I take it for granted that any victorious Parisian revolution in 1852 
will immediately result in a war of the Holy Alliance against France. 
This war will be quite different from that of 1792-94, and the 
events which occurred at that time can in no way serve as a parallel. 

I 

The miracles of the Convention in the military defeat of the 
Coalition are much diminished on closer examination, and Na- 
poleon’s contempt for the fourteen armies of the Convention is 
comprehensible and in many respects even justified; Napoleon used 
to say that the chief part was played by the blunders of the Coalition, 
which is quite correct, and even when on St. Helena he still regarded 
Carnot as a mediocrity. 

In August 1792, 90,000 Prussians and Austrians swooped down on 
France. The King of Prussia? wanted to march directly on Paris, but 
Brunswick and the Austrian generals did not want to. There was no 
unity of command; sometimes hesitation, sometimes rapid advance, 
plans always being changed. After the Allies had passed through the 
Argonne defiles, they were opposed by Dumouriez at Valmy and St. 
Menehould. They could have bypassed him and left him where he 
was; he would have had to follow them to Paris, and with any 
moderately sensible procedure he would not have been a danger to 
them even in the rear. But they could also have acted more safely 
and defeated him in battle, which was not difficult since they had 
more and better troops, as the French themselves admit. Instead 

*? Frederick William II.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 543 

they unleashed the ridiculous cannonade of Valmy, where during 
the battle, indeed even during the attack by the columns, more than 
once the generals jumped from a more audacious to a more hesitant 
attitude. The two attacks themselves were pitiful as regards mass, 
vigour and spirit.* It was not the soldiers who were to blame, but the 
vacillations in the command; the attacks were hardly worthy of the 
name, they were at most demonstrations. A resolute advance along 
the whole line would certainly have overthrown the French vol- 
unteers and the demoralised regiments. After the battle, the Al- 

lies again remained where they were without knowing what to do, © 
until the soldiers became ill. 

In the Jemappes campaign, Dumouriez triumphed because he at 
first half instinctively counterposed a mass concentration of forces to 
the Austrian system of cordons and endlessly long fronts (from 
Ostende to the Maas).**' In the following spring, however, he 
committed the same mistake—owing to his whim of wanting to 
conquer Holland; the Austrians, on the other hand, advanced in 
concentrated formation; the result was the battle of Neerwinden and 
the loss of Belgium.**? At Neerwinden, and particularly also in the 
smaller engagements of this campaign, it was seen that when the 
French volunteers, these much vaunted heroes, were not constantly 
under the eye of Dumouriez they did not fight better than the South 
German “people’s militia” of 1849. 

Then, in addition, Dumouriez defected, Vendée revolted, the 
army was split and discouraged, and if the 130,000 Austrians and 
British had marched determinedly on Paris, the revolution would 
have been bankrupt and Paris conquered—exactly as in the previ- 
ous year, if such stupidities had not taken place. Instead, these 
gentlemen laid siege to the fortresses and set about achieving the 
most minute advantages en détail, one after the other, with the 
greatest expenditure of strategic pedantry, and frittered away six 
whole months. 

The French army, which still held together after Lafayette’s 
defection, can be estimated at 120,000 men, and the volunteers of 
1792 at 60,000. In March 1793, 300,000 men were conscripted. In 
August therefore, when the levée en masse was decreed, the French 
army must have been at least 300,000-350,000 strong. The levée en. 
masse raised it by about 700,000. Taking into account all deductions, 
in the beginning of 1794 the French put about 750,000 men in the 
field against the Coalition, considerably more than the Coalition put 
against France. 

@ This word is in English in the original.— Ed. 

From April 1793 until October, the French were beaten ev- 
erywhere, only the blows had no decisive effect thanks to the 
Coalition’s systematic delays. From October onwards there were 
alternating successes. In winter the campaign was suspended, in the 
spring of 1794 the levées'‘en masse came into the line of battle with full 
effect; the result was victories in all areas in May, until finally in June 
the victory of Fleurus decided the fate of the revolution.*” 

Therefore the Convention, and the Ministry of August 10° 
before it, had time enough for arming. From August 10, 1792, to 
March 1793 nothing happened—the volunteers hardly count. In 
March 1793, the 300,000 men were conscripted—from then until 
the following March the Convention had plenty of time and free- 
dom for arming, a whole year, during ten months of which the 
revolutionary party was freed from all obstacles by the overthrow of 
the Girondists. And in a country of 25 million, which had the normal 
proportion of the population capable of bearing arms, when a whole 
year was available, it did not require a miracle to mobilise a million 
soldiers, 750,000 being active combatants (3 per cent of the 
population), against a foreign foe, however much of a novelty it was 
at that time. 

With the exception of the Vendée, I consider the internal revolts 
of no account from the military point of view. Except Lyons and 
Toulon, they were quelled within six weeks without a blow being 
struck. Lyons was captured by the levées.en' masse, Toulon owing to 
Napoleon’s striking incursion by means of a resolute storm and 
because of the mistakes of the defenders. 

The 750,000 men who were led against the Coalition in 1794 
included at least 100,000 old soldiers from the time of the monarchy 
and 150,000 other soldiers, derived partly from the volunteers and 
partly from the levée of 300,000, who had become accustomed to war 
in the continual fighting for eighteen or twelve months respectively. 
In addition, at least half of the 500,000 new recruits had already 
taken part in the fighting during September, October and November 
of 1793, and the youngest of them must have been at least three 
months in the battalions when they were led against the enemy. 
In his Spanish campaign, Napoleon estimated at 3-4 weeks the 
time required for training: the école de bataillon Not counting the 
subalterns and staff officers, who at that time were on the average 
certainly better among the Coalition forces, the French army of 

* Engels apparently refers to Napoleon’s “Note sur la position actuelle de l’armée 
en Espagne”, Bayonne, 1808, in the book: W.F.P. Napier, History of the War in the 
Peninsula...,Vol. I.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 545 

1794, thanks to the time allowed it for organisation, and thanks to 
the Allies’ eternally inconclusive system of combat—a system which 
demoralises a well-tried, particularly aggressive army, and which 
disciplines that of the enemy, if it is a young army and on the 
defensive, and makes it accustomed to war—the French army of 
1794 was therefore no raw, noisy, enthusiastic band of volunteers 
ready “to die for the Republic”, but a very fair army,? certainly a 
match for the enemy. In 1794, the French generals were in any case 
much superior, although they made blunders enough; but the 
guillotine ensured unity of command and harmonious operations 
where the representatives [of the Convention] did not commit 
stupidities on their own account, which only exceptionally occurred. 
Le noble Saint-Just en fit plusieurs.” 

