The French Revolutionary Wars (Military History)

Introduction

The French Revolutionary Wars is the name given to the series of conflicts that convulsed Europe in the ten years between 1792 and 1802. For many years it was traditional to see these events as marking a transformation in the history of European warfare. In the course of the last two decades of the 20th century, however, this view was increasingly challenged. On the one hand the idea that the French Revolutionary Wars were an ideological conflict was much called into question, and on the other more and more scholars began to argue that many of the changes in the art of war that were supposedly initiated by the Revolution were in fact products of the latter years of the ancien régime. As is reflected in the historiography, then, we are in the presence of a great debate. Yet even if the French Revolutionary Wars is regarded as the last of the long series of wars that pitted various combinations of European powers against one another in the course of the 18th century, there is no doubt that they represented a very great conflict indeed. With the French army much bigger than it had ever been before as a result of the introduction of the principle of universal conscription—it would be wrong to think that the Revolution brought nothing new—French generals could risk battle more often and push their troops ever harder, and this considerably speeded up the tempo of the fighting. Meanwhile, none of the major powers of Europe escaped involvement in the struggle, one or two of them on both sides, while fighting raged in many areas of the Continent and even France herself (not only was France invaded in several places in 1792 and 1793, but in 1793 and 1796 she also experienced major rebellions). Added to all this, meanwhile, was considerable fighting both at sea and in the West Indies. All this being the case, it is with some surprise that one discovers that modern writing on the conflict is remarkably sparse. There is, of course, plenty on the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, but beyond such matters coverage is not extensive. Let us hope, then, that this bibliography will inspire some young historians to set about redressing the balance. Finally, for various reasons the author has restricted himself to works in English and French while he has also refrained from citing articles in academic journals. However, those with the capacity to read on a wider basis will find some useful suggestions in such bibliographies as the one published in Ross 1998 (Historical Dictionary of the Wars of the French Revolution, cited under Handbooks and Historical Dictionaries) as well as in the bibliographies of the more scholarly monographs.

General Overviews

General introductions to the French Revolutionary Wars as such are few and far between. However, Ross 1973 and Fremont-Barnes 2001 provide a basic narrative, while Blanning 1996 is both an excellent analysis of the reasons for France’s success and one that is more searching than the traditional version (for this, see Best 1982). Meanwhile, two books that place the conflict in a wider context, albeit in different ways, are Esdaile 1999 and the extremely vigorous Bell 2007. Lastly Phipps 1926–1939 offers a strictly French perspective on the land campaigns and Haythornthwaite 1981 a unique visual reference.

Bell, David. The First Total War: Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Warfare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
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A vigorous and controversial book whose title should really be “The French Revolution and the Birth of Total War” as it reaches well back into the 18th century rather than just looking at the Napoleonic epoch. Too much use is made of examples—the Vendee and the Peninsular War—that are clearly unrepresentative, but the book is beyond doubt a stimulating read.
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Best, Geoffrey. War and Society in Revolutionary Europe, 1770–1870. London: Fontana, 1982.
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An early contribution to the field that in its time was an important work. While it covers a much wider period than just the 1790s, the early chapters make useful introductory reading. However, coverage of everywhere other than France and Britain is at best suggestive and, at worst, downright weak, while the French Revolutionary Wars are neglected in favor of the Napoleonic epoch.
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Blanning, Timothy C. W. The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787–1802. London: Edward Arnold, 1996.
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An excellent introduction to the wars of the 1790s that is based on a far wider command of the main European languages than, say, Best 1982. However, discussion of the wider context is sometimes lacking: there is, for example, nothing on the domestic response of the ancien régime powers to the French challenge and very little on government, politics, and society in the annexed territories and satellite republics.
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Esdaile, Charles J. The French Wars, 1792–1815. London: Routledge, 1999.
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A brief introductory primer designed to give undergraduates an outline of the basic events of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and is inclined to follow Schroeder 1994 (cited under Diplomacy and International Relations) and Blanning 1996 with regard to the origins and nature of the struggle. Perhaps the best thing to read if what is wanted is an introduction that looks at something other than just the military narrative.
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Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The French Revolutionary Wars. Oxford: Osprey, 2001.
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A well-illustrated primer equipped with what is probably the best set of maps in the field that will be found useful by anyone looking for a starting point in so far as a military narrative is concerned.
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Haythornthwaite, Phillip J. Uniforms of the French Revolutionary Wars, 1789–1802. Poole, UK: Blandford, 1981.
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An interesting work whose beautiful artwork shows in great detail the uniforms worn by the various combatants in the French Revolutionary Wars and challenges many assumptions regarding the armies of both the ancien régime and the Republic: in brief, we learn that the former were not entirely resistant to reform and the latter by no means wholly wedded to change.
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Phipps, Ramsey W. The Armies of the First French Republic and the Rise of the Marshals of Napoleon I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926–1939.
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A rather curious work that combines detailed military narrative with the stories of all twenty-six of Napoleon’s marshals, and is now very dated even on its own terms. However, to this day it remains the only detailed English-language survey of the whole sweep of the French Revolutionary Wars and is full of information that cannot easily be obtained anywhere else.
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Ross, Steven T. Quest for Victory: French Military Strategy, 1792–1799. South Brunswick, NJ: A. S. Barnes, 1973.
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A narrative of the campaigns of the period 1792–1799 that was one of the first texts seriously to question the notion that the French Revolutionary Wars were an ideological struggle. Though now more than forty years old, it remains worth consulting, particularly as an introductory text.
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Handbooks and Historical Dictionaries

Being the major topic that it is, the French Revolution has inspired a wide range of handbooks and historical dictionaries. For those with access to them, these can be a great help, but only one—Ross 1998—is specifically directed toward military aspects of the topic, and even this is rather disappointing. Otherwise perhaps the most useful in overall terms is Jones 1988 as this contains a much wider range of material than most of its fellows: thus, Caratini 1988 is limited to potted biographies; Robinet 1899, Scott and Rothaus 1985 and Soboul 1989 are directed at France alone; Six 1934 is concerned only with the French armed forces; and Tulard 1987 and Fremont-Barnes 2006 are bent on covering the entire Revolutionary and Napoleonic era.

Caratini, Roger. Dictionnaire des personages de la révolution. Paris: Editions Pierre Belfond, 1988.
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As the title suggests, this is a biographical dictionary only, but, unlike Robinet 1899 and Soboul 1989, it does cover countries other than France.
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Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, ed. The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History. 3 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006.
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Lengthy and wide-ranging, this work covers the entire period from 1792 to 1815, and the result, as ever, is that coverage of the Revolutionary Wars is inclined to suffer. At the same time, the quality of the entries is inclined to vary more than somewhat. Nevertheless, a useful addition to any library even if it is one that will frequently need supplementing with other sources.
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Jones, Colin. The Longman Companion to the French Revolution. London: Longmans, 1988.
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An extremely useful handbook that covers most aspects of Revolutionary France and has a considerable amount of material on matters military and diplomatic.
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Robinet, Jean F. Dictionnaire historique et biographique de la revolution et de l’empire, 1789–1815. 2 vols. Paris: Librairie Historique de la Révolution et de l’Empire, 1899.
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Despite its age—it must necessarily be consulted with great caution—this remains a mine of factual information and can still be used with much profit, while its 1707 pages ensure that coverage is extensive. Note, however, that, like Soboul 1989, its focus is wholly Francocentric.
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Ross, Steven T. Historical Dictionary of the Wars of the French Revolution. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1998.
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The only historical dictionary specifically dedicated to the French Revolutionary Wars. It is clearly written and buttressed by a number of sketch maps and has a useful bibliographical essay and a full bibliography, though too much of these last are dedicated to general works on the history of warfare. At the same time, the coverage is rather patchy: there is, for example, very little on the campaigns in the Pyrenees in the period 1793–1795.
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Scott, Samuel, and Barry Rothaus. Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789–1799. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985.
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A historical dictionary of no great pretension that is nonetheless quite reasonable on the level at which it operates.
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Six, Georges. Dictionnaire biographique des généraux et amiraux français de la Révolution et de l’Empire. 2 vols. Paris: Georges Saffroy, 1934.
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Invaluable resource that provides detailed individual service records for thousands of senior officers ranging from the extremely famous to the completely obscure and constitutes an invaluable resource for anyone working on the French army.
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Soboul, Albert. Dictionnaire historique de la révolution française. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989.
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Though initiated by the leading Marxist historian Albert Soboul and published under his name, this project was actually carried through to fruition by a younger generation of historians of whom the most important for our purposes is Jean-Paul Bertaud. Its political slant is obvious, but there are numerous articles on military topics and these are supported by many maps. For obvious reasons, however, coverage is limited to France alone.
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Tulard, Jean. Dictionnaire Napoléon. Paris: Fayard, 1987.
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An essential work that should be on the shelves of anyone interested in the history of the French Revolution and Napoleon. As its title suggests, it is primarily aimed at the Napoleonic era, but so many of the statesmen and generals prominent after 1803 were also prominent prior to that date that it cannot be ignored in the current context. That said, it is pointless to consult it in respect to topics that relate only to the period 1793–1799.
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The Art of War on Land

