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

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 wonders of the Convention, in the military defeat of the Coalition, are significantly reduced upon closer examination, and one understands, and even finds justified in many points, Napoleon’s contempt for the 14 armies of the Convention; N. used to say that the blunders of the Coalition had done the most, which is quite correct, and he still considered Carnot on St. Helena to be 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 hesitating, now rapid advance, constantly changing plans. After the passage of the Argonne defiles, Dumouriez opposed them at Valmy and St. Menehould. The Allies could have bypassed him and left him standing; he would have had to follow them to Paris and, given a halfway tolerable conduct, was not even a threat to their rear. Yet they could also have proceeded more safely and attacked him, which was easy, since they had more and better troops, as the French themselves admit. Instead, they delivered the ridiculous cannonade of Valmy, where during the battle, indeed even during the column attack itself, the generals’ opinions veered more than once from the more audacious to the more timid. The two attacks themselves were miserable in mass, in force, in spirit, the fault not of the soldiers but of the vacillations in command; they were hardly attacks, at most demonstrations. A resolute advance along the whole line would certainly have thrown the French volunteers and demoralised regiments. After the battle, the Allies again remained irresolute, until the soldiers fell sick.

In the campaign of Jemappes, Dumouriez was victorious because he first, half instinctively, opposed mass concentration to the Austrian system of cordons and interminably extended fronts (from Ostend to the Maas). But the following spring he fell—as a result of his mania for conquering Holland—into the same error; the Austrians, by contrast, advanced concentrated; 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, when not constantly under Dumouriez’s eyes, fought no better than the South German “Volkswehr” of 1849.—Then Dumouriez went over, the Vendée rose, 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—just as in the previous year, had such stupidities not occurred. Instead, the gentlemen laid themselves before the fortresses, threw themselves into conquering the smallest advantages en détail, one after the other, with the greatest expenditure of strategic pedantry, and frittered away a full 6 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 ’93, 300,000 men were raised. In August, when the levée en masse was decreed, the French army must therefore have numbered at least 300-350,000 men. The levée en masse brought it about 700,000. All deductions accounted for, at the beginning of ’94 the French fielded about 750,000 men against the Coalition, considerably more than the Coalition against France.

From April 1793 to October, the French were beaten everywhere, only that the blows had no decisive result—thanks to the dawdling system of the Coalition. From October, successes alternated—in winter the campaign was suspended; in spring ’94 the levées en masse entered the line of battle with full effect; result, victories on all sides in May, until finally in June that of Fleurus decided the fate of the revolution.

The Convention and the Ministry of 10 August before it thus had time enough to arm. From 10 August to March ’93 nothing happened—the volunteers hardly count. In March ’93 the 300,000 men raised—from March to the following March the Convention had a full year’s time and freedom to arm, a full year, of which 10 months when the revolutionary party, through the overthrow of the Girondins, was freed from all hindrances. And in a country of 25 million, which possessed its normal contingent of able-bodied population, to bring together 1 million soldiers, 750,000 active combatants against a foreign enemy (3% of the population), is, however new it was at the time, no witchcraft if one has a year’s time.

With the exception of the Vendée, I count the internal insurrections, militarily speaking, as nil. Apart from Lyon and Toulon, they were pacified in 6 weeks without a stroke of the sword; Lyon was taken by levées en masse, Toulon by a striking attack of Napoleon’s, by a resolute assault and by errors of the defenders.

The 750,000 men who were led against the Coalition in 1794 included at least 100,000 old soldiers from the monarchy, and 150,000 others, partly originating from the volunteers, partly from the levy of 300,000, soldiers inured to war by continuous fighting over 18 and 12 months respectively; in addition, of the 500,000 new men at least half had already taken part in the engagements of September, October, and November ’93, and the youngest must have been in the battalion for at least 3 months when they were led before the enemy. Napoleon, in the Spanish campaign, reckons 3-4 weeks for the time of drill, the école de bataillon. Disregarding the subalterns and staff officers, who among the Allies at that time were on average certainly better, the French army of ’94—thanks to the time allowed for its organisation, thanks to the eternally indecisive fighting system of the Allies, a system that demoralises a tried, especially aggressive army, and disciplines the enemy’s, when 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, certainly equal to the enemy. The French generals of 1794 were in any case much better, although they made mistakes enough; but the guillotine ensured unity of command and harmony of operations, except where, which happened only exceptionally, the representatives acted foolishly on their own authority. Le noble Saint Just committed several.