Marginal notes on mass tactics: 

1. The first crude notion of them arose from the successful 
manoeuvre at Jemappes, which was the result of instinct rather than 
military calculation. It arose from the chaotic state of the French 
army, which needed numerical superiority in order to have any 
degree of military self-confidence; mass had to take the place of 
discipline. Carnot’s share in this discovery is not at all clear. 

2. These mass tactics remained in the crudest of states and in 1794 
at Tourcoing and Fleurus, for example, were not applied at 
all (the French, and Carnot himself, committed the most flagrant 
blunders), until finally Napoleon in 1796 by the six days’ Piedmont 
campaign and the actual annihilation en détail of a superior force *” 
showed people the goal towards which they were moving without 
having previously had any clear idea of it. 

3. As regards Carnot himself, he is a fellow about whom I am 
increasingly suspicious. Of course, I cannot make a definitive 
judgment, 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 with military matters of all 
the rest of the Comité de salut public*’ Dans le royaume des aveugles, le 
borgne est row.“ Carnot, an old officer of the Engineers, who himself 
had been a representative [of the Convention] with the Northern 
Army, knew what a fortress or an army required in the way of 
material etc., and particularly what the French lacked. He had 
necessarily, too, a certain understanding of the way to mobilise the 

* Engels gives this phrase in English.— Ed. 
> The noble Saint-Just committed several.— Ed. 
“ In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.— Ed. 

military resources of a country like France, and since, in connection 
with a revolutionary levée en masse, where in any case there is 
considerable waste,* a certain amount of squandering of resources 
does not matter as long as the main aim, the speedy mobilisation of 
these resources, is achieved, it follows that there is no need to ascribe 
to Carnot any great degree of genius to explain his results. What 
makes me doubtful pour sa part” in the invention of mass warfare that 
is ascribed to him is, in particular, that his most far-reaching plans of 
1793-94 were based on precisely the opposite mode of warfare; he 
divided the French armies instead of concentrating them, and he 
operated against the flanks of the enemy in such a way that the latter 
himself became concentrated. And then there is his later career, his 
display of knightly virtue under the Consulate, etc., his vaunted 
defence of Antwerp—the defence of a fortress is on the average 
the best post in which an officer who is mediocre, methodical but 
endowed with a certain tenacity can achieve distinction, and after all 
the siege of Antwerp in 1814 did not last three months, and finally 
his attempt to force the methods of 1793 on Napoleon in 1815 when 
confronted by the centralised 1,200,000 soldiers of the Coalition, 
and that under a totally altered system of warfare, and his phi- 
listinism in general; all that does not testify to Carnot’s genius. 
And then, when has a decent fellow been known to have bluffed his 
way, as he did, through Thermidor, Fructidor, Brumaire, etc. 

Summa summarum. The Convention was saved solely and exclusive- 
ly because the Coalition was not centralised and therefore the 
Convention was given a full year in which to arm. It was saved, as old 
Fritz° was saved in the Seven Years’ War,*” and as Wellington was 
saved in Spain in 1809, although the French were quantitatively 
and qualitatively at least three times as strong as all their opponents 
together, and their colossal power was paralysed only because in 
Napoleon’s absence the marshals played all kinds of dirty tricks on 
one another. 

II 

By now the Coalition has long ago got over the stupidities 
of 1793. It is splendidly centralised. It was centralised already in 
1813. The Russian campaign of 1812 made Russia the centre of 
gravity of the entire Holy Alliance for a war on the Continent. 

* Engels uses the English “waste”.— Ed. 
For his part.— Ed. 
© Frederick [1.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 547 

Russian troops formed the main mass around which only later the 
Prussians, Austrians, etc., were grouped, and they continued to be 
the main mass all the way to Paris. Alexander was in fact the 
commander-in-chief of all the armies (that is to say, the Russian 
general staff behind Alexander). But since 1848 the Holy Alliance 
has been built on an even much more solid basis. The development 
of the counter-revolution in 1849-51 had reduced the Continent, 
apart from France, to the same position in relation to Russia as that 
of the Rhenish Federation *° and Italy in relation to Napoleon, one 
of pure vassalage. Nicholas, i.e. Paskevich, is the inevitable dictator of 
the Holy Alliance en cas de guerre* just as Nesselrode is en temps de 
paix.” 

Furthermore, as far as the modern art of war is concerned, it has 
been completely developed by Napoleon. Until certain conditions 
come into effect, which we shall deal with below, there remains no 
other course than to imitate Napoleon as far as conditions allow. This 
modern art of war, however, is universally known. In Prussia it has 
been drilled into every second lieutenant already before his ensign’s 
examination, insofar as it can be drilled in. As for the Austrians, 
they came to know their bad, specifically Austrian, generals in the 
Hungarian campaign and got rid of them—such as Windischgratz, 
Welden, Gotz and other old women. On the other hand—since we 
no longer have any Neue Rheinische Zeitung in which to write, we need 
no longer harbour any illusions—there are Radetzky’s two cam- 
paigns in Italy, the first excellent, the second a masterly one.*”’ Who 
helped him in this connection is of no consequence, in any case the 
old fellow has bon sens‘ enough to grasp the excellent ideas of other 
people. His defensive position in 1848 between the four fortresses of 
Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago and Verona, all four sides of the 
rectangle well protected, and his defence of this position until help 
arrived, in the midst of an insurgent country, would be a masterpiece 
if his ability to hold out had not been tremendously facilitated 
by the pitiful leadership, disunity and endless vacillation of the 
Italian generals, the intrigues of Charles Albert and the support of 
the reactionary aristocrats and clergy in the enemy camp. Nor should 
it be forgotten that he was sitting in the most fertile country in the 
world and had no worrtes over provisions for his army. 

For the Austrians, however, the campaign of 1849 was unprecedented. 
The Piedmontese, instead of barring the road to Turin at Novara 

4 In case of war.— Ed. 
> In time of peace.— Ed. 
“ Common sense.— Ed. 

and Mortara (a line three miles long) with a concentrated mass of 
troops, which would have been the best course, or of advancing from 
there on Milan in two or three columns, took up positions from Sesto 
to Piacenza—a line of twenty miles—with 70,000.men, only 3,500 
men per German mile,* and involving 3 to 4 days’ hard march from 
one wing to the other. A miserable concentric operation against 
Milan, for which they were everywhere too weak. Radetzky, seeing 
that the Italians were using the old Austrian system of 1792, 
operated against them exactly as Napoleon would have done. The 
Piedmontese line was cut into two pieces by the‘Po, a glaring blunder. 
Radetzky broke through the line close to the Po, separated the two 
southern from the three northern divisions by driving in between 
them a wedge of 60,000 men, swiftly attacked the three northern 
divisions (a concentration of scarcely 35,000 men) with his whole 
force, threw them back into the Alps, and separated the two corps 
of the Piedmontese army from each other and from Turin. This 
manoeuvre, which ended the campaign in three days, and was al- 
most literally copied from that conducted by Napoleon in 1809 at 
Abensberg and Eggmuhl,*” the most brilliant of all Napoleon’s 
manoeuvres, proves at any rate that the Austrians are far from 
continuing to act in accordance with the old motto “always slowly 
forward”’’. It was precisely speed that decided everything here. The 
treacherous acts of the aristocrats and Ramorino made things easier, 
especially owing to accurate information about the position and 
plans of the Italians, and also because of the meanness of the Savoy 
brigade at Novara, which did not fight but plundered. But from the 
military aspect, the pitiful disposition of the Piedmontese forces and 
Radetzky’s manoeuvre fully suffice to explain the latter’s success. 
Under all circumstances, these two facts were bound to have this 
result. 