Discussion of the art of war in the age of the French Revolution may be said to revolve around one central issue, namely the extent to which the Revolution transformed land warfare. According to the traditional view, thanks to the events of 1789–1792 France not only became a nation, but also a nation-in-arms, the result of this development being the introduction of new military techniques and methods of warfare that overwhelmed the hidebound armies of the ancien régime. As witness Glover 1980, Rothenberg 1977, and also Best 1982 (cited under General Overviews), such is very much the line taken by an older generation of scholars, but in later years this view has been challenged by a group of revisionist scholars who are inclined to downplay the role of the Revolution, good examples of this line being Nosworthy 1996 and Blanning 1996 (cited under General Overviews). Meanwhile, for an approach centered more on the manner in which combat was decided and, more particularly, the experience of the soldier on the battlefield, see Muir 1998 and Nosworthy 1996. Finally, for various discussions of armies and warfare in the 18th century, see Anderson 1988, Black 1994, Childs 1982, and Duffy 1987.

Anderson, Matthew S. War and Society in Europe of the Old Régime, 1618–1789. Leicester, UK: Fontana, 1988.
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One of a number of books that sets the scene by examining the subject of war and society in Europe in the latter part of the so-called early modern period. At the heart of the text lies the emergence of the long-service professional army in the wake of the Thirty Years’ War and the manner in which such institutions developed as key elements of the dynastic state in the century that followed.
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Black, Jeremy. European Warfare, 1660–1815. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.
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Described by one reviewer as the product of a sharp mind in a hurry, this work looks not only at the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, but also the century or more which preceded it. It is not without its problems—for example, the author is probably rather too keen to dismiss the so-called “military revolution” of the 17th century—but Black is a major figure whose insights are not to be discarded lightly while the chapter on the 1792–1815 period is certainly sound enough.
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Childs, John. Armies and Warfare in Europe, 1648–1789. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1982.
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Very similar to Anderson 1988, but possibly a better read. There are chapters on the response of the states of Europe to the Thirty Years’ War, the nature of the new armies, the conduct of war, civil-military relations and, finally, the role of the professional army in the emergence of absolutism.
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Duffy, Christopher. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987.
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An important book based, albeit not exclusively, on the author’s comprehensive knowledge of the armies of Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great that challenges many assumptions in respect to the armies of the 18th century and in the process suggests that they were far more versatile organizations than they have usually been given credit for.
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Glover, M. Warfare in the Age of Bonaparte. London: Book Club, 1980.
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A solid introduction to the subject that may be read as an alternative to Rothenberg 1977 and has a much wider range of illustrations. Of particular note is a chapter on the little known battle of Tournai.
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Muir, Rory. Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
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More accurately titled than some of its comparators in that this book really does concentrate on the Napoleonic Wars alone. That said, the experiences of an infantryman or cavalryman of 1813 were much the same as those of an infantryman or cavalryman of 1793, while the weapon systems they operated had changed not a whit. Meanwhile, the elegant style and clarity of exposition is rarely to be bettered.
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Nosworthy, Brent. With Musket, Cannon, and Sword: Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies. New York: Sarpedon, 1996.
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Another work that looks at the whole period from 1792 to 1815 but has much to say on the 1790s, and all the more so as it is keen to demonstrate that Napoleonic warfare was but a logical continuation of the methods used by the French from 1792 to 1801. A particular feature of the argument is the stress that is placed on the technical competence achieved by France’s troops.
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Rothenberg, Gunther E. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon. London: Batsford, 1977.
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As the age of Napoleon can be stretched to include the French Revolutionary Wars, this book is not as misplaced as first appears. It is a splendid volume that remains one of the very best works of its type ever to have been published. Chapter topics include armies and warfare in Europe in 1789, the impact of the French Revolution, the influence of Napoleon, and the opponents of the French.
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Diplomacy and International Relations

Once seen in very clear-cut terms as a clash between revolution and reaction, the French Revolutionary Wars are now for the most part viewed very differently. Such revisionism is by no means entirely new—for an early attempt to de-ideologize the conflict, see Sorel 1969—but from the mid-1980s onward a parade of works—for example, Blanning 1986, Schroeder 1994, Black 2002—have lined up to attack the traditional story. For an older version of the same thesis that places particular blame on Napoleon, see Guyot 1911.

Black, Jeremy. European International Relations, 1648–1815. London: Palgrave, 2002.
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A direct competitor to McKay and Scott 1983, this work is inclined to be more thrusting and innovative, and peppers the familiar story that it tells with many new insights and pieces of information, not the least of which is to suggest that the ideological war supposedly seen in Europe from 1792 onward was nothing new.
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Blanning, Timothy C. W. The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars. London: Longmans, 1986.
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An important contribution to the debate on reasons why the French Revolution led to almost twenty-five years of near-continuous warfare in Europe. Thus, Blanning completely rejects the traditional view that sees the French Revolutionary Wars as the inevitable product of ideological conflict between Paris and the ancien régime, what matters far more in his eyes being such issues as miscalculation, dynastic ambition, and political opportunism.
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Guyot, Raymond. Le Directoire et la paix del’Europe: des traites de Bâle a la duxieme coaltion, 1795–1799. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1911.
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Though now a century old, this work remains an important text in respect to the international history of the 1790s, its basic thesis being that the Directory, and not just the Directory but also the government of William Pitt, was by 1796 anxious to secure a compromise peace, only for these hopes to be foiled by the ambition of Napoleon.
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McKay, Derek, and Hamish M. Scott. The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648–1815. London: Longman, 1983.
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Like many works in this bibliography, this undergraduate text covers a much wider period than just that of the French Revolution. However, the long-term background offered here is very useful, while the authors also offer a very clear account of the events of the 1790s, albeit one that is fairly traditional in its approach. A very good starting point, then, for those wishing to progress to Schroeder 1994.
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Schroeder, Paul. The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
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A huge book whose importance more than matches its size, part of the reason for the latter being the fact that it looks at a far broader period than just that of the Revolution. While the rather episodic manner in which it is written will not suit readers without some prior knowledge of the topic, this is an important discussion that merits considerable attention.
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Sorel, Albert. Europe and the French Revolution: The Political Traditions of the Old Régime. London: Collins, 1969.
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To this day, Albert Sorel (b. 1842–d. 1906) remains the leading specialist in the diplomatic history of the French Revolution, his greatest work (of which the work cited here is an abridged translation) being L’Europe et la révolution française (Paris: Plon, 1895–1904). In brief, Sorel’s thesis is that, despite the rhetoric of liberation, there was nothing new about the foreign policy of the Revolution and, indeed, Napoleon.
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France

So vast is the literature on Revolutionary France that it is all but impossible to make a satisfactory selection from the texts available. However, two very useful surveys, the one essentially narrative and the other essentially analytical, will be found in Doyle 1989 and Sutherland 2003, while Sydenham 1974 is a comprehensive political narrative. Meanwhile, for the successive regimes that ruled France in the war years, see Sydenham 1961, Palmer 1941, Lyons 1975, and Woronoff 1974. Finally, Brown 2006 is a very clear exposition of the importance of military power in the French war effort.