Marginal note on mass tactics: 1) the first crude idea of it arose from the successful manoeuvre of Jemappes, which was more instinctive than militarily calculated. It arose from the chaotic condition of the French army, which required superior numbers merely to possess some military self-confidence; the mass had to replace discipline. Carnot’s part in this invention is not at all clear. 2) This mass tactic remained in the crudest condition and was, e.g., in 1794 at Tourcoing and Fleurus, not applied at all (the French and Carnot himself committed the grossest blunders) until at last Napoleon in 1796, by the six-day Piedmontese campaign and the actual annihilation en détail of a superior force, showed people what they had been steering towards without having hitherto become clear about it; 3) as for Carnot himself, the fellow becomes more and more suspect to me. I can naturally not judge definitively; I do not have his dispatches to the generals. But according to what is at hand, 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 remaining comité de salut public with military matters. Dans le royaume des aveugles le borgne est roi. Carnot, a former engineer officer, himself a representative with the Army of the North, knew what a fortress, an army, needed in the way of materiel etc., and especially what the French lacked. Of necessity he also had a certain conception 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 a great deal of waste is made, a little more or less squandering of resources does not matter, so long as the main purpose, rapid mobilisation of these resources, is achieved, one need hardly attribute great genius to Carnot in order to explain his results. What makes me doubt the invention of mass warfare ascribed to him pour sa part, is particularly that his by far most far-seeing plans of 1793/94 were based precisely on the opposite mode of warfare; he divided the French armies, instead of concentrating them, and operated against the enemy’s wings in such a way that the enemy 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 yet the siege of Antwerp in 1814 lasted not 3 months—finally his attempt, in the face of Napoleon in 1815, against the centralised 1,200,000 soldiers of the Coalition and with a completely changed system of warfare, to force the means of ’93 upon him, and his philistine disposition in general, all this speaks very little for Carnot’s genius. And then, where has it happened that a decent fellow has, as he did, slithered through Thermidor, Fructidor, Brumaire, etc.!

Summa summarum. The Convention was saved solely and exclusively because the Coalition was not centralised, and because 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 paralysed their colossal power only because the marshals, once Napoleon was gone, played every possible spiteful trick on one another.

II. The Coalition has long since got beyond the stupidities of ’93. It is famously centralised. It was so already in 1813. The Russian campaign

Since 1812, Russia became the centrepiece of the entire Holy Alliance for the continental war. Its troops formed the main mass, around which only later Prussia, Austria, etc., grouped themselves, and they remained the main mass right up to Paris. Alexander was de facto 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 of 1849-51 put the continent, with the exception of France, vis-à-vis Russia, in the position in which the Confederation of the Rhine and Italy found themselves vis-à-vis Napoleon: pure vassalage. Nicholas, i.e. Paskievich, is the inevitable dictator of the Holy Alliance en cas de guerre, just as Nesselrode already is en temps de paix.

As for modern military art, it was completely developed by Napoleon. Until the onset of certain conditions, of which more below, there is nothing for it but to imitate Napoleon as far as conditions permit. This modern military art is, however, universally known. In Prussia, every second lieutenant has it drummed into him before the examination for Portepee ensign, as far as it can be drummed in. As for the Austrians, in the Hungarian campaign they got to know and got rid of their bad, specifically Austrian generals – the Windischgrätzes, Welden, Götz and other old women. On the other hand – since we no longer write for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, we no longer need to harbour any illusions – Radetzky’s two campaigns in Italy, the first excellent, the second masterly. Who helped him in this is immaterial; in any case, the old fellow has enough bon sens to grasp the brilliant ideas of others. His defensive position in 1848 between the four fortresses Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago, Verona, all four sides of the quadrilateral well covered, and his defence of this position until he received help, in the midst of an insurgent country, would be a masterpiece, had not his holding out been enormously facilitated by the wretched leadership, the disunity and the constant vacillation of the Italian generals, the intrigues of Charles Albert, and the support of the reactionary aristocrats and priests in the enemy camp. Nor should it be forgotten that he was sitting in the most fertile country in the world and had no worries about the maintenance of his army. – The campaign of 1849, however, is unheard-of for Austrians. The Piedmontese, instead of blocking with concentrated mass the road to Turin at Novara and Mortara (line 3 miles long), which would have been best, or advancing from there in 2-3 columns on Milan, deploy from Sesto to Piacenza – a line of 20 miles, 70,000 men, only 3,500 men per German mile, and 3-4 strong days’ marches from one wing to the other. A wretched concentric operation against Milan, in which they were too weak everywhere. Radetzky, seeing that the Italians were applying the old Austrian system of 1792, operates against them exactly as Napoleon would have done. The Piedmontese line was cut into two pieces by the Po, a crass blunder. He breaks through the line close by the Po, separates the two southern from the three northern divisions, pushing a clump of 60,000 men between them, rapidly attacks the three northern divisions (barely 35,000 men concentrated) with all his might, throws them into the Alps, and separates both corps of the Piedmontese army from each other and from Turin. This manoeuvre, which ended the campaign in 3 days and which is copied almost literally from the one carried out by Napoleon in 1809 at Abensberg and Eckmühl, the most brilliant of all Napoleonic manoeuvres, proves in any case that the Austrians are far from parading as the old “ever slowly forward”; it was precisely the rapidity here that decided everything. The betrayals of the aristocrats and Ramorino facilitated the matter, especially through precise intelligence about the positions and plans of the Italians. Also the infamy 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 would inevitably have had this result under all circumstances. – Finally, the Russians, by the very nature of their army, are assigned to a system of war that comes very close to the modern one. Their army consists, in terms of main strength, of massive, semi-barbaric, hence cumbersome infantry, and numerous semi-barbaric, light, irregular cavalry (Cossacks). In decisive engagements, in great battles, the Russians have never operated otherwise than with masses; Suvorov already understood this at the storming of Izmail and Ochakov. The mobility they lack is partly compensated for by the irregular cavalry, which swarms around them on all sides and masks every movement of the army. But it is precisely this ponderous massiveness of the Russian army that makes it excellently suited to form the core and 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 1814, and in these years there is hardly a battle plan in which the massive Russian columns do not immediately stand out from all others by their depth and density.

