Misplaced Pages

#512487

51-537: The French Revolutionary armies incorporated a number of "legions" of foreign volunteers during the French Revolutionary Wars after 1792. These included a number of units recruited among exiles from the failed Brabant (1789–90) and Liège revolutions (1789–91). A number of separate units were organised, including: These units incorporated a number of influential revolutionary figures, including Jean-Baptiste Dumonceau and Louis Lahure who both served in

102-534: A debacle when it was found that the hastily trained Revolutionary forces were badly disorganized and disobedient: on one occasion, troops murdered their general to avoid a battle; on another, troops insisted on putting their commander's orders to a vote. The Revolutionary forces retreated from the Austrian Netherlands in disarray. In August 1792, a large Austro-Prussian army commanded by the Duke of Brunswick crossed

153-486: A hodgepodge of different units, and as such did not have a uniform appearance. Veterans in their white uniforms and tarleton helmets from the ancien regime period served alongside national guardsmen in their blue jackets with white turnbacks piped red and fédérés dressed in civilian clothes with only the red phrygian cap and the tricolour cockade to identify them as soldiers. Poor supplies meant that uniforms which had worn out were replaced with civilian clothes, and so

204-551: A prominent mathematician , physicist , and delegate to the Convention, was promoted to the Committee of Public Safety. Displaying an exceptional talent for organization and for enforcing discipline, Carnot set about rearranging the disheveled Revolutionary Armies. Realizing that no amount of reforming and discipline was going to offset the massive numerical superiority enjoyed by France's enemies, Carnot ordered (24 February 1793 decree of

255-676: A skirmish known as the Risquons-Tout incident . Some of the captured democrats were imprisoned in the Citadel of Huy and 17 of them condemned to death and executed at Antwerp . During the Mexico Expedition 1,500 Belgian volunteers were formed into a Belgian Legion to fight in the army of Emperor Maximilian , whose wife, Princess Charlotte of Belgium , was Leopold I of Belgium's daughter. Officially "The Belgian Expeditionary Corps" this Legion comprised an infantry regiment of two battalions -

306-588: A vital role in their success. The cannon continued to have a dominating role on the battlefield throughout the Napoleonic Wars . The cavalry was seriously affected by the Revolution. The majority of officers had been of aristocratic birth and had fled France during the final stages of the monarchy or to avoid the subsequent Terror. Many French cavalrymen joined the émigré army of the Prince du Condé. Two entire regiments,

357-510: Is a fortress located in the Walloon city of Huy in the province of Liège , Belgium . The fort occupies a high position in the town, overlooking the strategic Meuse river. Together with those at Dinant , Liège and Namur , the Citadel of Huy forms part of the so-called Meuse Citadels . The site of the citadel has been fortified since the 9th century, and various structures have been built on

408-468: Is the "amalgamation" ( amalgame ) strategy organized by military strategist Lazare Carnot , later Napoleon 's Minister of War . He assigned, to the same regiment (but in different battalions), both young volunteers enthusiastic at the thought of dying for liberty and old veterans from the former royal army . The transformation of the Army was most apparent in the officer corps. Before the revolution, 90% of

459-508: The Ancien régime , the system of named regiments was abandoned. Instead, the new army was formed into a series of numbered demi-brigades . Consisting of two or three battalions , these formations were designated demi-brigades in an attempt to avoid the feudal connotations of the term Regiment . In mid-1793, the Revolutionary Army officially comprised 196 infantry demi-brigades . After

510-657: The Hussards du Saxe and the 15éme Cavalerie (Royal Allemande) defected to the Austrians. Lacking not only trained officers, but also mounts and equipment, the Revolutionary Cavalry became the worst equipped arm of the Revolutionary Army. By mid-1793, the paper organisation of the Revolutionary Army included twenty six heavy cavalry regiments, two regiments of carabiniers, twenty dragoon regiments, eighteen regiments of chasseurs à cheval and ten hussar regiments. In reality, it

561-562: The Liberal Wars under Major Pierre-Joseph Lecharlier. In March 1848, during the French Revolution of 1848 , Belgian workers living in Paris formed an "Association des démocrates belges" (94, rue de Ménilmontant), led by Blervacq a wine merchant and an old officer called Fosses. This gave rise to a new Belgian Legion. Informally supported by Ledru-Rollin , Caussidière and other members of