Brown, Howard G. Ending the French Revolution: Violence, Justice and Repression from the Terror to Napoleon. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.
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Slightly less original than its author claims it is, this remains an important work which emphasizes the growing importance of the army in French politics and society in the latter years of the Revolution and further undermines notions of a French war effort fueled by popular enthusiasm.
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Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.
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Written by a leading critic of the Marxist explanation of the French Revolution, this is an excellent work that argues that the events of 1789–1802—the period the author believes the Revolution to encompass—were essentially political and intellectual rather than social; that said, however, as a number of critics have observed, it frequently seems to struggle to break away from the model which it seeks to criticize.
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Lyons, Martyn. France under the Directory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
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A work that was applauded at the time of its appearance for both reviving the latter years of the Revolution as a subject of scholarly attention and incorporating such new areas of study as political culture. However, the argument is unclear: while the reader is afforded large quantities of information, Lyons’s interpretation of the Directory remains distinctly opaque.
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Palmer, Robert R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941.
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Though now extremely venerable and based, as the author admits, entirely on works available in print, this work remains a classic of the literature and has been described as the best book on the Revolution ever written by an American. If sometimes contradictory and at many points open to serious challenge, it is an important milestone that should not be neglected.
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Sutherland, Donald M. G. The French Revolution and Empire: The Quest for a Civic Order. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003.
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A detailed analysis of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France that lays great weight on the extent to which the Revolution faced popular resistance, and is by far the most important general survey that is currently available. Although the period of the empire is covered along with that of the Republic, the lion’s share of the text is devoted to the 1790s.
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Sydenham, Michael J. The Girondins. London: Athlone, 1961.
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In its time a major contribution to the debate on the French Revolution, this work destroyed the abiding notion that the Girondins were essentially a class-based group drawn from the upper bourgeoisie and, by extension, the equally abiding notion that the Jacobins were essentially a class-based group drawn from the lower bourgeoisie.
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Sydenham, Michael J. The First French Republic, 1792–1804. London: Batsford, 1974.
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Much criticized for its top-down approach and failure to engage with the wider social and cultural aspects of the Revolution, this work is nonetheless extremely useful, offering as it does a detailed political narrative that will provide students with full details on the domestic context of France’s military campaigns and has much to say about the rise of Napoleon.
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Woronoff, Denis. The Thermidorean Régime and the Directory, 1794–1799. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
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The work of a leading economic historian of the French Revolution first published as La république bourgeoise de Thermidor à Brumaire, 1794–1799 (Paris: Seuil, 1974), this is a detailed survey that is essential reading for anyone interested in the background to the War of the Second Coalition and the rise of Napoleon, and, like Lyons 1975, makes a considerable contribution to restoring the reputation of the Directory in the face of the assault mounted upon it in the Napoleonic legend.
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The Army and Matters Military

Ever since the rise of the so-called “new military history,” the army of the French Revolution has been an obvious topic of investigation, the result being that the bibliography is particularly rich. For two general studies, see Bertaud 1988 and Forrest 1990, while the perspective of the common soldier and the civilian populace is examined in Forrest 1989 and Forrest 2002. The officer corps is looked at in some detail by Blaufarb 2002, while training, motivation, and performance on the battlefield can all be accessed via Lynn 1984 and Griffith 1998. Finally, for an important study of the immediate impact of the Revolution, see Scott 1978.

Bertaud, Jean-Paul. The Army of the French Revolution: From Citizen Soldiers to Instrument of Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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An important study by the leading French specialist on the subject. The work is clearly written and a mine of information, but is strongly Marxist in orientation and is inclined to be somewhat uncritical in its approach. That said, the work does make a useful contribution to showing how the Bourbon army was assimilated with the Revolution in the period 1789–1793.
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Blaufarb, Rafe. The French Army, 1750–1820: Careers, Talent Merit. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002.
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Although presented as a history of the manner in which changing social ideas molded the French army in the course of the pre-Revolutionary, Revolutionary, and Napoleonic eras, this is essentially a cultural history of the French officer corps. Furthermore, no fewer than four of its six chapters are devoted to the period 1789–1799.
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Forrest, Alan. Conscripts and Deserters: The Army and French Society during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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An engaging social history that utterly destroys the legend of Revolutionary France rushing to defend the Revolution. Based on detailed work in numerous French archives, Forrest convincingly demonstrates that enthusiasm to fight for the French Revolution ran out with the volunteers of 1791 and 1792, and that, in so far as military service was concerned, thereafter the French state was locked in a desperate battle with its subjects that it did not succeed in winning until well after the coming of Napoleon.
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Forrest, Alan. The Soldiers of the French Revolution. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.
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An important analysis of motivation and morale in the army of the French Revolution that makes it very clear that political enthusiasm and/or indoctrination was but one of many factors that kept French soldiers loyal to their colors in the 1790s.
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Forrest, Alan. Napoleon’s Men: The Soldiers of the French Revolution and Empire. London: Hambledon and London, 2002.
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Like many others in this bibliography, this work looks at the entire period from 1789 to 1815, but it is nonetheless a major work that should not be ignored. Highly original in concept and archival base, it focuses on the perceptions of the rank and file, and strongly suggests that, while not entirely absent, ideological commitment became ever more notable by its absence.
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Griffith, Paddy G. The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789–1802. London: Greenhill, 1998.
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A highly revisionist work that launches a vigorous attack on the thesis that the French Revolution transformed the conduct of war that has much to commend it and should be read by anyone interested in the French army. In many ways a vital text.
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Lynn, John. The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791–94. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984.
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A detailed analysis of the Armée du Nord—the chief force involved in the defeat of the Prussians at the battle of Valmy—in the period 1792–1794, this work shows how images of the armies of the French Revolution as mere hordes of patriotic citizen-soldiers who overthrew their opponents by nothing more than mass and momentum are hopelessly inadequate.
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Scott, Samuel F. The Response of the Royal Army to the French Revolution: The Response and Development of the Line Army, 1789–1793. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.
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An important and well-researched book that should be read in conjunction with Bertaud 1988. Essentially a social study, it shows, first, how the officer-corps was transformed in the wake of the Revolution, and, second, how, already radicalized in 1789, the rank and file became a major bastion of the new order.
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Resistance to the Revolution

For obvious reasons, the origins and nature of the counter-revolutionary unrest that produced so much armed resistance to the Revolution in western France in the 1790s has been the subject of much debate. As witness Paret 1961 and Ross 1975, in the older tradition there is a strong tendency to portray the resistance as an essentially ideological phenomenon, but from the 1960s onward there has been a general move toward portraying the revolts as protest movements motivated either by long-standing social tension or the failings of the Revolutionary regime, good examples of this being Tilly 1964, Petitfrère 1979, Sutherland 1992, Dupuy 1974, and Dupuy 1997. Finally, the continued ability of the subject to stir up bitter passions is exemplified by Secher 2003.

Dupuy, Roger. La Garde Nationale et les débuts de la revolution en Ille-et-Vilaine, 1789-mars 1793. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1974.
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In this contribution to the debate on the origins of chouannerie in Brittainy, Dupuy places great emphasis on the bullying behavior engaged in by many units of the National Guard, but rather muddies the water by showing that, for all that its leadership was drawn from particularly radical elements of the propertied classes, the latter was in large part a peasant force.
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Dupuy, Roger. Les chouans. Paris: Hachette, 1997.
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An excellent introduction to the subject that deals not just with the movement’s origins and politics, but also its military aspects.
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Paret, Peter. Internal War and Pacification: The Vendée, 1789–1796. Princeton, NJ: Center of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 1961.
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A brief pamphlet that was written without any reference to the primary sources at a time when traditional explanations that the war in the Vendée was the product of a straightforward clash of ideologies had yet to be challenged, this is now at best no more than a useful introduction to the methods of waging war used by the rival forces in the Vendée.
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Petitfrère, Claude. Blancs et bleus d’Anjou. Paris: Champion, 1979.
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A detailed sociological survey of the war in the Vendée based on the records of some seven thousand veterans of the fighting. Based on a wider geographical sample than Tilly 1962, it very much tends to paint what occurred in terms of a struggle of country versus town.
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Ross, Michael. Banners of the King: The War of the Vendée, 1793. New York: Hippocrene, 1975.
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A popular account that provides a useful narrative of events, but is inclined to romanticize the rebels.
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Secher, Reynald. A French Genocide: The Vendée. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.
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The most controversial book to appear on the French Revolution for many years, this essentially argues that the Vendée was subjected to a deliberate attempt at extermination, and may be seen as part of wider right-wing critiques of the current French state. As such, it is deeply flawed, yet it does offer a great deal of factual data on the physical effects of the war and certainly cannot be ignored.
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Sutherland, Donald M. G. The Chouans: The Social Origins of Popular Counter-Revolution in Upper Brittainy, 1770–1796. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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An important study of the roots of the inchoate and very much low-level irregular resistance that gripped parts of Britainy in the period from 1793 until 1800, this work argues that popular counter-revolution was the fruit not so much of long-term processes of social change, but rather of the failure of the French Revolution to improve the lot of substantial elements of the rural population. It has, however, nothing to say on the actual history of the revolt.
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Tilly, Charles. The Vendée: A Sociological Analysis of the Counter-Revolution of 1793. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
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A classic study of the revolt in the Vendée that suggests that it was essentially the result of a rapid process of social and economic change that started to grip the region from the mid-late 18th century. Although the general argument is perfectly plausible, the rather limited base on which Tilly based his research suggests the need for a degree of caution.
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Napoleon