The French, since 1812, can hardly be regarded any longer as the pre-eminent bearers of the Napoleonic tradition. This tradition has more or less passed over to all the large European armies; in each it has, mostly already in the last years of the Empire, brought about a revolution; each has adopted the Napoleonic system, as far as this harmonises with the character of the army, in strategy and tactics. The levelling influence of the bourgeois epoch is also felt here; the old national peculiarities are also disappearing in the armies, and the French, Austrian, and Prussian armies, even the English to a large extent, are machines organised fairly equally well for Napoleonic manoeuvres. This does not prevent them from having very different qualities otherwise, in combat, etc. But of all the European armies (the large ones), only the Russian, semi-barbaric one is capable of a tactic and strategy of its own, because it alone is not yet ripe for the fully developed modern system of war.

As for the French, the Algerian small war has even interrupted the thread of the Napoleonic tradition of large-scale warfare. It remains to be seen whether this predatory war compensates for its detrimental consequences for discipline by the advantages of habituation 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’oeil for large-scale warfare. In any case, the French cavalry in Algiers is being more or less ruined; it unlearns its force, the massed choc, and becomes accustomed to a skirmishing system in which the Cossacks, Hungarians and Poles will always remain superior to it. Of the generals, Oudinot disgraced himself before Rome and only Cavaignac distinguished himself in June – but all these are not yet grandes épreuves.

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 completely new class to power, also, like the first, call forth new means of warfare and a new conduct of war, in the face of which the present, Napoleonic one will appear just as antiquated and powerless as that of the Seven Years’ War did in the face of that of the first revolution?!

I. 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 provides the money, the parcel peasants provide the soldiers. The emancipation of both classes from feudal and guild fetters is necessary in order to be able to put the present colossal armies in the field; and the degree of wealth and education connected with this stage of social development is likewise necessary to produce the necessary material for modern armies in terms of weapons, munitions, provisions, etc., to provide the necessary number of educated officers and to give the soldier himself the necessary intelligence.

I take the modern system of war as Napoleon completely developed it. Its two pivots are: massiveness of the means of attack – 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 to and fro for months on end over an area of 20 miles. They cannot carry all their requirements of provisions in supply trains. They must descend 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 they are only adequate for unforeseen contingencies; they are emptied at every moment and refilled, they must follow the rapid march of the army and can therefore rarely manage to cover the army’s requirements for even a single month. The modern system of war is therefore, in the long run, impossible in a poor, semi-barbaric, sparsely-populated country. The French perished slowly from this impossibility in Spain, rapidly in Russia. But, on the other hand, the Spanish also perished from the French, their country was enormously sucked dry, and the Russians cannot sustain their own cumbersome system of mass warfare even in Poland, and in Russia proper, as long as they have no railways, they cannot apply it at all. The defensive on the Dnieper and the Dvina would ruin Russia.

But a certain degree of education of the soldier is also required for this mobility, a soldier who in many cases must 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 singly and is thrown back upon his own intellectual resources, finally the great importance of tirailleur combat, whose success depends on the intelligence, the coup d’oeil and the energy of each individual soldier – all this presupposes a greater degree of education among non-commissioned officers and soldiers than was the case under old Fritz. But a barbaric or semi-barbaric nation has no such degree of education among the masses to show that the first 500,000–600,000 men who are recruited could, on the one hand, be disciplined, drilled like machines and, at the same time, acquire or retain this coup d’oeil for the small war. The barbarians have this robber’s coup d’oeil by nature, e.g. the Cossacks; but they are, for that reason, just as incapable of regular military service as, conversely, the Russian serf infantrymen are of proper skirmishing.

This general average degree of education which the modern system of war presupposes in every soldier is to be 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...