Finally, by the very nature of their army, the Russians are com- 
pelled to adopt a system of warfare which comes very close to the 
modern one. The main strength of their army consists of massed, 
semi-barbaric, and therefore clumsy, infantry, and a numerous force 
of semi-barbaric, light, irregular cavalry (Cossacks). In decisive 
encounters, in large-scale battles, the Russians have never operated 
with other than massed forces; Suvorov understood that already 
when storming Ismail and Ochakov.*” The mobility they lack is 
partly made up for by the irregular cavalry, which swarms around 

* 7,420 metres; 1 German mile equals 4.87 English miles.— Ed. 
From the refrain to a German song popular during the liberation war of 
1813.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 549 

them on all sides and masks any movement of the army. But it is 
precisely this ponderous massive character of the Russian army that 
makes it pre-eminently suited to form the core and backbone, the 
pivot, of a coalition army, the operations of which are always bound 
to be slower than those of a national army. This role the Russians 
played with distinction in 1813 and 1814 and in those years hardly 
any battle plan occurs in which the massive Russian columns do not 
at once stand out from all others by their depth and density. 

Since 1812 the French can hardly be regarded as the pre-eminent 
bearers of the Napoleonic tradition. This tradition has more or less 
passed to all the big European armies; in each of them, for the most 
part already in the last years of the Empire, it has resulted in a 
revolution; each of these armies in its strategy and tactics has 
adopted the Napoleonic system, insofar as this is in harmony with 
the character of the army. The levelling influence of the bourgeois 
epoch is also apparent here; the old national peculiarities are 
disappearing in the armies as well, and the French, Austrian and 
Prussian armies, and even to a great extent the British army, are 
more or less equally well-organised machines for carrying out 
Napoleonic manoeuvres. This does not prevent them from having 
very diverse qualities in regard to fighting, and so on. Of all the (big) 
European armies, however, only the Russian, semi-barbaric, army is 
capable of having its own tactics and strategy, for it alone is not yet 
ripe for the completely developed modern system of warfare. 

As for the French, owing to the little war in Algeria*”* they 
have interrupted even the continuity of the Napoleonic tradition of 
large-scale war. It remains to be seen whether in this predatory war 
the disadvantageous consequences for discipline are outweighed by 
the advantages of inuredness to war, whether the war accustoms men 
to hardship or breaks them by over-exertion; and finally, whether it 
does not also ruin the generals’ coup d’@il* in a large-scale war. In any 
case, the French cavalry is being ruined in Algeria, it is forgetting 
what constitutes its force, the compact choc,” and it is becoming 
accustomed to a system of harassment in which the Cossacks, 
Hungarians, and Poles will always remain superior to it. Among the 
generals, Oudinot made a fool of himself before Rome, and only 
Cavaignac distinguished himself in June—but all that still does not 
amount to any grandes épreuves.° 

* Sure-sightedness.— Ed. 
> Onslaught.— Ed. 
© Great tests.— Ed. 

On the whole, therefore, the chances of superiority in strategy and 
tactics are at least as much in favour of the Coalition as in favour of 
the revolution. 

III 

But will not a new revolution which brings to power an entirely 
new class give rise, like the first one, to new means and ways of 
waging war, compared with which the present Napoleonic ones will 
appear just as obsolete and ineffective as those of the Seven Years’ 
War compared with those of the first Revolution? 

The modern warfare is the necessary product of the French 
Revolution. Its precondition is the social and political emancipation 
of the bourgeoisie and small peasants. The bourgeoisie provides the 
money, the small peasants supply the soldiers. The emancipation of 
both classes from feudal and guild fetters is required in order to 
provide the colossal armies of the present day; and the degree of | 
wealth and education connected with this stage of social develop- 
ment is equally required in order to provide the material in the way 
of weapons, munitions, provisions, and so on, necessary for modern 
armies, and in order to provide the required number of trained 
officers and to give the soldier himself the required degree of 
intelligence. 

I deal with the modern system of war as fully developed by 
Napoleon. Its two pivots are: the mass character of means of attack in 
men, horses and guns, and the mobility of these means of attack. 
Mobility is the essential consequence of massiveness. Modern armies 
cannot, like the small armies of the Seven Years’ War, march to and 
fro for months on an area of twenty miles. They cannot bring in their 
train stores containing their total food requirements. They must 
swoop down on a region like a swarm of locusts, ravage all its 
food supplies within reach of the cavalry, and must depart when 
everything has been devoured. The stores are adequate if they 
suffice only for unforeseen contingencies; they are continually 
depleted and replenished; they have to follow the rapid march of the 
army and therefore seldom suffice to cover the needs of the army 
even for a single month. The modern system of war is, therefore, 
impossible for a long period in a poor, semi-barbaric, thinly pop- 
ulated country. Owing to this impossibility, the French perished 
slowly in Spain and rapidly in Russia. On the other hand, however, 
the Spaniards were also ruined owing to the French, their country 
was very largely sucked dry. Even in Poland the Russians cannot 
make use of their own clumsy system of mass warfare for a long 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 551] 

period, and in Russia itself they cannot make use of it at all as long as 
they have no railways. The defensive at the Dnieper and the Dvina 
would spell ruin for Russia. 

But this degree of mobility requires also a certain degree of 
education of the soldier, who in many cases must know how to look 
after himself. The considerable extension of patrol and foraging 
expeditions, outpost duties, etc., the greater activity demanded of 
every soldier, the more frequent recurrence of cases in which the 
soldier has to act on his own and has to rely on his own intellectual 
resources, and, finally, the great importance of skirmish engage- 
ments in the fighting, the success of which depends on the 
intelligence, the coup d’a@il and the energy of each individual sol- 
dier—all this presupposes a greater degree of education of the 
non-commissioned officer and rank-and-file soldier than was the 
case under old Fritz. A barbaric or semi-barbaric nation, however, is 
unable to offer a degree of education of the masses such that 
500,000-600,000 men recruited at random could, on the one hand, 
become disciplined and trained to act like machines, and at the same 
time acquire or retain this coup d’eil for small-scale warfare. The 
barbarians, e.g. the Cossacks, are by nature gifted with this coup d’eil 
of the robber; but on the other hand, they are as much incapable of 
regular military duties as the Russian serf infantrymen, on the 
contrary, are proper skirmishing. 