Beyond doubt, Napoleon Bonaparte is a towering figure whose historical importance cannot be questioned. Moreover, he is also unequivocally the most important statesman and military commander in the history of the French Revolutionary Wars. That said, in approaching him, the student would be well advised to adopt a degree of caution. Above all, it should be realized that the history of the French Revolutionary Wars is not coterminus with that of Napoleon. In the first place, Napoleon did not rise to prominence until 1796 when in fact the conflict had been raging since 1792, and, in the second, the fact that Napoleon was waging war in Italy or Egypt never meant that nothing was happening elsewhere. Reading the story of Napoleon, then, is not the same as reading the story of the French Revolutionary Wars, and yet such is the nature of the historiography that the former is much more accessible than the latter. Thus, the bibliography on Napoleon is overwhelming and continues to be added to with bewildering rapidity. However, particularly at the more popular end of the market, much of the material that has appeared is both uncritical and regurgitative, while the power of the Napoleonic legend is such that even reputable academic historians working in the current era have found it difficult to treat the subject in an objective fashion: to borrow the words of Pieter Geyl, the Dutch historian who produced what remains the most important survey of the historiography, it is still a question of “Napoleon for” or “Napoleon against.” A further problem, meanwhile, is that many of the writers who have contributed to the field are essentially interested only in military narrative and are poorly equipped to deal with the extremely complex political and diplomatic context. For example, while excellent on Napoleon’s campaigns, Chandler 1966 is weak on both the French Revolution and the international relations of the period. That said, Napoleon’s involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars can be approached via two main routes. Of these, obviously enough, the first consists of general works that cover his entire life, such as Schom 1998 and McLynn 1998, and the second of military narratives, such as Chandler 1966, Connolly 1987, and Marshall-Cornwell 1967.

Chandler, David G. The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Methods of History’s Greatest Soldier. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966.
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Though now heading for its fiftieth birthday, The Campaigns of Napoleon remains the obvious point of reference for all those interested in the military career of Napoleon Bonaparte, and naturally has much to offer students of the French Revolutionary Wars: indeed, it is unlikely that Chandler’s accounts of Toulon, the campaigns in Italy and Egypt, and the battle of Marengo will ever be bettered.
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Connolly, Owen. Blundering to Glory: Napoleon’s Military Operations. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1987.
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A study of the campaigns of Napoleon that strives to find a degree of originality by emphasizing the extent to which the French ruler’s triumphs were as much the result of improvisation as they were detailed planning: time and again, we learn, Napoleon made mistakes in his appreciation of the military situation, and had to make hasty changes in his plans and dispositions.
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Marshall-Cornwell, James. Napoleon as Military Commander. London: Batsford, 1967.
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Written by a leading British general, this is a somewhat disappointing work that delivers much less than it promises in that it is not an analysis of Napoleon’s generalship, but rather a standard history of his campaigns. That said, the author’s judgments are frequently very acute, while the work serves as a useful alternative to the somewhat hagiographic Chandler 1966 and Connolly 1987.
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McLynn, Frank. Napoleon: A Biography. London: Pimlico, 1998.
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A highly critical biography of Napoleon that delves deeply into the psychology of its subject. Some of the author’s conclusions may be felt to be questionable, but this remains an excellent biography that can be read with profit and enjoyment by the specialist as much as the general reader, and has much to offer as an introduction to the subject.
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Schom, Alan. Napoleon Bonaparte. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.
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This work is marred by a variety of factual errors, while too many of the sources that it relies on heavily are open to challenge. That said, however, the case that it mounts is very powerful, while the author is to be congratulated for his refusal to be swayed by the Napoleonic legend.
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Rise to Power

Napoleon’s rise to power has been looked at by a number of authors. Head and shoulders above all the rest are Crook 1998 and Dwyer 2007, but the coup of 18 Brumaire is dealt with in more detail by Goodspeed 1965, Gueniffey 2008, Ollivier 1961, and Vandal 1903–1907. Meanwhile, like Dwyer 2007, Asprey 2000 is the first volume of a two-volume biography.

Asprey, Robert. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
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A heavily military account of the rise of Napoleon by a nonspecialist that has little to say about the political context and is inclined to take an apologetic line. Like Dwyer’s Napoleon: The Path to Power, it is conceived as the first volume of a two-volume biography, the story being carried forward here as far as the battle of Austerlitz. Finally, Hanley 2002 is a detailed study of Napoleon’s use of propaganda.
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Crook, Malcolm. Napoleon Comes to Power: Democracy and Dictatorship in Revolutionary France, 1795–1804. Cardiff, UK: University of Wales Press, 1998.
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A brief text aimed at undergraduate students, this provides both a concise account of the coup of 18 Brumaire and its antecedents and a substantial documentary appendix containing a wide range of letters, proclamations, newspaper reports, and other items. In line with much modern thinking, the author is inclined to give the Directory much more credit than the Napoleonic legend allows. Thoroughly recommended.
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Dwyer, Phillip. Napoleon: The Path to Power, 1769–1799. London: Bloomsbury, 2007.
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A gripping account of the rise of Napoleon based on a wide range of original sources that is conceivably the most important work ever to have appeared on the subject in English and is genuinely groundbreaking. Expected to appear in 2014, the second volume can only be described as eagerly awaited.
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Goodspeed, Donald J. Bayonets at St Cloud: The Story of the 18th Brumaire. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1965.
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A detailed account of the coup of 18 Brumaire that makes no secret of its hostility to Napoleon, but should probably be read in combination with Crook 1998.
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Gueniffey, Patrice. Le dix-huit brumaire: l’épilogue de la Révolution française, 9–10 novembre 1799. Paris: Gallimard, 2008.
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Gueniffey being a student of the great revisionist François Furet, it is hardly surprising that his work is inclined to take a favorable view of 18 Brumaire at least in the sense that it is suggested that the French people were more than ready to welcome a strong leader who could bring stability. A major weakness is the failure to consult any of the extensive English-language scholarship.
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Hanley, Wayne. The Genesis of Napoleonic Propaganda, 1796–1799. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
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A major study of an area that has yet only been touched upon by the historiography, the only real exception being Dwyer 2007. Meanwhile, the e-book format has permitted the author to make much more use of visual material than would otherwise be the case.
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Ollivier, Albert. Le Dix-huit Brumaire. Paris: Gallimard, 1961.
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A detailed account of the coup of 18 Brumaire that is unashamedly hostile to Napoleon and regards it as the death-knell of the Revolution. A particularly useful feature is the detailed chronology of events, while the numerous illustrations make this an attractive volume. However, it is now outdated, a more up-to-date account being provided by Gueniffey 2008.
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Vandal, Albert. L’avènement de Bonaparte. 2 vols. Paris: Plon, 1903–1907.
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A disciple of Albert Sorel of deeply conservative principles, Albert Vandal was a strong admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte. In consequence, L’ avènement de Bonaparte has to be read with some care, yet the fact that it is heavily based on archival sources means that the serious student should at the very least cast it a passing glance.
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The Italian Campaign, 1796–1797

Being not only one of Napoleon’s greatest triumphs but also his first appearance as an independent commander, the campaign in Italy has attracted much attention among historians and military commentators alike. An early figure in the field was the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, whose essay on the subject was translated into French in the late 19th century (see Clausewitz 1899), while detailed histories were also written at this time by Félix Bouvier—see Bouvier 1903—and Gabriel Fabry—see Fabry 1900–1901. For more popular accounts, see Ferrero 1939, Jackson 1953, and Béraud 2012. Finally, Boycott-Brown 2001 is a fine academic account that should now be regarded as the standard text for those students of the subject who have no French.