Besides, the cunning mob of the towns (*remplaçants*) form the army; in North Germany, where feudalism has been either likewise destroyed or has assumed *plus ou moins* bourgeois forms and where the towns provide a considerable contingent to the army; finally, after the last wars, it seems also to exist at least in part of the Austrian army, which is recruited from the least feudal regions. Apart from England, small-scale peasant cultivation everywhere forms the basis of the army, and the army is all the more suited to the modern war system the more the position of the small peasant approaches that of the free property owner.

But not only the mobility of the individual soldier, but also that of the masses themselves presupposes the level of civilisation of the bourgeois epoch. The sluggishness of pre-revolutionary armies is closely bound up with feudalism. The mass of officers’ baggage trains alone impeded every movement. The armies crept along as slowly as the whole movement.

The rising bureaucracy of the absolute monarchies introduced somewhat more order into the administration of materiel, but its alliance with the *haute finance* simultaneously organised embezzlement *en gros*, and where the bureaucracy was of any use to the armies, it harmed them doubly through the spirit of schematism and pedantry it imparted to them. Witness old Fritz himself in his own most high person. Russia is still labouring under all these evils; the Russian army, cheated and fleeced everywhere, 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 therefore in every respect a property of the bourgeois armies. Mobility, however, is not only the necessary complement of mass warfare, it often replaces it (Napoleon in Piedmont 1796).

But mass warfare is as much a specific property of the modern civilised armies as mobility.

However varied 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 free small peasants, in no people’s war can more than 7% of the population be called to arms, and thus about 5% can be actively employed. In the autumn of 1793, France, assumed at 25 million, could accordingly have furnished 1,750,000 soldiers and 1,250,000 actual combatants. Around that time, the 1,250,000 were more or less present on the frontiers, at Toulon, in the Vendée—both sides reckoned here. In Prussia—now 16 million—7% and 5% would amount to 1,120,000 men and 800,000 men. The entire Prussian force, line and Landwehr, however, amounts to barely 600,000. This example shows how much even 5% is for a nation.

*Eh bien*—if France and Prussia can easily call 5% of their population to arms, and in case of necessity even 7%, Austria in the extreme case calls up at most 5%, and Russia barely 3% together. 5% for Austria would be 1,750,000—assuming 35 million. In 1849 Austria strained all its forces. It had about 550,000 men. The Hungarians, whose forces were doubled by Kossuth’s proclamations, had perhaps 350,000. I count a further 50,000 Lombards who evaded conscription or who served in the Piedmontese army—total sum 950,000 men, hence still not 2¾% of the population; here the Croatian borderers, who lived under exceptional conditions, furnished at least 15% of their population.—Russia, calculated conservatively, has 72 million inhabitants; accordingly at 5% it could furnish 3,600,000. Instead of this, it has never been able to furnish more than 1,500,000, regular and irregular together, and of these it could lead at most 1,000,000 against the enemy in its own country, i.e., its total force was never more than 2½%, its active force never more than 1½ or 1¾%. The sparse population over an enormous area, the lack of communications and the low national production explain this very simply.

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

Modern warfare thus presupposes the emancipation of the bourgeoisie and the peasants; it is the military expression of this emancipation.

The emancipation of the proletariat will also have its specific military expression, will create a distinct, new method of warfare. *Cela est clair.* It is already possible to determine what the material bases of this new warfare will be.

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

The real emancipation of the proletariat, the complete elimination of all class distinctions and the complete concentration of all means of production in Germany and France, presupposes the cooperation of England and at least the doubling of the means of production now existing in Germany and France. Precisely this, however, likewise presupposes a new kind of warfare.

The great discoveries of Napoleon in the science of war cannot be abolished by a miracle. The new science of war must be just as necessary a product of the new social relations as the one created by the Revolution and Napoleon was the necessary result of the new relations given by the Revolution. But just as in the proletarian revolution, as far as industry is concerned, it is not a matter of abolishing steam engines but of multiplying them, so in warfare it is a matter not of reducing mass warfare and mobility, but of raising them to a higher power.

The presupposition of Napoleonic warfare was increased productive forces; the presupposition of every new improvement in warfare must likewise be new productive forces. Railways and electric telegraphs will already now, in European wars, give a talented general or war minister occasion for entirely new combinations. The gradual increase of productive forces, and with it of population, has likewise given opportunity for larger mass accumulations. In France, instead of 25 million, 36 million; for 5% this gives no longer 1,250,000 but 1,800,000 men. In both cases the power of the civilised countries, as against that of the barbaric ones, has increased proportionately. 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 way, how utterly impossible a lasting subjugation of Western Europe under Russia is, and how it becomes more impossible with every day.

