Revolution. Europe, after being given over to professional soldiers for
five hundred years, at last produced the modern system of the "nation in
arms." The French volunteers of 1792 were a force by which the routine
generals of the enemy, working with instruments and by rules designed
for other conditions, were completely puzzled, and France gained a short
respite. The year 1793 witnessed the most remarkable event that is
recorded in the history of armies. Raw enthusiasm was replaced, after
the disasters and defections which marked the beginning of the campaign,
by a systematic and unsparing conscription, and the masses of men thus
enrolled, inspired by ardent patriotism and directed by the ferocious
energy of the Committee of Public Safety, met the disciplined formalists
with an opposition before which the attack completely collapsed. It was
less marvellous in fact than in appearance that this should be so. Not
to mention the influence of pedantry and senility on the course of the
operations, it may be admitted that Frederick and his army at their best
would have been unable to accomplish the downfall of the now thoroughly
roused French. Tactically, the fire of the regulars' line caused the
Revolutionary levies to melt away by thousands, but men were ready to
fill the gaps. No complicated supply system bound the French to
magazines and fortresses, for Europe could once more feed an army
without convoys, and roads were now good and numerous. No fear of
desertion kept them concentrated under canvas, for each man was
personally concerned with the issue. If the allies tried to oppose them
on an equal front, they were weak at all points, and the old
organization had no provision for the working of a scattered army. While
ten victorious campaigns had not carried Marlborough nearer to Paris
than some marches beyond the Sambre, two campaigns now carried a French
army to within a few miles of Vienna. It was obvious that, before such
forces and such mobility, the old system was doomed, and with each
successive failure the old armies became more discouraged. Napoleon's
victories finally closed this chapter of military development, and by
1808 the only army left to represent it was the British. Even to this
the Peninsular War opened a line of progress, which, if different in
many essentials from continental practice, was in any case much more
than a copy of an obsolete model.