Béraud, Stephane. Bonaparte en Italie: naissance d’un stratège. Paris: Giovanna-Bernard Dayant, 2012.
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Popular account of the Italian campaign of 1796–1797 that places much emphasis on Napoleon’s emergence as a strategist.
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Bouvier, Félix. Bonaparte en Italie. Paris: Cerf, 1903.
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Meticulous account of the campaign in Piedmont and Lombardy that makes much use of Austrian and Italian sources and seeks to break away from the version of events popularized by Napoleon and his disciples. The only thing to regret is that it goes no further than the French occupation of Milan.
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Boycott-Brown, M. The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon’s First Campaign. London: Casell, 2001.
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A detailed military narrative of the Italian campaign of 1796–1797 written by a long-term resident of northern Italy that draws heavily on a variety of little used primary sources and can claim to be regarded as the standard account in English.
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Clausewitz, Carl von. La campagne de 1796 en Italie. Paris: Librairie Militaire de L. Baudoin, 1899.
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Detailed critique of the campaign in Italy written by the most important military thinker to have emerged from the Napoleonic Wars.
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Fabry, Gabriel J. Histoire de l’Armée d’Italie, 1796–1797. 3 vols. Paris: Champion, 1900–1901.
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Older study based on detailed work in the French archives that among other things offers a complete order of battle for the French forces. A must for serious students of the Italian campaign.
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Ferrero, Guglielmo. The Gamble: Bonaparte in Italy, 1796–97. London: G. Bell, 1939.
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A rather odd book whose chief thesis is that the Austrians emerged in a strong—indeed, even triumphant—position from Napoleon’s campaign in Italy, and is chiefly of interest for its curiosity value.
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Jackson, William G. F. Attack in the West: Napoleon’s First Campaign Re-Read Today. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1953.
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A clear account of the campaigns in Italy in 1796 and 1797 written by a British officer that is very much a hymn to Napoleon’s genius. The text is well supported by maps and diagrams.
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Egypt and Syria, 1798–1799

Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and subsequent war with the Ottoman Empire is at one and the same both the most romantic and the most puzzling episode in his career. On the one hand, we see the young and ambitious general embarking on a romantic adventure filled with dreams of establishing an oriental empire and marching on India, and on the other we see a scheme that had no conceivable strategic rationale and could not but have ended in failure. The contrast is a striking one, and historians struggle to make sense of it to this day, while the issue is clouded by the undeniable advances which the expedition brought in respect to Europe’s knowledge of ancient Egypt, for which see Burleigh 2008. For a favorable view of the campaign, see Strathern 2008, but this is heavily outgunned by Herold 1962 and, especially, the seminal Cole 2007. For the eventual collapse of the French position see Mackesy 1995.

Burleigh, Nina. Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
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Lively journalistic account of both the experiences of the savants who accompanied the invasion of Egypt and the manner in which their discoveries fired the imagination of not just France but much of the rest of Europe.
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Cole, Juan. Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
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A deeply hostile account of the French expedition to Egypt written by a noted specialist in Middle Eastern affairs whose most original feature is its massive use of Arabic sources. As such, it is a useful antidote to the more admiring literature, though some readers may find the frequent allusions to the American intervention in Iraq a little heavy-handed.
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Herold, J. Christopher. Bonaparte in Egypt. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.
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Until recently this was the standard English-language account of the Egyptian campaign, but it may now be regarded as having been superseded by Cole 2007 and Strathern 2008; that said, it remains an enjoyable and engaging read.
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Mackesy, Piers. British Victory in Egypt: The End of Napoleon’s Conquest. London: Routledge, 1995.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203201770Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Concise and well-researched account of the British campaign in Egypt that put an end to French dreams of maintaining Egypt as a colony and re-established the reputation of the British armyas a fighting force. As with Mackesy 1974 and Mackesy 1984 (both cited under War of the Second Coalition in Europe), however, the perspective is extremely Anglocentric.
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Strathern, Paul. Napoleon in Egypt: The Greatest Glory. New York: Random House, 2008.
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A favorable account of the expedition to Egypt that seeks to highlight its cultural achievements, and is by far the best narrative that is available in English. However, students should read it alongside Cole 2007.
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The War of the Second Coalition in Europe

The story of the European aspects of the War of the Second Coalition is by no means wholly just one more chapter in the story of Napoleon, the only battle at which he was present being Marengo. Yet the War of the Second Coalition is so closely entwined with Napoleon’s career that it does not seem inappropriate to fit it in at this point in proceedings. General outlines of the fighting may be found in Mackesy 1974 and Mackesy 1984 and Rodger 1964, while the campaigns of 1800 receive much coverage in Cugnac 1900, Furse 1903, Lanza 1922, and Arnold 2005. For the Russian intervention in Italy in 1799, see Gachot 1903.

Arnold, James R. Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon’s Rise to Power. Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 2005.
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An old-fashioned tactical and operational account based almost wholly on French sources. It is weak in respect to the Austrians, but otherwise provides a spritely and enjoyable narrative that is more detailed than those to be found in the general surveys such as Chandler 1966 and Connolly 1987 (both cited under Napoleon).
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Cugnac, Caspar J. M. R. de. Campagne de l’Armee de Reserve en 1800. Paris: Section Historique de l’Etat-Major, 1900.
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General-staff account that adopts a critical view of the account enshrined in the Napoleonic legend that is essential reading for those who wish to move beyond the popular historiography.
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Furse, George A. 1800: Marengo and Hohenlinden. London: William Clowers, 1903.
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First-class campaign history that may still be read with profit despite its age.
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Gachot, Edouard. Souvarow en Italie. Paris: Perrin, 1903.
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The best account available of the Russian invasion of Italy and Switzerland in 1799.
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Lanza, Conrad H., ed. Marengo Campaign, 1800: Source Book. Fort Leavenworth, KS: General Service School, 1922.
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Useful compendium of primary material translated into English produced for the American army in the wake of the First World War.
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Mackesy, Piers. Statesmen at War: The Strategy of Overthrow, 1798–1799. London: Longman, 1974.
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A highly detailed narrative of the formation of the Second Coalition and the subsequent Anglo-Russian expedition to Holland by a leading British historian. The author successfully defends the much-criticized performance of the Duke of York and his troops in the fighting in Holland, but has been said to be less convincing when it comes to assessing the manner in which Britain came to adopt the so-called “strategy of overthrow.” A further problem is that the approach is strongly Anglocentric.
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Mackesy, Piers. War without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt, 1799–1802. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
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A sequel to Mackesy 1974, this work, which is again based primarily on extensive research in the British sources, charts the collapse of the Second Coalition and the military and diplomatic developments that led to the signature of the Peace of Amiens in 1802.
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Rodger, Alexander B. The War of the Second Coalition: A Strategic Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1964.
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A fine narrative of the War of the Second Coalition that is highly critical of the conduct of the war by France’s opponents, Britain not excluded. Diplomatic in emphasis rather than military, but still an important source.
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The Satellite Republics and Occupied Territories

The French sphere of influence that was created by the French Revolutionary Wars is not a subject that has featured very strongly in the historiography: indeed, Vovelle 2000 is one of only a tiny handful of general studies. This, however, is somewhat surprising. A mixture of territories of many different types that were either directly annexed to France or converted to satellite states, it might be thought that they would have afforded an ideal testing ground for arguments in respect to the influence of the Revolution outside France and yet only a handful of scholars have paid them any attention. Thus, politics and society in the Rhineland has received a certain amount of coverage—for example, Blanning 1974, Blanning 1983, Rowe 2003—while Polasky 1987 looks at Belgium and Kubben 2011, and Schama 1977 at Holland, but there is nothing on Switzerland and very little on Italy (for this last, see Broers 2004).

Blanning, Timothy C. W. Reform and Revolution in Mainz, 1743–1803. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
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An interesting text which places the impact of the French Revolution on one Rhineland city in the context of the previous sixty years, and in doing so challenges several of the myths that have bedeviled our understanding of the Revolutionary Wars. On the one hand, then, we read of an ancien régime that was strongly reformist, and, on the other, of a liberation that quickly degenerated into exploitation and repression.
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Blanning, Timothy C. W. The French Revolution in Germany: Occupation and Resistance in the Rhineland, 1792–1802. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.
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A highly detailed research monograph in which the author convincingly demonstrates, first, the terrible reality of “liberation” at the hands of the army of the French Revolution and, second, the utter hostility to French rule demonstrated by all but a tiny handful of the propertied classes.
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Broers, Michael. The Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 1796–1814: Cultural Imperialism in a European Context? London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230005747Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important work by a leading scholar of Italy in the Revolutionary period, The Napoleonic Empire in Italy looks at the whole of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era while its focus is very much the areas that were actually annexed to France. It is, then, only of limited use in the current context, but it is nonetheless a useful introduction to the attitudes with which the French approached their territorial gains.
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Kubben, Raymond. Regeneration and Hegemony: Franco-Batavian Relations in the Revolutionary-Era, 1795–1803. Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 2011.
DOI: 10.1163/9789004189515Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed study of Franco-Dutch relations in the wake of the French occupation of the United Provinces in 1795 and the subsequent establishment of the Batavian Republic that calls into question assumptions that the expansion of the French Revolution beyond the borders of France was nothing more than a diktat imposed by French bayonets: on the contrary, at least initially, the Dutch can be seen to have been afforded a degree of autonomy and to have rallied to the cause of the Revolution with some enthusiasm.
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Polasky, Janet L. Revolution in Brussels, 1787–1793. Hanover: University Presses of New Hampshire, 1987.
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Worthy of inclusion in this bibliography as the only monograph available on the Belgian revolution of 1789 and the subsequent occupation of the region by the French army, this is, alas, a deeply flawed work which is lopsided in its coverage of the revolutionary forces in Belgium, and inclined to impose outdated models on its subject. Still worse, from the point of view of students of the experience of occupation and annexation at the hands of the French, there is no coverage of the period after 1793, this being one of the many areas that continues to await its historian.
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Rowe, Michael. From Reich to State: The Rhineland in the Revolutionary Age, 1780–1830. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511496875Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This work might be well described as Blanning 1983 rewritten by its critics, and, as such, pushes the line that in the end the Rhineland did quite well out of French rule. Yet, as far as the 1790s is concerned, in the end this changes little, Rowe clearly having no option but to confirm Blanning’s picture of oppression and exploitation.
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Schama, Simon. Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780–1813. New York: Knopf, 1977.
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A massive work that chronicles the collapse of the ancien régime in Holland in the period from 1780 onward, the fact that Schama starts his work in 1780 rather than 1789 being something that should in itself give us pause for reflection: as so often outside France, the French Revolution is shown to have been something that engaged with political processes that were already in train rather than precipitating political processes that would otherwise have remained dormant.
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Vovelle, Michel, ed. Les républiques-soeurs sous le regard de la Grande Nation, 1795–1803: de l’Italie aux portes de l’Empire Ottoman—l’impacte du modèle républicain français. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000.
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The only modern study of the French sphere of influence as a whole. The fact that it is a collection of essays rather than a monograph reduces its value a little—the quality cannot but be a little uneven while the editing is rather careless—but there is much information here that cannot be accessed elsewhere.
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The Other Europe