The power of the new warfare to be generated by the abolition of classes, however, cannot consist in the fact that the available 5% form ever more considerable masses as the population grows. It must consist in being placed in a position to call to arms not 5, or 7%, respectively, but 12–16% of the population, i.e. one-half to two-thirds of the male adult population—the healthy people of 18–30 or respectively 40 years. But just as Russia cannot increase its available force from 2–3% to 5% without a complete revolution of its entire inner social and political organisation and of its production above all, so Germany and France cannot bring their available force from 5 to 12% without revolutionising their production and more than doubling it. Only when the average labour of each individual, by means of machines, etc., is worth twice as much as now can double the number be spared from labour—even only for a short time, for the 5% have never been kept on foot for long by 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 Landwehr officer, on account of his socially aristocratic position will never be a serviceable soldier alongside the peasants and yokels—then only the limit of the population capable of bearing arms is the barrier of actual recruitment—i.e. in the most extreme necessity, momentarily 15–20% of the population can be armed and 12–15% actually led against the enemy. These enormous masses, however, presuppose a quite different mobility than even the present armies. Without a complete railway network they can neither concentrate nor feed themselves nor be kept supplied with ammunition nor move. And without electric telegraphs they cannot be directed at all; but since it is not possible that with such masses the strategist and the tactician (who commands on the battlefield) are one and the same, here the division of labour emerges. The strategic operations, the cooperation of the different corps, must be directed from the central point of the telegraph lines; the tactical operations by the individual generals. That under these circumstances wars can and must be decided in a far shorter time than even by Napoleon is clear. The cost factor makes it necessary, the necessary decisive effect of each blow with such masses makes it unavoidable.

In mass and strategic mobility, these armies must therefore already be quite unprecedentedly formidable. The tactical mobility (on patrol, skirmishing, on the battlefield) must in such soldiers likewise be considerably greater; they are more robust, more supple, more intelligent than anything 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 want of an adequate enemy. In the first period of the proletarian revolution, the initial 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 as against 1789. At that time the proletariat—at least in ’92 and ’94—was as stirred up and in tension as it will be in the near future. Already then it turned out that in revolutionary wars with fierce internal convulsions the mass of the proletariat is needed for employment at home. The same will again be the case now, and probably more than ever, since the chances for 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, the revolution will have to wage war with the means and according to the method of general modern warfare.

Conditions and Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance.

Only an ideologue could ask whether with these means, i.e. with an active army of 4-5% of the population, new combinations could be made, new surprising methods of employment could be invented. Just as little as one can quadruple the product on the loom without replacing the motive power, hand labour, by steam, without inventing a new means of production that has little more in common with the old handloom, just as little can one produce new results in the art of war with the old means. Only the production of new, more powerful means makes the achievement of new, grand results possible. Every great commander who makes an epoch in the history of war by new combinations either himself invents new material means or discovers first the correct use of new material means invented before him. Between Turenne and old Fritz lies the revolution in the infantry, the displacement of the pike and the matchlock by the bayonet and the flintlock — and the epoch-making feature in the military science of old Fritz consists in the fact that, within the limits of the warfare of the time, he recast and perfected the old tactics to suit the new instruments. Just as Napoleon’s epoch-making merit consists in the fact that he found the only correct tactical and strategic employment for the colossal army masses made possible by the Revolution, and so thoroughly perfected this that, on the whole, modern generals, far from being able to surpass him, can only attempt to copy him in their most brilliant and skilful operations.

Summa Summarum, 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.

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 peace footing, nominally amounts to 1,100,000 men, in reality nearly 750,000. Since 1848 the government has been constantly working to bring the effective strength on war footing to 1,500,000 men, and Nicholas and Paskevich have personally inspected as far as possible everywhere. Taken at a low estimate, Russia has therefore now actually achieved the full peace footing of 1,100,000 men — really achieved it. Deduct from this, at a generous estimate:

For the Caucasus 100,000 men.
» Russia itself 150,000 »
» the Polish provinces 150,000 »
» Sick, detached, etc. 150,000 » 550,000 men.

Leaves disposable 550,000 men for active employment against foreign enemies. That is scarcely more than Russia actually sent across the frontier in 1813.

2) Prussia. The splendid army, if the entire Landwehr of the 1st and 2nd levy, supernumeraries and all were called up, would amount to at least 650,000 men. The government can, however, for the moment mobilise at most 550,000 men. I count only 500,000. These need to detach only a little beyond the 2nd levy (150,000 men) for garrisons, etc., since everywhere the gradual calling-up of the supernumeraries and the new conscription for the following year — for which Nicholas will already provide — as well as the incessantly marching-through Russians would form a sufficient reserve against any attempt at internal insurrection. Also they have fewer sick, since they concentrate in their own country and have less distance to march to the Rhine than the Russians. I subtract, however, as with the Russians, one half, leaving the other half disposable: 250,000 men.

3) Austria. Has under arms and on furlough, who are just as quickly with the army as the Prussian Landwehr, a low estimate of 600,000 men. Here too I subtract one half, since in at least a quarter of the monarchy the advancing Russians, until the formation of new reserves, would serve as a reserve in the interior and keep the centres of insurrection in check. Leaves disposable against the enemy — 300,000 men.