This universal average degree of education which the modern 
system of war requires in every soldier is to be found only in the most 
developed countries: in Britain, where the soldier, however raw a 
yokel he was, goes through the civilising school of the towns; in 
France, where the emancipated small peasants and the astute mob of 
the towns (remplacants*) constitute the army; in North Germany, 
where feudalism likewise has either been destroyed or has assumed 
plus ou moins’ bourgeois forms, and where the towns provide a 
considerable contingent for the army; finally, after the last wars, it 
seems to exist also in at least that part of the Austrian army which 
is recruited from the least feudal areas. Apart from Britain, small 
peasant farming is everywhere the basis of the army, and the army is 
the more fitted for the modern system of war the closer the position 
of the small peasant comes to that of the free owner. 

But the mobility of the masses, as well as that of the individual 
soldier, presupposes the degree of civilisation of the bourgeois 
epoch. The sluggishness of the pre-revolutionary armies is closely 

* Substitutes for those who have bought exemption from military service.— Ed. 
More or less.— Ed. 

bound up with feudalism. The mass of officers’ conveyances was by 
itself a hindrance to all movement. The armies crawled along just as 
slowly as all movement. The rising bureaucracy of the absolute 
monarchies introduced rather more order into the management of 
army materials, but at the same time its alliance with haute finance led 
to organised fraud en gros, and where the bureaucracy was of some 
benefit to the armies it did them twice as much harm by infecting 
them with a spirit of schematism and pedantry. Witness* the All- 
Highest old Fritz himself. Even now Russia is suffering from all 
these evils; the Russian army, which is everywhere cheated and 
fleeced, is starving, and on the march the men die like flies. Only a 
bourgeois state feeds its troops tolerably and therefore can count on 
the mobility of its army. 

As regards mobility, therefore, this is in every respect a char- 
acteristic of the bourgeois armies. But mobility is not only the 
necessary complement to the mass character of the army, it often 
replaces it (Napoleon in Piedmont, 1796). 

Mass character, however, is just as much a special characteristic of 
modern civilised armies as is mobility. 

However diverse the methods of recruitment may be—conscrip- 
tion, the Prussian army reserve, the Swiss militia, the levée en 
masse—the experience of the last sixty years proves that under the 
regime of the bourgeoisie and free small peasants not more than 7 
per cent of the population can be put under arms in any people’s 
war; hence about 5 per cent can be actively utilised. Accordingly 
France in the autumn of 1793, with an estimated population of 25 
million, could have mustered 1,750,000 soldiers and 1,250,000 active 
combatants. At that time, these 1,250,000 were more or less present 
at the frontiers, before Toulon, and in the Vendée, taking both sides 
into account here. In Prussia—with at present 16 million inhabit- 
ants—7 per cent and 5 per cent would amount to 1,120,000 and 
800,000 men respectively. But the entire Prussian forces, regular 
army and army reserve, hardly amount to 600,000 men. This 
example shows how much even 5 per cent involves for a nation. 

Eh bien—whereas France and Prussia can easily call under arms 
5 per cent of their population, and in case of need even 7 per cent, 
Austria in the most extreme case can call up at most 5 per cent, and 
Russia hardly 3 per cent. For Austria, 5 per cent would be 1,750,000, 
out of an estimated 35 million. In 1849, Austria strained itself to the 
utmost. It had about 550,000 men. The Hungarians, whose forces 
had been doubled as the result of the Kossuth notes, had perhaps 

* This word is in English in the original.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 553 

350,000. I calculate in addition 50,000 Lombards who had escaped 
conscription or were serving in the Piedmontese army—making a 
total of 950,000 men, consequently not even 27/3 per cent of the 
population; at the same time the Croat borderers,*” who lived under 
exceptional conditions, furnished at least 15 per cent of their 
population. Russia, at a low estimate, has 72 million inhabitants; 
therefore at 5 per cent it should be able to raise 3,600,000 men. 
Instead of this, it has never been able to muster more than 1,500,000, 
including both regular and irregular troops, and in its own country it 
has been able to lead at most 1,000,000 of these against the enemy, 
i.e. its total force was never above 2'/12 per cent, and its active force 
never above 17/1s or 1.39 per cent. The sparse population over an 
enormous area, the lack of communications and the small national 
production explain this easily enough. 

Like mobility, the mass character of means of attack is necessarily 
the result of a higher stage of civilisation, and, in particular, the 
modern proportion of the armed mass to the total population is 
incompatible with any state of society inferior to that of the 
emancipated bourgeoisie. 

Hence modern warfare presupposes the emancipation of the 
bourgeois and peasants; it is the military expression of this emancipa- 
tion. 

The emancipation of the proletariat, too, will have its particular 
military expression, it will give rise to a specific, new method of 
warfare. Cela est clair. It is even possible already to determine the 
kind of material basis this new warfare will have. 

But just as the mere conquest of political power by the present 
ill-defined French and German proletariat, which partly forms the 
tail-end of other classes, is a long way from the real emancipation 
of the proletariat, which consists in the abolition of all class con- 
tradictions, so the initial warfare in the coming revolution is 
equally far removed from the warfare of the truly emancipated 
proletariat. 

The real emancipation of the proletariat, the complete abolition of 
all class distinctions and the complete concentration of all the means 
of production, in Germany and France presupposes the co-operation 
of Britain and at least a doubling of the means of production now 
existing in Germany and France. But precisely that is the pre- 
condition also for a new form of warfare. 

Napoleon’s magnificent discoveries in the science of war cannot be 
wiped out by a miracle. The new science of war must be just as much 
a necessary product of the new social relations as the science of war 
created by the revolution and Napoleon was the necessary result of 

the new relations brought about by the revolution. But just as in the 
proletarian revolution the question for industry is not one of 
abolishing steam machines but of multiplying them, so for warfare it 
is a question not of diminishing but of intensifying the mass char- 
acter and mobility of armies. 