Those parts of Continental Europe that were not touched by French occupation are the worst served in terms of the material available: why there have been no scholarly studies even of Austria, Russia, or Prussia in the 1790s is something of a mystery. Such works as are available are either very partial in their coverage or aimed at a much wider period. For example, Esdaile 2012, Rothenberg 1982, and Shanahan 1945 all contain useful material, but are primarily interested in the Napoleonic period, while Longworth 1965 and McGrew 1992 are biographies; Gooch 1923 a survey of intellectual opinion; and Wangermann 1959 a study of one very narrow period only that does not move beyond the political. However, beyond the works listed here, the student’s only option is but to turn to general histories that frequently deal with the period of the French Revolution in passing only.

Esdaile, Charles J. The Spanish Army in the Peninsular War. 2d ed. Nottingham, UK: Partisan, 2012.
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A new edition of a work that first appeared in 1988, this contains far more information on the period before 1808 than its title suggests. Thus, readers will find details of the Spanish army prior to the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, of the campaign of 1793–1795, and of the attempts that were made to reform the Spanish army by the royal favorite, Manuel de Godoy.
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Gooch, George P. Germany and the French Revolution. London: Longmans, Green, 1923.
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While this is an older text, and one which is suffused by views that have long since been open to serious challenge, it nonetheless remains a valuable guide to German responses to the French Revolution, bringing together, as it does, a wide variety of texts that would otherwise remain inaccessible to all those without German.
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Longworth, Phillip. The Art of Victory: The Life and Achievements of Field Marshal Suvorov, 1729–1800. London: Constable, 1965.
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Detailed biography of the greatest Russian commander of the 18th century that contains much information on the campaigns in Italy and Switzerland in 1799. However, there is little of any use on the domestic content.
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McGrew, Roderick. Paul I of Russia, 1754–1801. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Much acclaimed scholarly biography that analyzes not just the life but also the reign of Paul I and plays down the idea of his supposed madness as the work of his enemies. Paul’s hatred of Jacobinism and desire to maintain order at all costs are stressed, but at the same time he emerges as a reformer who was keen to increase the efficiency of the Russian state and army alike.
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Roider, Karl A. Baron Thugut and Austria’s Response to the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
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A well-researched analysis of Austrian foreign policy in the 1790s as implemented by Francis II’s chief minister, Thugut. Traditionally, Thugut has been criticized for being driven either by greed for more territory or by fear of Prussia, but Roider suggests that this is unfair—that in reality Thugut was terrified of the French Revolution and made its defeat the keystone of his policy. That said, however, Thugut scarcely comes off well from the exercise, his actions frequently being shown to be clumsy, damaging, or counter-productive.
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Rothenberg, Gunther. Napoleon’s Great Adversaries. The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792–1814. London: Batsford, 1982.
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An extremely useful volume that considers the spasmodic attempts that were made to reform the Austrian army in the wake of the experiences of the War of the First Coalition in considerable detail and provides a useful case-study in the problems faced by the ancien régime: would that there were similar works on Russia and Prussia!
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Shanahan, William O. Prussian Military Reforms, 1786–1813. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945.
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Despite its title, this work is primarily concerned with the period after 1806. However, there are useful chapters on the Prussian army in the 18th century, and such efforts at reform as were made prior to the battles of Jena and Auerstädt.
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Wangermann, Ernst. From Joseph II to the Jacobin Trials: Government Policy and Public Opinion in the Hapsburg Dominions in the Period of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959.
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The only monograph in existence in English on the domestic politics of the Austrian empire in the Revolutionary era, this charts how the reformism dominant in the reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph II was rapidly abandoned in favor of a policy of rigid conservatism.
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Britain

General texts on Britain in the period of the French Revolution are not superabundant. That said, Wood 1973 is an introduction aimed specifically at students and Dickinson 1989 an excellent collection of essays covering most aspects of the subject, while Ehrman 1969–1996 is so all embracing that it can easily do duty as a primer, albeit one that would be far more detailed than would be the norm. For two texts on Britain as a military state, meanwhile, see Black 1999 and Collins 2010.

Black, Jeremy. Britain as a Military Power, 1688–1815. London: UCL Press, 1999.
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A general discussion of the British way of war in the long 18th century that stresses continuity rather than change and provides considerable contextual material in respect to the struggle against the French Revolution as well as a concise discussion of that struggle.
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Collins, Bruce. War and Empire: the Expansion of Britain, 1790–1830. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2010.
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Well-written introductory text that places Britain’s struggle against France in the wider context of the growth of the British empire.
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Dickinson, Harry T. Britain and the French Revolution. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989.
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A collection of essays that aims to provide students with a general introduction to the impact of the French Revolution on Britain and the responses which this evoked on the part of people and politicians alike. The quality of the contents is high throughout, but chapters that are of particular interest in the current context are the ones that cover British strategy and British diplomacy. All in all, very useful as an initial text.
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Ehrman, John. The Younger Pitt. 3 vols. London: Constable, 1969–1996.
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A prodigious achievement that displays a knowledge of its subject that can only be described as quite extraordinary. Both Pitt’s diplomacy and struggle to maintain order in Britain are covered in detail, while all this is done against the background of a polished narrative of the war against France.
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Wood, Sydney H. Britain and the French Wars. London: Methuen, 1973.
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Introductory pamphlet aimed at undergraduates and high-school students that offers a brief guide to most of the major topics.
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The Home Front

British society and politics in the age of the French Revolution has proved a subject of enduring interest for historians, so much so, indeed, that all that can be done here is to indicate a few key texts. The best introduction is beyond doubt Emsley 1979, while this may be supplemented by Macleod 1998. For the forces of radicalism and, possibly, revolution, see Thompson 1963, Goodwin 1979, Wells 1983, and Dickinson 1985, but these should be read in the context of Dozier 1983. Finally, for an interesting take on the Pittite reaction, see Barrell 2000.

Barrell, John. Imagining the King’s Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–96. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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A scintillating account of the furious political debates sparked off in England by the outbreak of the French Revolution, and, more particularly, the means used by the government of William Pitt to repress domestic radicalism.
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Dickinson, Harry T. British Radicalism and the French Revolution, 1789–1815. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985.
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More a pamphlet than a full-length monograph, this work is expressly designed for students, and sets out to offer a guide to the major debates on the subject. This it does most successfully, while at the same time delivering a lot more besides: setting aside the excellent bibliography, the four chapters do not just discuss the historiography but also provide a lot of information. Thoroughly recommended.
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Dozier, Robert R. For King, Constitution, and Country: The English Loyalists and the French Revolution. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983.
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An important study of popular loyalism in Britain that serves as an antidote to the enormous fascination with radicalism that has characterized many historians working on the subject of Britain in the French Wars, Dozier showing very clearly that the Pitt administration could draw on an immense fund of popular goodwill that wanted nothing to do with events in France and possessed far more spontaneity than is commonly believed.
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Emsley, Clive. British Society and the French Wars, 1793–1815. London: Macmillan, 1979.
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An excellent survey of a broadly chronological nature that has much to offer and makes a good starting point for further reading (in this respect, however, it has to be said that the “select bibliography” really is very select indeed). The first four chapters cover the French Revolutionary Wars.
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Goodwin, Albert. The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution. London: Hutchinson, 1979.
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A well-researched account of the radical movement in mainland Britain that has been criticized by left-wing observers for downplaying the importance of the underground revolutionary movement known as the United Englishmen, but is elsewhere described as being masterly.
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Thompson, Edward P. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Penguin, 1963.
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A classic of Marxist historiography which seeks to show that the Revolutionary era played a key role—indeed, the key role—in the forging of working-class identity in Britain. In so far as this argument is concerned, the author makes a very strong case, but the claim that there was a serious danger of revolution in Britain remains unproven.
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Vincent Macleod, Emma. A War of Ideas: British Attitudes to the Wars against Revolutionary France. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
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While this is very largely a synthesis of existing work on the political debates sparked off by the French Revolution, its relative brevity makes it a good place from which to start, while it also introduces material not seen elsewhere, particularly in respect to the perceptions and contributions of women.
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Wells, Roger. Insurrection: The British Experience, 1795–1803. Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton, 1983.
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In many ways a development of Thompson 1963, this work seeks to demonstrate the existence of an underground revolutionary movement that was bent on launching an armed revolt in mainland Britain in the latter half of the 1790s. Exciting stuff, certainly, but ultimately the work is unconvincing.
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Strategy and Statecraft