4) The German Confederation. Since the gentlemen live near the Rhine and the whole coalition marches through their territory, they need almost no garrisons against the interior; the more so as upon the first successes of the coalition against France the reserve armies would deploy 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 assume for the time being at 80,000 men.

The entire 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 assumptions are, deliberately, too low. The deductions for sick alone are so great that from the convalescents, etc., alone, two months after the beginning of operations, a second army of 350,000 men can be formed on the French frontier. Since, however, nowadays no government is so unreasonable as to start a war without, at the same time as the active army marches out, making new levies as strong as possible and sending them after the first army, this second army must turn out considerably stronger still.

The troops of the first army (the 1,300,000 men) can be completely concentrated in about two months, and that as follows: That the Prussians and Austrians can have their above-mentioned contingents disposable in two months, there can be no doubt since the armaments of last November. As for the Russians, their three definitive points of concentration are first Berlin, Breslau and Cracow or Vienna (cf. below). From Petersburg to Berlin it is about 45 days’ marches; from Berlin to the Rhine 16, total 61 marches at 5 German miles each. From Moscow to Breslau 48 marches, from Breslau to Mainz 20; total 68 marches. From Kiev to Vienna 40, from Vienna to Basle 22, total 62 marches. Adding to this the rest days, which for Russian troops and with the long marches above can under no circumstances be omitted, it is clear that even the troops stationed in Moscow, Petersburg and Kiev can be comfortably on the Rhine in three months, and that on the assumption that the men march only on foot, and that railways and transport by wagon are not brought into use. These means, however, can be used almost everywhere in Germany, and at least partly in Russia and Poland, and would shorten the transport of the troops on the whole certainly by 15-20 days. The main mass of the Russian troops, however, is already concentrated in the Polish provinces, and as soon as the political conditions make a crisis probable, even more troops will be directed there, so that the starting points of the line of march will not be Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev, but Riga, Vilna, Minsk, Dubno, Kamieniec, i.e. that the march route will be shortened by about 60 miles — 12 marching days and 4 rest days. In addition, a large part of the infantry — especially those coming from the more distant stations — can be transported at least every third or rest day 5 miles further, so that for this part the rest days count as marching days. The artillery matériel, ammunition and stores would then keep the railway free, the teams and crews of the artillery would march or drive, as the case may be, and thus in any case arrive earlier than in the customary way.

After all this, it seems to me that nothing stands in the way that could prevent the concentration of the coalition army on the Rhine two months after the outbreak of the revolution in the following manner:

First Army: 1) 1st Line on the Rhine and before Piedmont,

Prussians, Austrians, etc. 750,000
Russians — 300,000
1,050,000 men.

2nd Line, Reserve,
10 marches back, Russians 250,000 men.

Total — 1,300,000 men.

as above
Second Army: 1) Reserve of the small allies,
Prussians, Austrians, etc., in
process of concentration — 200,000 men.
2) Russian reserve, on
the march, 20 marches back 150,000 «
350,000 men.

Both armies, total 1,650,000 men.

Basically, under the present conditions scarcely 5-6 weeks are needed to bring 300,000 Russians to the Rhine, and in the same time the Prussians, Austrians and the small allies can bring their above-mentioned contingents to the Rhine; but to take proper account of the unforeseen obstacles that occur in every coalition, I assume a full two months. The disposition of the allied troops at the moment when Napoleon came from Elba was, with regard to a march on France, hardly so favourable as the present one, and yet the Russians were on the Rhine when Napoleon fought at Waterloo against the English and Prussians.

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 Algiers. From the remaining 400,000 deduct the sick, the necessary minimum for fortress garrisons, smaller detachments in doubtful areas of the interior, leaves disposable at most 250,000 men.

2) the favourite measure of the present Reds: calling the discharged soldiers back to the colours, can be applied successfully and forcibly to at most 6 age classes, i.e. from the 27th to the 32nd year. Each age class contributes 80,000 men to the conscription. The ravages of the Algerian war and climate, the ordinary mortality over 12 years, the loss of those become unfit, emigrated, and of those who know how to evade re-entry in one way or another at a time when the administration is anyway falling into disorder, reduce the 480,000 former recruits of these 6 age classes to at most 300,000 re-entrants. Deduct from these 150,000 for fortress garrisons, which will be taken mainly from this class of older, largely married people — leaves 150,000 men. These can be mobilised without difficulty, with somewhat skilful direction, in two months.