Increased productive forces were the precondition for the 
Napoleonic warfare; new productive forces must likewise be the 
precondition for every new perfection in warfare. The railways and 
the electric telegraph will already today provide a talented general or 
Minister of War with an occasion for quite new combinations in a 
European war. The gradual increase of the productive forces, and of 
the population along with them, has likewise provided the oppor- 
tunity for greater accumulation of masses. In France, with 36 instead 
of 25 million inhabitants, 5 per cent yields now not 1,250,000 but 
1,800,000 men. In both cases the power of the civilised countries has 
increased compared with that of the barbaric countries. The former 
alone have large railway networks and their population has grown 
twice as fast as that of Russia, for example. 

All these calculations prove, incidentally, that a lasting subjection 
of Western Europe to Russia is quite impossible and becomes more 
impossible every day. 

The power of the new kind of warfare that will result from the 
abolition of classes cannot, however, lie in the fact that with the 
growth of the population the available 5 per cent constitute ever 
more considerable masses. It must lie in the fact that it will become 
possible to call under arms not 5 per cent or 7 per cent of the 
population, but 12-16 per cent, i.e. half or two-thirds of the male 
adults—healthy persons of from 18 to 30, or eventually 40 years of 
age. But just as Russia cannot increase its available force from 2-3 
per cent to 5 per cent without a complete revolution of its entire 
internal social and political organisation, and, above all, of its 
production, so Germany and France cannot raise their available 
force from 5 per cent to 12 per cent without revolutionising their 
production and more than doubling it. Only if, by means of ma- 
chinery, etc., the labour of each individual on the average beco- 
mes worth twice as much as at present, can the number of those who 
can be spared from production be doubled —even for a short time, 
for no country has ever kept the 5 per cent afoot for a long time. 

If the necessary conditions for it are fulfilled, if national 
production has been sufficiently increased and centralised, if classes © 
have been abolished, which is absolutely essential—owing to. his 
social, aristocratic position, the Prussian one-year volunteer, as 
long as he is not an N.C.O. or officer of the army reserve, will never 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 555 

be a useful soldier alongside the peasants and workers—then the 
only restriction to the actual levy is the number of the population 
capable of bearing arms, that is to say, in an extreme emergency for a 
short time 15-20 per cent of the population can be armed and 
12-15 per cent actually led against the enemy. These enormous 
masses, however, presuppose a degree of mobility quite different 
even from that of the present-day armies. Without a complete 
railway network, they can be neither concentrated nor fed, nor can 
they be kept supplied with munitions, or able to move. And without 
the electric telegraph it is quite impossible to direct them; and since 
in the case of such masses it is impossible for the strategist and the 
tactician (who is in command on the battlefield) to be one and the 
same person, division of labour comes into effect here. Strategic 
operations, the co-operation of the various corps, have to be directed 
from the central point of the telegraph lines; tactical operations have 
to be directed by the individual generals. It is clear that under these 
conditions, wars can and must be decided in a much shorter time 
than they were even by Napoleon. The expense factor requires it, the 
necessary decisive effect of each blow with such masses makes it 
inevitable. 

In mass and strategic mobility, therefore, these armies must be 
quite unprecedentedly formidable. With such soldiers, tactical 
mobility (in patrolling, skirmishing, and on the battlefield) must 
likewise be considerably greater, they are more robust, agile and 
intelligent than anything that present-day society can offer. 

Unfortunately, however, all this can be put into effect only after a 
long period of years and at a time when, owing to lack of an adequate 
enemy, such wars on a mass scale can no longer occur. The primary 
conditions for all this do not exist in the first period of the 
proletarian revolution, least of all in the year 1852. 

The proletariat in France at present is certainly barely double the 
percentage of the population that it was in 1789. At that time—at 
least between 1792 and 1794—the proletariat was in such a state of 
ferment and tension as will only recur in the near future. At that 
time it already became evident that in revolutionary wars with violent 
internal convulsions the mass of the proletariat is needed for use within the 
country. The same thing will now be the case once again and probably 
more so than ever, since the chances of the immediate outbreak of 
civil wars increase as the Allies advance. Hence the proletariat will be 
able to send only a small contingent to the active army; the main 
source of the levy remains the mob and the peasants. That is to say, 
the revolution will have to wage war with the means and by the 
methods of the general modern warfare. 

Only an ideological theorist could ask whether it would not be 
possible with these means, i.e. with an active army of 4-5 per cent 
of the population, to devise new combinations and discover new 
surprising methods of application. Just as it is impossible to increase 
the output of the loom fourfold without replacing the motive power, 
hand labour, by steam, without discovering a new means of 
production that has little in common with the old hand loom, so it is 
impossible in the art of war to produce new results by the old means. 
Only the production of new, more powerful means makes it possible 
to achieve new, more magnificent results. Every great general who 
marks an epoch in the history of war owing to new combinations, 
either himself invents new material means or first discovers the 
correct use of new material means invented before him. Between 
Turenne and the old Fritz lies the revolution in the use of infantry, 
the supersession of the pike and matchlock by the bayonet and 
flintlock—and old Fritz’s epoch-making achievement in_ the 
science of war lies in the fact that in general, within the limits of the 
warfare of that time, he transformed and developed the old tactics in 
conformity with the new instruments. Just as Napoleon’s epoch- 
making achievement lies in the fact that he found the sole correct 
tactical and strategic application for the more colossal army masses 
made possible by the revolution, and moreover developed this 
application so completely that on the whole modern generals, far 
from being able to go further than he did, in their most brilliant and 
cleverest operations only try to copy him. 

Summa summarum, the revolution will have to fight with ee 
ern means of war and the modern art of war against modern 
means of war and the modern art of war. The chances of military 
talent are at least as great for the Coalition as they are for France: Ce 
seront alors les gros batatllons qui l’emporteront.* 

IV 

Let us now see what battalions can be broug‘1t into the battle line, 
and how they can be used. 

1. Russia. The Russian army on a peace footing consists nominally 
of 1,100,000 men; in -reality about 750,000. Since 1848 the 
government has continually worked to attain a force of 1,500,000 
men on a war footing, and Nicholas and Paskevich have themselves 
carried out a revision as far as possible throughout. At a low estimate, 
therefore, Russia has now actually attained its full peace time 

* Then the big battalions will win.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance Against France 557 

effective of 1,100,000 men. From this must be deducted, on a high 
estimate: 

Bor the Gaucasus: secs cntvsaatatntictcseisitisieeenlinlddesehi nantes 100,000 men 
gi RUSSIA PIO PET “sis vessasevcons vesecwonieat a avsunesgnsaditantn axa vgucedvuasuesesununetoahy 150,000 ” 
sy*the Polish) provinces ci esses os cedi ce was igsted vane oatenactave es tesipnincttavslebsaaa vas 150,000 ” 
ys CHE SICK, CACTACHEG, GUC. osxigs oss udit sn seacccnadatatsind ieee takecedet evtiiencete tees 150,000 * 

550,000 men. 