British statecraft and strategy has been examined by a number of authors and can be said to be covered in some detail. Given the manner in which William Pitt acted as the veritable keystone of the British war effort, Mori 1997 is a good place to begin. Military operations are covered by Duffy 1987 and Geggus 1982,which look at the campaigns in the West Indies; and Mackesy 1974, Mackesy 1984, and Mackesy 1995, which look at the War of the Second Coalition, though see also Collins 2010 (cited under Britain). Finally, Britain’s relationship with counter-revolution can be studied in Hutt 1983 and her use of subsidies in Sherwig 1969.

Duffy, Michael. Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War against Revolutionary France. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
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A convincing answer to the many historians who have condemned the British policy of “filching sugar islands” as an irrelevant distraction from the demands of the war against France, this work examines the three expeditions which William Pitt dispatched to the Caribbean in the 1790s and shows how their many successes made a vital contribution to the war effort at a moment when there were few other ways of striking against France.
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Geggus, David. Slavery, War and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793–1798. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.
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A book that achieves far more than its title suggests: while the subject of the British intervention in Haiti is dealt with in great detail, the author, probably the leading specialist on the Haitian revolution, also provides an excellent guide to the impact of the French Revolution in the Caribbean.
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Hutt, Maurice. Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution: Puisaye, the Princes, and the British Government in the 1790s. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
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Whereas most works on resistance to the revolution in France concentrate on domestic issues, this work rather explores the links that existed between domestic counter-revolution and France’s external enemies, namely, in this case, the British government, this subject being addressed via the person of Joseph Puisaye, an adventurer and fantasist who persuaded the government of William Pitt that he was the leader of a great conspiracy in western France.
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Mackesy, Piers. Statesmen at War: The Strategy of Overthrow, 1798–1799. London: Longman, 1974.
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A highly detailed narrative of the formation of the Second Coalition and the subsequent Anglo-Russian expedition to Holland by a leading British historian. The author successfully defends the much-criticized performance of the Duke of York and his troops in the fighting in Holland, but has been said to be less convincing when it comes to assessing the manner in which Britain came to adopt the so-called “strategy of overthrow.” A further problem is that the approach is strongly Anglocentric.
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Mackesy, Piers. War without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt, 1799–1802. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
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A sequel to Mackesy 1974, this work, which is again based primarily on extensive research in the British sources, charts the collapse of the Second Coalition and the military and diplomatic developments that led to the signature of the Peace of Amiens in 1802.
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Mackesy, Piers. British Victory in Egypt: The End of Napoleon’s Conquest. London: Routledge, 1995.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203201770Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Concise and well-researched account of the British campaign in Egypt that put an end to French dreams of maintaining Egypt as a colony and reestablished the reputation of the British army as a fighting force. As with Mackesy 1974 and Mackesy 1984, however, the perspective is extremely Anglocentric.
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Mori, Jennifer. William Pitt and the French Revolution, 1785–1795. Keele, UK: Keele University Press, 1997.
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William Pitt is often portrayed as being opposed tout court to the French Revolution. In this work, however, we see a more nuanced view which suggests, among other things, that Pitt was by no means necessarily committed to a restoration of the Bourbons.
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Sherwig, John. Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France, 1793–1815. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.
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A major study of British aid to foreign allies in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars that shows beyond doubt, first, that “Pitt’s gold” was never the root of the successive coalitions that emerged against France, and, second, that, at least so far as the 1790s were concerned, it was only available on selective basis. In short, this is an important text that goes a long way toward putting right a number of persistent myths concerning the wars against France.
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The Army and Military Matters

The historiography of the British army of the late 18th century is scarcely copious. However, for a helpful introductory text, see Holmes 2002, while Reid 2010 is excellent on the Highland regiments. With regard to the Revolutionary Wars in particular, Guy 1990 is excellent, while the question of reform is examined in Burne 1949, Glover 1963, and Gates 1987. Finally, for the great mobilization impelled by the French Wars, see Cookson 1987.

Burne, Alfred H. The Noble Duke of York: The Military Life of Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. London: Staples, 1949.
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A highly favorable biography that seeks to rescue the “grand old Duke of York” from being the figure of fun of nursery rhyme. In this he is only partially successfully—while York was well-liked and by no means completely incompetent, he can scarcely be regarded as a great general—but what does come through is the duke’s skill as an administrator and the very real contribution he made to the major reforms of the 1790s.
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Cookson, John E. The British Armed Nation, 1793–1815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
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Important study of Britain’s mobilization against the French that takes in the regular army, the militia, and the volunteer forces alike. Comprehensive in its coverage of the subject and based on exhaustive work in the archives, it is unlikely ever to be surpassed.
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Gates, David. The British Light-Infantry Arm, c. 1790–1815: Its Creation, Training, and Operational Role. London: Batsford, 1987.
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Excellent discussion of the British army’s increasing adoption of light-infantry tactics in the course of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in response to the French challenge.
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Glover, Richard. Peninsular Preparation: the Reform of the British Army, 1795–1802. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1963.
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An important and well-researched work that examines the numerous changes in the British army that were introduced in the course of the 1790s and paved the way for victory in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo.
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Guy, Alan J., ed. The Road to Waterloo: The British Army and the Struggle against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, 1793–1815. London: National Army Museum, 1990.
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A collection of essays published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the National Army Museum that contains many contributions that are of direct relevance to the study of the French Revolutionary Wars.
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Holmes, Richard. Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Horse and Musket Era. London: HarperCollins, 2002.
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General introduction to the British army of the period 1700–1850 written by perhaps its greatest historian. While it obviously covers a far wider period than just the 1790s, there is a great deal of introductory material that is of direct relevance to the history of the French Revolutionary Wars.
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Reid, Stuart. Wellington’s Highland Warriors: From the Black-Watch Mutiny to the Battle of Waterloo, 1743–1815. London: Frontline, 2010.
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A history of Britain’s Highland regiments from their formation until the end of the Napoleonic Wars that has a number of chapters on the Revolutionary period and contains much information on recruitment.
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Ireland

The literature on Ireland’s experiences in both the French Revolutionary Wars in general and in the “year of liberty” in particular is voluminous. Studies that cover the entire period include Elliott 1982 and Elliott 1989, while for 1798 Hayes 1939 and Pakenham 1969 are useful narratives; Whelan 1998 is a romantic nationalist account; Bartlett, et al. 2003 is a volume of conference proceedings that may be regarded as being at the cutting edge of research on the subject; Keogh and Furlong 1998 is a collection of essays directed at an important growth area of historical study; and Dawson, et al. 1998 is a local study focusing on a region that is of particular interest.