3) The people’s guard, volunteers, volontaires, levée en masse or whatever else one may call this subordinate cannon fodder. With the exception of about 10,000 gardes mobiles still to be assembled, no man among them has more acquaintance with arms than any German civic guardsman. The French learn the trade more quickly, but two months are a very short time, and if Napoleon could put his recruits through the battalion school in four weeks, he only accomplished that with excellent cadres, while the first consequence of the next revolution is the disorganisation even of the cadres of the line. Besides, our French revolutionaries are notoriously traditional, and their first cry will be: Levée en masse! Deux millions d’hommes aux frontières! The deux millions d’hommes would be fine and good, if one could again expect such stupidities from the coalition as in ’92 and ’93, and had time to drill the 2,000,000 men gradually. But there can be no question of that. One must be prepared to have a million active enemy soldiers on the frontier within two months, and the point is to confront this million with a chance of success.

If the French again appear as traditional parrots of ’93, they undertake the history with the 2 millions, i.e. they undertake so much that the real result, given the short period, amounts to zero.

The drilling and organisation of 1,500,000 men in eight weeks, without
cadres, in practice amounts to a senseless squandering of all resources
and to the reinforcement of the army by not even a single serviceable
battalion.

If, on the other hand, they have a proper minister of war, who has some
knowledge of revolutionary wars and the methods of rapidly creating an
army, and if no stupid obstacles born of ignorance and the pursuit of popularity
are put in his way, he will keep within the bounds of the possible and
can do a great deal. One will then, more or less, have to arrive at the
following plan:

The armed force consists initially of two elements: (1) a proletarian
guard in the towns, a peasant guard in the countryside, wherever the countryside
is reliable, for service in the interior; (2) a regular army against invasion.
— The garrison service is performed by the proletarian and peasant guard;
the army supplies only the most essential detachments. Paris, Strasbourg,
Lyon, Metz, Lille, Valenciennes, the most important fortresses, which are
at the same time large towns, will require, in addition to their own guard
and a few peasant detachments from the surrounding area, only a little
line infantry for their defence. The proletarian guards available in the
interior, insofar 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 districts.

The line, as 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 transformed into
a regiment — the general promotion that is unavoidable in the process will
instill in the officers and NCOs no less respect for the Revolution than the
guillotine and the court-martial. The unavoidable expansion of the cadres
is carried out as gradually as possible, and whatever can be gained in the
way of officers is gained. This is very important, given the impossibility
of conjuring up officers in two months. In any case, among the middle and
lower grades of the French army there still prevails so much national feeling
that, with a little promotion, an energetic leadership of the war department,
and some chance of success, these men will perform quite well at the
outset, especially if a few examples are made of mutineers and deserters.
The pupils of the military schools, the officials of the Ponts et Chaussées,
provide excellent artillery and engineer officers, and after a couple of actions
those subordinate military talents so frequent among the French will
begin to develop — talents that, once they have been under fire, are capable
of leading a company.

As for the soldiers themselves, [...]

There remains to be levied and drilled

a total of 1,200,000 men, of whom, deducting 100,000 for the sick, there
remain 1,100,000 men. Of these, the following are to be employed actively:

Line 250,000
Recalled men 150,000
Recruits— 400,000 800,000

It will be seen what can be done with them. The drilling of
400,000–500,000 men, however, as recruits for the line army — who are
merged into the regiments and battalions together with the existing and
recalled soldiers — within two months, is by no means so excessively
difficult, if it is set about rapidly, le lendemain de la révolution. All these
reinforcements would affect the infantry and the artillery; in two months
one can certainly train an infantryman and a gunner at least fit for
simple gun drill, but not a cavalryman. The increase in cavalry would
therefore be very weak.

The entire armament plan presupposes that a proper minister of war is
present, one who understands how to assess the political conditions,
who possesses strategic, tactical, and detailed knowledge of all arms,
who has the requisite portion of energy, swiftness, and decisiveness, and
who is given a free hand by the asses who will rule alongside him. But
where does the “Red” party in France have such a fellow! The chances are,
on the contrary, that as usual some ignorant fellow, who imagines — and
who is imagined — as a bon démocrate to be equal to any post, will try
to play the Carnot, that he will decree mass levies, throw everything
into complete confusion, very soon reach the end of his wits, then leave
everything to the routine of old junior officials, and allow the enemy
armies to advance as far as Paris. Today, however, to resist a European
coalition, one must not be Pache and Bouchotte, nor even Carnot; one
would have to be Napoleon, or have terribly stupid enemies and a terribly
large amount of luck.

It must not be overlooked that, in all the calculations of the combat forces |
of the coalition, the minimum of total strength and the maximum of
deductions have been assumed, so that, given even a barely tolerable
leadership, the mass of available troops will be larger and the time necessary
for concentration will be shorter than stated here. In the case of France, on
the other hand, the assumptions are reversed; the time available is made
as long as possible, the total force that might possibly be organised is
set very high, the deductions are taken as small, so that the mass of
available troops is assumed to be as large as possible. In a word: all these
calculations — abstracting from unforeseen events and from gross blunders
on the part of the Allies — represent the most favourable possible case
for the Revolution.

