All Europe rejoiced at this development. It was seen as a logical outcome of enlightenment. This was a misconception. Enlightenment can never lead to inconsistency: as we have said before and shall have to say again, it can never make two and two equal five. Nevertheless this development benefited the peoples of Europe, although there is no denying that it turned war even more into the exclusive concern of governments and estranged it still further from the interests of the people. In those days, an aggressor's usual plan of war was to seize an enemy province or two. The defender's plan was simply to prevent him doing so. The plan for a given campaign was to take an enemy fortress or prevent the capture of one's own. No battle was ever sought, or fought, unless it were indispensable for that purpose. Anyone who fought a battle that was not strictly necessity, simply out of innate desire for victory, was considered reckless. A campaign was usually spent on a single siege, or two at the most. Winter quarters were assumed to be necessary for everyone. The poor condition of one side did not constitute an advantage to the other, and contact almost ceased between both. Winter quarters set strict limits to the operations of a campaign.
If forces were too closely balanced, or if the more enterprising side was also clearly the weaker of the two, no battle was fought and no town was besieged. The whole campaign turned on the retention of certain positions and depots and the systematic exploitation of certain areas.
So long as this was the general style of warfare, with its violence limited in such strict and obvious ways, no one saw any inconsistency in it. On the contrary, it all seemed absolutely right; and when in the eighteenth century critics began to analyze the art of war, they dealt with points of detail, without bothering much about fundamentals. Greatness, indeed perfection, was discerned in many guises, and even the Austrian Field-Marshal Daun—to whom it was mainly due that Frederick the Great completely attained his object and Maria Theresa completely failed in hers—could be considered a great commander. Only from time to time someone of penetrating judgment—of real common sense—might suggest that with superior forces one should achieve positive results; otherwise the war, with all its artistry, was being mismanaged.
This was the state of affairs at the outbreak of the French Revolution. Austria and Prussia tried to meet this with the diplomatic type of war that we have described. They soon discovered its inadequacy. Looking at the situation in this conventional manner, people at first expected to have to deal only with a seriously weakened French army; but in 1793 a force appeared that beggared all imagination. Suddenly war again became the business of the people—a people of thirty millions, all of whom considered themselves to be citizens. We need not study in detail the circumstances that accompanied this tremendous development; we need only note the effects that are pertinent to our discussion. The people became a participant in war; instead of governments and armies as heretofore, the full weight of the nation was thrown into the balance. The resources and efforts now available for use surpassed all conventional limits; nothing now impeded the vigor with which war could be waged, and consequently the opponents of France faced the utmost peril.
print version
return to list
previous document