There remain 550,000 men available for active service against 
external enemies. That is an estimate hardly greater than the 
number Russia actually sent across the frontiers in 1813. 

2. Prussia. The splendid army, if the entire army reserve of the 
first and the second call-up, the supernumeraries, and everything 
are called up, amounts to a least 650,000 men. At the present 
moment, however, the government can mobilise at most 550,000 
men. I put the figure at only 500,000. These need to detach 
only a little in excess of the second call-up (150,000 men) for 
garrisons, etc., since everywhere the gradual calling up of super- 
numeraries and of the new conscripts for next year — which Nicholas 
will already be taking steps to ensure—as well as the Russian 
troops continually on the march through the country, would form 
a sufficient reserve against any internal attempt at an uprising. 
Moreover, the Prussians have fewer sick, since they are concentrated 
in their own country and have a lesser distance to march to the Rhine 
than the Russians. Nevertheless, as in the case of the Russians, I 
deduct half, leaving available the other half, amounting to 250,000 
men. 

3. Austria. At a low estimate, Austria has under arms and on leave, 
the latter being as quickly available for the army as the Prussian army 
reserve, 600,000 men. Here, too, I deduct half, since for at least 
two-thirds of the monarchy, until the formation of new reserves, the 
advancing Russians serve as a reserve within the country and keep 
the hotbeds of insurrection in check. There remain 300,000 men 
available for use against the enemy. 

4, The German Confederation. Since the gentlemen live close to the 
Rhine and the whole Coalition marches through their territory, they 
hardly require any garrison against the interior, all the less because 
with the first successes of the Coalition against France the reserve 
armies would take their stand right across Germany, from north to 
south. The German Confederation provides at least 120,000 men. 

5. The forces of the Italian governments, the Danes, Belgians, 
Dutch, Swedes, etc., I put for the time being at 80,000 men. 

Accordingly the total mass of the Coalition troops amounts to 
1,300,000 men, who are either already under arms or can be 
immediately called up. All the estimates are intentionally put too 
low. The deductions for the sick alone are so considerable that 
merely from the convalescent, etc., two months after the beginning 
of operations a second army of 350,000 men can be formed at the 
French frontier. But as nowadays, no government is so imprudent 
as to begin a war without at the same time as it deploys the 
active army raising new levies, as strong as possible, and sending 
them in the wake of the first army, this second army should prove to 
be considerably stronger than the above figure. 

The concentration of the first army (the 1,300,000 men) can be 
completed in about two months, as follows. That the Prussians and 
Austrians can have their above-mentioned contingents available 
within two months is no longer open to doubt after the arming 
carried out last November. As regards the Russians, their three 
definitive concentration points are, in the first place, Berlin, 
Breslau* and Cracow or Vienna (see below). From St. Petersburg to 
Berlin is approximately 45 days’ march, and from Berlin to the 
Rhine 16 days, making a total of 61 days’ march, at 5 German miles 
per day. From Moscow to Breslau is 48 days’ march, from Breslau to 
Mainz 20, together 68 days. Kiev to Vienna requires 40 days, Vienna 
to Basle 22, together 62 days. Add to this the rest-days, which in the 
case of the Russian troops and the above strenuous marches must on 
no account be omitted, it is clear that even the troops stationed in 
Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev can comfortably reach the Rhine 
in three months, even supposing that the troops move exclusively on 
foot and that no use is made of railways or vehicles. But such means 
can be used in Germany almost everywhere, and in Russia and 
Poland at least partially, which would in total certainly shorten the 
transport of the troops by 15-20 days. The main mass of the Russian 
troops, however, are at present already concentrated in the Polish 
provinces, and as soon as the political conditions make a crisis 
probable, more troops will be sent there, so that the starting points of 
the line of march will not be St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev, but 
Riga, Vilna, Minsk, Dubno and Kamieniec, which means that the line 
of march will be shortened by about 60 miles— 12 days’ march plus 4 
rest-days. Moreover, a large part of the infantry—especially that 
coming from the more remote stations—can be conveyed a distance 
of five miles on every third or rest-day at least, so that for this part of 
the infantry the rest-days will count as march-days. The railways 

* The Polish name is Wroctaw.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 559 

would then be kept free for artillery material, munitions and stores, 
while the artillery gun-crews and servicing personnel would either 
march or be conveyed, and thus in any case would arrive earlier than 
in the way hitherto adopted. 

In view of all the above, it seems to me that there is nothing to 
. prevent the concentration of the Coalition army on the Rhine taking 
place two months after the outbreak of the revolution, as follows: 

First army . 

1. First line on the Rhine and before Piedmont: 

Prussians, AuStrians, €tc. .........ccceceeeeeeees 750,000 men 1,050,000 men 
RUSSIANS cc) ch cena iota ete 300,000 men 
2. Second line, reserve, 
10 days’ march behind, Russians........... 250,000 men 
TD Otal. caticesteeti ..- 1,300,000 men 
(as above) 

Second army 

1. Reserve of the smaller Coalition members, 
Prussians, Austrians, etc., included in 

the CONCENtAtION ...........cceeecceecceeseeeveeees 200,000 men 
2. Russian reserve on the march, 350,000 men 
20 days’ march behind .............:cceseeeeeee 150,000 men 
Total of both armies ..............ccccceceeseees 1,650,000 men 

Basically, under present conditions hardly 5-6 weeks are needed to 
bring 300,000 Russians to the Rhine, and in the same period Prussia, 
Austria and the smaller Allies can bring their contingents as above 
mentioned to the Rhine; but in order to take due account of the 
unforeseen obstacles which occur in every coalition, I assume a full 
two months. At the moment when Napoleon came from Elba, the 
disposition of the Allied troops in relation to a march towards France 
was hardly as favourable as the present one, yet the Russians were at 
the Rhine when Napoleon was fighting the British and Prussians at 
Waterloo.*” | 

What resources has France to oppose to those of the Allies? 

1. The troops of the line amount to about 450,000 men, 50,000 of 
~whom cannot be spared from Algeria. From the remaining 400,000 
must be deducted the sick, the minimum necessary to garrison 
fortresses, and smaller detachments for doubtful areas of the 
interior, leaving available at most 250,000 men. . 

2. The favourite means adopted by the present reds, viz. to recall 
to the colours soldiers who have served their time, can successfully be 

applied by force to at most six age classes, i.e. from 27 to 32 years of 
age. Each age group on conscription amounts to 80,000 men. The 
ravages of the Algerian war and climate, the normal death-rate 
during twelve years, the deduction of those who have become unfit 
or have emigrated, and those who in one way or another have 
succeeded in evading re-enlistment at a time when in any case the 
administration gets into a state of disorder, will reduce the 480,000 
former recruits of these six age classes to at most 300,000 
re-enlisting. From these must be deducted 150,000 to garrison 
fortresses, who will be drawn mainly from this class of older, mostly 
married men, leaving 150,000 men. Given any degree of skilled 
direction, these could be mobilised without difficulty in two 
months. 