Bartlett, Thomas, David Dickson, Daire Keogh, and Kevin Whelan, eds. 1798: A Bicentennial Perspective. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 2003.
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The proceedings of a major international conference held to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the “year of liberty,” this work consists of no fewer than thirty-three papers that examine a wide range of issues pertaining to the Irish rebellion. As with all such collections, the quality is uneven, but this is nonetheless a vital contribution to the literature, and all the more so given the sixty-page bibliography contributed by Kevin Whelan.
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Dawson, Kenneth, Myrtle Hill, and Brian Turner, eds. The 1798 Rebellion in County Down. Newtownards, UK: Colourpoint, 1998.
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A collection of scholarly articles on one of the fiercest theaters of the fighting in Ireland in 1798 that is all the more interesting given the fact that County Down was a strongly Protestant area: just one example of the numerous works of local history that enriched the historiography of the rebellion in the course of the bicentenary.
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Elliott, Marianne. Partners in Revolution: The United Irishmen and France. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982.
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A leading study of the United Irishmen which on the one hand charts the republicanization of Irish nationalism and on the other examines the reasons for the utter failure of the Irish revolutionary movement in the period 1793–1802, while setting both processes in the context of the history of the Revolutionary Wars as a whole.
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Elliott, Marianne. Wolfe Tone, Prophet of Irish Independence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.
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Massive biography of Wolfe Tone based on extensive archival research. The best work in the field by far: while still sympathetic to its subject, it is nonetheless critical of the traditional version.
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Hayes, Richard. The Last Invasion of Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: M. H. Gill, 1939.
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Fresh account of Humbert’s expedition to Ireland in 1798 that takes a particularly detailed look at the support that the invasion force received from the local population and is excellent on the military detail.
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Keogh, Daire, and Nicholas Furlong, eds. The Women of 1798. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 1998.
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A collection of ten essays relating to the participation of women in the “year of liberty.” Fairly unsurprisingly, these reveal that, while a handful of elite women helped popularize the ideas of the United Irishmen and in some cases even contributed to them, very few actually took up arms. Nevertheless, this is an interesting contribution to the literature of women’s experience of war in the 18th century.
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Pakenham, Thomas. The Year of Liberty: The Story of the Great Irish Rebellion of 1898. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1969.
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Lively narrative account of the rebellion of 1798 that has been criticized for its overwhelming reliance on material stemming from loyalist or government sources, but is nevertheless a useful point of departure.
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Whelan, Kevin. Fellowship of Freedom: The United Irishmen and 1798. Cork, Ireland: University of Cork, 1998.
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Lavishly illustrated companion volume to one of the main exhibitions that were organized in Ireland to commemorate the rising of 1798. Though certainly worth consulting—ndeed, an important text—it is written from a somewhat romantic perspective whose limitations are best observed through consulting the wide range of approaches and views featured in Bartlett, et al. 2003.
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The War at Sea

Coverage of the naval aspects of the French Revolutionary Wars is extensive, but unfortunately overwhelmingly Anglocentric: would that some scholars would interest themselves in writing studies of the subject from the point of view of the French, the Dutch, or the Spaniards. To make matters worse, meanwhile, even the coverage of the Royal Navy is flawed: above all, there is too much emphasis on Nelson. Yet the latter was so prominent a figure that he is impossible to overlook, whilst recent studies offer not only a way into his battles but also considerable information on the sailors and ships which he commanded: for good examples, see Hayward 2003, Sugden 2004, and Knight 2005. Meanwhile, for two battle studies, see Willis 2012 and Lloyd 1963. Finally, Goodwin 2003 and Tracy 1996 both offers works of analysis, albeit in the first instance of the Royal Navy and, in the second Nelson’s battles. Finally, Cormack 1995 is an important contribution that examines the subject from a French perspective.

Cormack, William D. Revolution and Political Conflict in the French Navy, 1789–1794. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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An important work that goes a long way toward explaining the eclipse of French naval power in the 1790s and at the same time is the only work in English to discuss the war at sea from the French point of view.
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Goodwin, Peter. Men o’War: The Illustrated Story of Life in Nelson’s Navy. London: Carlton, 2003.
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Lavishly illustrated analysis of the Royal Navy in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars that constitutes an excellent introduction to the subject. Chapter headings include ships and weaponry, seamen and marines, warrant officers, commissioned officers, life at sea, victualing and health-care and espionage, intelligence, and signaling. Also included is a brief account of the main battles.
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Hayward, Joel. For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2003.
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Detailed analytical discussion of Nelson and his art of war that is organized on a thematic basis rather than a chronological one, and has been highly acclaimed in naval circles as the most original work to have appeared on Nelson for many years. Subjects covered include strategy, tactics, leadership, and command and control.
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Knight, Roger. The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievements of Horatio Nelson. London: Allen Lane, 2005.
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Exceptionally well-researched biography of Nelson which combines a detailed account of his life with much analysis of the navy in which he served. Together with Hayward 2003, easily the best work available on the subject.
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Lloyd, Christopher. St Vincent and Camperdown. London: Batsford, 1963.
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Straightforward account of two important naval engagements dating from the year 1797 and the strategic context that gave rise to them.
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Sugden, John. Nelson: A Dream of Glory. London: Jonathan Cape, 2004.
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A mammoth account of Nelson’s life that takes the story to 1797 only, and is notable for the detailed coverage that it gives to such early actions in his career as the attacks on Bastia and Calvi. Like Knight 2005, thanks to the examination of such topics as the many courts-martial chaired by Nelson, it also has much to say about the Royal Navy:
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Tracy, Nicholas. Nelson’s Battles: The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail. London: Chatham, 1996.
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Well illustrated account of Nelson’s battles that is notable for its lavish illustrations and excellent maps and plans. Chapter headings include Nelson and sea power; guns, ships, and battle tactics (very much the most useful section of the book); Cape St Vincent and the Nile; Copenhagen; and Trafalgar.
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Willis, Sam. The Glorious First of June: Fleet Battle in the Reign of Terror. London: Quercus, 2012.
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Detailed account of a major clash between the British and French navies in the Revolutionary Wars that tends to be neglected on account of the fact that Nelson was not present.
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The Wider World

The extra-European aspects of the French Revolutionary Wars—in essence the campaigns in the West Indies—have in recent years attracted much attention. Ott 1973 and Dubois 2005 are superb general accounts of the Haitian revolution; Popkin 2010 an important study of the events of 1789–1794; Gaspar and Geggus 1997, Geggus 2009, and Geggus and Fiering 2009 helpful collections of essays relating both to Saint Domingue and the wider region; Geggus 1982 a general survey of the experiences of Saint Domingue written from a British perspective; and, finally, Buckley 1979 a discussion of an important episode in British colonial policy.

Buckley, Roger. Slaves in Redcoats: The British West-India Regiments, 1793–1815. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979.
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Throughout the history of the British empire, the metropolis relied heavily on local auxiliaries to help protect and, indeed, extend its dominions. In this respect, the Caribbean was no exception: from 1793 onward large numbers of African slaves were recruited into special West Indian regiments and employed as the spearhead of the war against France. In this well-researched work, Roger Buckley provides detailed coverage of the episode and suggests that the slave-soldiers’ service helped pave the way for emancipation.
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Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
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A much acclaimed work that takes the history of the Haitian revolution to a new level and places it within its wider regional and chronological context. The only sour note is the resurrection, at least in part, of the long-discredited thesis of an Atlantic Revolution.
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Fregosi, Paul. Dreams of Empire: Napoleon and the First World War, 1792–1815. London: Hutchinson, 1989.
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A general survey of the campaigns of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars beyond the confines of Europe. However, best described as highly journalistic, it can at most serve as a quick introduction to the subject: the writing is overblown, the bibliography patchy, and the premise—that the struggle in the wider world had previously generally been neglected—exaggerated.
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Gaspar, David B., and David P. Geggus, eds. A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Blomington, Indiana: Bloomington University Press, 1997.
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An important collection of essays that discusses the impact of the French Revolution on the islands of the Caribbean and various areas of its littoral. Questions relating to slavery figure very highly, but there are also two contributions on British military policy.
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Geggus, David P. Slavery, War and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793–98. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.
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A book that achieves far more than its title suggests: while the subject of the British intervention in Haiti is dealt with in great detail, the author, probably the leading specialist on the Haitian revolution, also provides an excellent guide to the impact of the French Revolution in the Caribbean.
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Geggus, David P. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
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A collection of essays written by a leading expert in the field examining various aspects of the Haitian revolution. Setting aside a general overview of the revolution, subjects covered include the causation of slave revolts, the role of voodoo, the role of the great powers, and the resettlement of black auxiliary troops after the war.
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Geggus, David P., and Norman Fiering, eds. The World of the Haitian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
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A well-organized collection of some nineteen high-quality essays that examine colonial society in Sainte Domingue prior to 1789, the impact of the French Revolution on the colony, the insurrection of Toussaint l’Ouverture, and finally the spread of Revolutionary ideas to other black and colored communities in the region.
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Ott, Thomas. The Haitian Revolution, 1789–1804. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973.
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A vivid account that pays much attention to military affairs and was widely regarded as the best single volume on the subject until the advent of Dubois 2004.
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Popkin, Jeremy. You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
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An impressive political history of the first years of the Haitian Revolution of a highly revisionist character. Important background reading, certainly, but the story of the fighting is carried no further than 1794.