are, in addition, covered by the Rhine. Between the Moselle and the Meuse the Ardennes cover the road to Paris, and beyond the Meuse the Argonne does so. Only the area from the Sambre to the sea is open, but here the situation of any advancing army becomes more dangerous with every step it takes forward – with at all skilful operations by a strong French army it risks being cut off from Belgium and thrown into the sea. In addition, the whole line from the Rhône to the North Sea is studded with fortresses, some of which, e.g. Strasbourg, command whole provinces.

From the point where the Jura and the Vosges meet, a mountain range runs in a south-westerly direction towards the Auvergne, forming the watershed between the North Sea and the Ocean on the one side and the Mediterranean on the other. From it flow southwards the Saône, northwards and parallel the Moselle, the Meuse, the Marne, the Seine, the Yonne. Between each pair of these rivers, as between the Yonne and the Loire, long mountain chains branch off, which, traversed by only a few roads, separate the individual river valleys from one another. The whole of this mountainous country is, for the most part,

practicable for all arms, but very barren, and no large army can maintain itself on it for long.

Once this range and the equally barren heights of the Champagne, which separate the Meuse region from the Seine region, have been surmounted, the hostile army enters the Seine basin. And only here do the striking military advantages of the position of Paris show themselves fully.

The river basin of the Seine, downstream as far as the mouth of the Oise, is formed by several rivers flowing in almost parallel arcs in a north-westerly direction – the Yonne, the Seine, the Marne, the Oise and the Aisne, each of which in turn has tributaries flowing in the same direction. All these arc-like valleys unite fairly close to one another, and at the centre of these points of union lies Paris. The main roads to Paris from all the land frontiers between the Mittelländisches Meer and the Schelde run through these river valleys and converge concentrically with them upon Paris. The army that defends Paris can therefore always concentrate in a shorter time and move from one threatened point to another than the attacking army, because of two concentric circles the inner one has the smaller periphery. The admirable use of these advantages, the tireless movement on the periphery of the inner circle, made it possible for Napoleon in his brilliant campaign of 1814 to hold the entire coalition in check for two months in the Seine region with a handful of soldiers. <Here the manuscript ends.>