3. The people’s militia, volunteers, levée en masse, or whatever 
other term is used to denote this subordinate cannon-fodder. With 
the exception of about 10,000 of the Garde Mobile who can be 
assembled, none of the above are more acquainted with weapons 
than any member of the German civic militia. The French are 
quicker at learning to handle weapons, but two months is a very short 
time, and if Napoleon could ensure that his recruits passed through 
the battalion school in four weeks, he achieved that only with 
outstanding cadres, whereas the first result of the coming revolution 
will be the disorganisation of the cadres in the line. Moreover, our 
French revolutionaries are known to follow tradition and their first 
cry will be: Levée en masse! Deux millions d’hommes aux frontiéres!* The 
two million men would be all very well if one could again expect from 
the Coalition such stupidities as those of 1792 and 1793 and if one 
had time for gradually training these two million men. But there is 
no question of that. One must be prepared to encounter a million 
active enemy soldiers on the frontier within two months, and it is a 
matter of opposing this million with a chance of success. 

If the French comport themselves again as traditional imitators of 
1793, they will be undertaking to repeat the experience with the two 
million, which means that they will undertake so much that the actual 
result in the short time available will come to nil. The training and 
organisation of 2,500,000 men in eight weeks without skilled ca- 
dres amounts in practice to a senseless squandering of all re- 
sources without strengthening the army by even a single usable 
battalion. 

If, on the other hand, the French have a good Minister of War who 
has some knowledge of revolutionary warfare and the methods of 

* Mass levy! Two million men to the frontiers! — Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 561 

creating an army rapidly, and if no stupid obstacles due to ignorance 
and a craze for popularity are put in the way, then he will keep 
within the limits of the possible and can do a great deal. The outcome 
will have to be something more or less in accordance with the fol- 
lowing plan: 

The armed forces consist, to begin with, of two components: 
1. The proletarian guard in the towns, the peasant guard in the 
countryside, insofar as the latter can be relied upon for service in the 
interior; 2. the regular army against invasion. 

Fortress duty is performed by the proletarian and peasant guard; 
the army provides only the most essential detachments. Paris, 
Strasbourg, Lyons, Metz, Lille, Valenciennes, the most important 
fortresses, which are at the same time large towns, will require for 
their defence, besides their own guard and a few peasant detach- 
ments from the environs, only a few troops of the line. The 
proletarian guard available in the interior, insofar as they consist of 
unemployed workers, will be assembled in a training camp and 
trained by old officers and N.C.O.s who are unfit for service in the 
field, to fill gaps in the ranks of the active army. The camp could be 
situated near Orleans, where at the same time it would be a threat to 
the Legitimist areas. 

The troops of the line, insofar as they are in France, must be 
tripled, being brought from 400,000 to 1,100,000 men. This is done 
as follows: each battalion is converted into a regiment—the un- 
avoidable general promotion will be not less effective than the 
guillotine and courts martial in inspiring respect for the revolution 
among the officers and N.C.O.s. The unavoidable extension of 
cadres is at the same time carried out as gradually as possible and 
what can be gained as regards officers is gained. This is very 
important in view of the fact that it is impossible to produce officers 
by magic in two months. Moreover, so much national sentiment still 
prevails among the middle and lower grades of the French army that 
with a certain amount of promotion, energetic management of the 
war departments and some chance of success, these men at the start 
will turn out quite well, especially if a few examples are made of 
mutineers and deserters. The pupils of the military schools and the 
officials of the ponts-et-chaussées* make excellent artillery and engineer 
officers, and after a few actions those talented men among the lower 
ranks, so frequent among the French, who are capable of leading a 
company once they have been under fire, will begin to develop. 

* Administration of roads and bridges.— Ed. 

As regards the soldiers themselves, there will be: 

The LANE 525s Becks eb ce Ras eta aca inhdeeteds 400,000 men 
those recalled to the army ........:.c::cccssseseeereeseeee 300,000 men 
those still to be called up and trained ................. 500,000 men 

Total .............. 1,200,000 men 
deduct for the Sick .0.........cccccceseseeceeeeseeeeeeesneeeeees 100,000 men 
(HELE TEMGIN si2ss ee vasctne nen eee enn Gncs . 1,100,000 men 

thre Lime 3s 2253 2063 i osescieteeddctedeaescteeseeiecdsselased ‘seundneste 250,000 men 
those recalled to the army................655 Rieefesdi seis 150,000 men 
PECTS vercntieventsegncsen since 400,000 men 

800,000 men 

What can be achieved with these will be seen. But the training 
within two months of 400,000-500,000 men as recruits for the army 
of the line, men who will be fused with the already existing and 
recalled soldiers in the regiments and battalions, is not so 
excessively difficult if the work is taken in hand speedily, le lendemain 
de la révolution.* All these reinforcements would accrue to the in- 
fantry and artillery; in two months it is certainly possible to train an 
infantryman, or an artilleryman capable at least of simple gun duties, 
but not a cavalryman. Hence the increase of the cavalry would be 
very weak. 

The whole plan for developing the army presupposes that there 
will be a good Minister of War, who is able to assess the political 
conditions, possesses strategic, tactical and detailed knowledge of 
all weapons, has the appropriate degree of energy, speed and 
decisiveness,” and is given a free hand by the asses who will rule 
along with him. But where has the “Red” party in France such a 
man? The odds are in favour of the opposite, that as usual an 
ignorant fellow, who is thought and thinks himself, of course, to be a 
bon démocrate competent to fill any part, will try to play the Carnot, 
decree mass levies, completely disorganise everything, and very soon 
be at his wit’s end, whereupon he will leave everything to the routine 
of the old subordinate officials and allow the enemy armies to come 

* On the morrow of the revolution.— Ed. 
> Engels uses the English word.— Ed. 

Conditions and Prospects of War of Holy Alliance against France 563 

right up to Paris. Nowadays, however, to be able to withstand a 
European coalition, one would have to be, not Pache or Bouchotte, 
or even Carnot, but Napoleon, or to have terribly stupid enemies and 
a terribly large measure of luck. 

It should not be overlooked that all these calculations of the armed 
forces of the Coalition assume a minimum figure for the total force 
and a maximum figure for the deductions, so that with merely 
tolerably good leadership, the available mass of troops will be 
greater, and the time required for their concentration less than the 
estimates given here. In the case of France, on the other hand, the 
opposite assumptions have been made; the time available has been 
assumed as long as possible, the total force that can possibly be 
organised has been put very high, and the deductions low, and 
therefore the available mass of troops is estimated at the highest 
possible figure. In short, leaving out of account unforeseen events 
and great blunders on the part of the Allies, all these calculations 
present the most favourable case possible for the revolution. 