In addition, it has been assumed that the revolution and invasion do
not at once provoke civil war in the interior of the country. It is now, 60 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 degree as the Allies advance,
the chance also increases of an uprising such as that of 1793 in Lyon, Toulon,
etc. — a momentary alliance of all politically overthrown classes and fractions.
Yet let us assume here also the case most favourable to the Revolution,
namely, that the revolutionary proletarian and peasant guard is in a position
successfully to disarm the rebellious departments and classes.

We shall come to speak straight away of the chances that can be given
to the Revolution by insurrections in Germany, Italy, etc.

V. We now come to the actual conduct of the war.

If one places the one leg of a compass on the map upon Paris, and
with the distance from Paris to Strasbourg as radius draws a circle around
Paris, the circumference of this circle in the south meets the French
frontier 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; where it departs
from it at particular points, this distance never attains the length of two days’
marches. Were the Rhine the frontier of France, Paris would be equally
distant from the frontier from the point where the Alps cease to cover that
frontier to the North Sea. The military system of France, with Paris as centre,
would have fulfilled all its geographical conditions. This simple arc of a circle
from Chambéry to Rotterdam, reducing all points of the only open frontier
of France, and, moreover, the frontier that lies nearest to the capital, to the
uniform distance of about 70 German miles — 14 days’ marches — from
Paris, and covering the frontier at the same time by a broad stream — that
is the real military basis of the claim that the Rhine is the natural
frontier of France.

The same peculiar configuration of its course, however, also makes the
Rhine the starting-point for all concentric operations against Paris,
for in order to arrive before Paris simultaneously, to threaten it simultaneously
from different sides, the various armies must set out simultaneously from
equidistant points. The operations of any counter-revolutionary coalition
army against France must be concentric, however dangerous all concentric
operations are in which the point of concentration lies within the enemy’s
area or even forms his base of operations: (1) because with Paris France is
conquered, (2) because no part of the frontier lying within the range of
operations of French armies may be left exposed, since otherwise the
French could provoke insurrections on the territory of the coalition, in the
rear of its armies, by sending armies; (3) because the masses that every
coalition must hurl against France require multiple lines of operations
for their sustenance.

The frontier to be covered for both armies runs from Chambéry to
Rotterdam. The Spanish frontier is for the time being left out of consideration.
The Italian frontier from the Var to the Isère is covered by the Alps and
grows ever more distant from Paris, since it forms the tangent of the above
circle. It can come into consideration only (1) if the fortified defiles of
the Savoy Alps, particularly that of Mont Cenis, are in the hands of the
French; (2) if a diversion is to be made on the coast, for which special
reasons must exist; (3) if French armies, after the frontier has been secured
at all other points, wish to proceed offensively, as in 1796 under Napoleon.
In all other cases it lies too far away.

The active operations, both for the coalition and for France, are thus
confined 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 offers a terrain which is as though created for defence,
and whose mountain and river systems could hardly be wished better
from a military point of view.

From the Rhône to the Moselle the frontier is covered by a long
mountain range, difficult and passable only at specific points: the
Jura, with which the Vosges link up, whose continuation in turn is formed by
the Hochwald and the Idarwald. Both mountain ranges run parallel to the
frontier, and the Vosges are moreover covered by the Rhine. Between the
Moselle and the Meuse, the Ardennes cover the road to Paris; beyond the
Meuse, the Argonne. Only the region from the Sambre to the sea is open,
but here the position of any advancing army also becomes more dangerous
with every step it takes forward — it runs the risk, given tolerably
skilful operations on the part of a strong French army, of being cut off from
Belgium and thrown into the sea. Moreover, the entire line from the Rhône
to the North Sea is studded with fortresses, some of which, e.g. Strasbourg,
dominate 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 hand, and the Mediterranean
on the other. From it flow, to the south, the Saône; to the north, running 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, severed by only a few roads, separate the individual river
valleys from one another. This whole mountainous country is indeed
for the most part practicable for all arms, but very barren, and no
large army can hold out upon it for long.

Once this mountain region, as well as the equally barren plateau districts
of Champagne, which separate the Meuse basin from the Seine basin, is crossed,

the hostile army enters the territory of the Seine. And here alone the striking military advantages of the position of Paris are fully displayed.

The river basin of the Seine downstream to the mouth of the Oise is formed by several rivers flowing in almost parallel arcs in a northwesterly direction — the Yonne, the Seine, the Marne, the Oise and Aisne, each of which has tributaries flowing in the same direction. All these arc-shaped valleys converge quite close to one another, and at the centre of these points of convergence lies Paris. The main roads to Paris from all the land borders between the Mediterranean and the Scheldt run through these river valleys and, along with them, converge concentrically upon Paris. The army defending 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 has the smaller circumference. The admirable exploitation 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 in the Seine basin for two months with a handful of soldiers. |