In addition, it is assumed that the revolution and invasion will not 
immediately give rise to a civil war in the interior of the country. At 
present, sixty years after the last civil war in France, it is impossible to 
determine to what extent the fanaticism of the Legitimists is capable 
of a more than ephemeral insurrection; it is clear, however, that in 
proportion as the Allies advance, the chances of an uprising like that 
of 1793 in Lyons, Toulon, etc., of a temporary alliance of all 
politically overthrown classes and factions, will also increase. Here, 
too, however, let us assume the most favourable case for the rev- 
olution, namely, that the revolutionary proletarian and peasant 
guard is capable of successfully disarming the rebellious départements 
and classes. 

We shall deal presently with the prospects which the revolution 
could be given by uprisings in Germany, Italy, etc. 

Vv 

We come now to the actual conduct of the war. 

If one places one leg of a pair of compasses on the map on Paris 
and describes a circle round the city with the distance from Paris to 
Strasbourg as the radius, then in the south the circumference of this 
circle touches the French frontier between Grenoble and Chambéry 
at Pont de Beauvoisin, follows it in a northerly direction through 
Geneva, the Jura, Basle, Strasbourg and Hagenau, and then follows 
the course of the Rhine down to its estuary. If it is at a distance from. 

the Rhine at some points, this distance never exceeds the length of 
two days’ march. If the Rhine were France’s frontier, then from the 
point where the Alps cease to protect this frontier right up to the 
North Sea Paris would be at an equal distance from this frontier. The 
military system of France, with Paris at the centre, would have 
satisfied all the geographical conditions for it. This simple arc from 
Chambéry to Rotterdam, which reduces all points of France’s only 
open frontier, and moreover of the frontier nearest to the capital, 
to an equal distance of about 70 German miles—14 days’ 
march—from Paris, and at the same time protects the frontier by a 
broad river, this is the real military basis of the assertion that the 
Rhine is France’s natural frontier. 

The same peculiar configuration of its course, however, makes the 
Rhine also the starting point of all concentric operations against 
Paris, for in order that the various armies may arrive simultaneous- 
ly in front of Paris and simultaneously threaten it from various sides, 
they must set out simultaneously from points equally distant from 
it. The operations of any counter-revolutionary coalition army 
against France must be concentric, however dangerous all concen- 
tric operations are in which the concentration point lies within the 
territory of the enemy or even forms the latter’s basis of operations: 
1. because with Paris the whole of France is conquered; 2. because no 
part of the frontier lying within the sphere of operations of French 
armies can be allowed to be exposed, as otherwise the French, by. 
sending armed forces, could provoke insurrections in the territory of 
the Coalition, in the rear of the latter’s armies; 3. because the mass 
forces which any coalition is bound to hurl against France require 
multiple lines of operation for their food supply. 

For both armies, the frontier which has to be covered runs from 
Chambéry to Rotterdam. For the time being, the Spanish frontier 
can be disregarded. The Italian frontier from Var to the Isére is 
protected by the Alps and goes farther and farther away from Paris 
since it forms the tangent to the above-mentioned circle. It can only 
come into consideration: 1. if the fortified defiles of the Savoy Alps, 
particularly of Mont Cenis, are in the hands of the French; 2. if it is 
desired to make a diversion on the coast, for which there would have 
to be special reasons; 3. if the French armies, after the frontier has 
been safeguarded at all other points, want to launch an offensive as 
Napoleon did in 1796. In all other cases it is too far away. 

Active operations, therefore, both for the Coalition and for 
France, are restricted to the line from Chambéry or the Isére up to 
the North Sea, and to the region lying between this line and Paris. 
And precisely this part of France offers a terrain which is, as it were, 

Conditions and Prospects of War’ of Holy Alliance against France 565 

created for defence, and possesses a mountain and river system 
which from a military point of view could hardly be improved upon. 

From the Rhone to the Moselle, the frontier is protected by along 
mountain range which is crossed with difficulty and only at certain 
points—the Jura, adjoining which are the Vosges, which in turn 
have their prolongation in the Hochwald and Idarwald. Both 
mountain ranges run parallel to the frontier and, in addition, the 
Vosges are protected by the Rhine. Between the Moselle and the 
Maas, the route to Paris is covered by the Ardennes, and on the other 
side of the Maas by the Argonnes. Only the region from the Sambre 
to the sea lies open, but here the position of any advancing army 
becomes more dangerous with every step forward—in the event of 
at all skilful operations by a strong French army, the enemy army 
risks being cut off from Belgium and driven into the sea. 
Furthermore, the whole line from the Rh6éne to the North Sea is 
dotted with fortresses, some of which, e.g. Strasbourg, command 
whole provinces. 

From the junction of the Jura and the Vosges, in a south-westerly 
direction towards Auvergne, runs a mountain range forming the 
watershed between the North Sea and the ocean, on the one hand, 
and the Mediterranean, on the other. From it flows to the south the 
Saone, and to the north, parallel to one another, the Moselle, the 
Maas, the Marne, the Seine, and the Yonne. Between each two of 
these rivers, as between the Yonne and the Loire, long mountain 
chains branch off, separating the individual river valleys from one 
another and traversed by only a few roads. It is true that this whole 
mountainous territory for the most part is practicable for all arms, 
but it is very infertile and no great army can maintain itself long on it. 

If these mountains, too, have been surmounted, as well as the 
equally infertile mountainous zones of Champagne which separate 
the region of the Maas from that of the Seine, the enemy army enters 
the Seine region. And it is only here that the striking military 
advantages of the position of Paris become fully evident. 

The Seine basin downstream to the mouth of the Oise is formed by 
a number of rivers running in almost parallel arcs in a north- 
westerly direction—the Yonne, the Seine, the Marne, the Oise. and 
the Aisne—each of which also has tributaries running in a similar 
direction. All these arc-shaped valleys join fairly closely with one 
another, and at the centre of these junctions is Paris. The main 
roads to Paris from all land frontiers between the Mediterranean Sea 
and the Scheldt run through these river valleys and join up with 
them concentrically in Paris. Hence the army which defends Paris 
can always be concentrated and moved from one threatened point to 

another in a shorter time than the attacking army, because of two 
concentric circles the inner one has the smaller circumference. 
Admirable utilisation of these advantages, tireless movement along 
the circumference of the inner circle, enabled Napoleon in his 
brilliant campaign of 1814 to hold the entire Coalition in check in the 
Seine region with a handful of soldiers for two whole months.*