SECTION 10

#1732851219513

612-588: The Reign of Terror . The few remaining officers from the old guard were promoted swiftly; this meant that the majority of the Revolutionary officers were far younger than their Monarchist counterparts. The high-ranking aristocratic officers who remained, among them Marquis de la Fayette , Comte de Rochambeau and Count Nicolas Luckner , were soon accused of having monarchist sympathies and either executed or forced into exile. Revolutionary fervour, along with calls to save

663-561: The "Empress Battalion" of grenadiers and the "King of the Belgians' Battalion" of voltigeurs . The officers and non-commissioned officers were mainly drawn from the regular Belgian Army as were some of the other ranks. The Belgians formed part of a much larger "Imperial Mexican Corps of Austrian and Belgian Volunteers", though they served separately from the Austrian contingent which was brigaded with Mexican Imperial troops. The first detachment of

714-727: The "revolutionary armies" ( armées révolutionnaires ) which were paramilitary forces set up during the Terror . Following the proclamation of the French Empire in 1804 the Revolutionary Army became the Imperial Army . As the Ancien Régime gave way to a constitutional monarchy , and then to a republic, 1789–92, the entire structure of France was transformed to fall into line with the Revolutionary principles of " Liberty, Equality and Fraternity ". Reactionary Europe stood opposed, especially after

765-553: The Austrian troops at Charleroi . In 1792, the French Revolutionary Army had eight field armies : In 1793, the field armies of the French Revolutionary Army underwent a restructuring: Several field armies were also formed for specific tasks: Citadel of Huy The Citadel of Huy ( French : Citadelle de Huy ) or the Fort of Huy (French: Fort de Huy ), known locally as The Castle ( Walloon : Li Tchestia ),

816-587: The Belgian Legion performed well in subsequent clashes but by the late summer of 1866, with the French army preparing for evacuation, morale amongst the foreign contingents attached to the Mexican Imperial army was low. Thirty Belgian officers petitioned to return to Europe on the grounds that their contracted terms of service were about to expire. Others transferred to mixed Mexican/foreign units. On 12 December 1866

867-533: The Belgian Legion, numbering 604 men, embarked for Mexico on 16 October 1864. Three further contingents were sent over the next three months, bringing the total force up to about 1,500. The Legion's first encounter with the Mexican Republican forces was at the Battle of Tacámbaro on 11 April 1866, where a Belgian detachment of 300 men was forced to surrender after losing up to a third of its strength. The remainder of

918-619: The Belgian Legion. Temporarily regaining control of the Southern Netherlands , on 2 March 1814, Austria formed several military units from regional recruitment. This volunteer force was known as the Légion belge (Belgian Legion) and initially was intended to strengthen the Austrian position in their former provinces in the event of a counterattack from France. With the full occupation of the Southern Netherlands by Austria, Prussia and

969-467: The French government dreaming of a Republican uprising in the Southern Netherlands and a subsequent French annexation of that area, this Legion's aim was to overthrow the monarchy and establish a Belgian republic. Commanded by Blervacq, Fosses and Charles Graux and escorted by students of the École Polytechnique , a troop of 1100 to 1200 unarmed men in three corps departed Paris on 25 March. Passing via Douai then Seclin (27 March), they were resupplied by

1020-523: The French king was executed . The signing of the Declaration of Pillnitz between Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor and King Frederick William II of Prussia and the subsequent French declaration of war meant that from its formation, the Republic of France was at war, and it required a potent military force to ensure its survival. As a result, one of the first major elements of the French state to be restructured

1071-545: The Legion was disbanded and 754 of the contingent returned to Belgium where they dispersed. A small group of elderly survivors of the Belgian Legion escorted the coffin of Charlotte after her death at the Castle of Bouchout in 1927. French Revolutionary Army The French Revolutionary Army ( French : Armée révolutionnaire française ) was the French land force that fought the French Revolutionary Wars from 1792 to 1802. In

SECTION 20

#1732851219513

1122-467: The Revolutionary Armies were operating along the guidelines set down in the 1791 Reglement , a set of regulations created during the years before the Revolution. The 1791 Reglement laid down several complex tactical maneuvers, maneuvers which demanded well trained soldiers , officers and NCOs to perform correctly. The Revolutionary Army was lacking in all three of these areas, and as a result

1173-528: The Revolutionary Army lacked any semblance of uniformity, with the exception of the tricolour cockade which was worn by all soldiers. As the war progressed, several demi-brigades were issued specific coloured uniform jackets, and the Revolutionary Armée d'Orient which arrived in Egypt in 1798 was uniformed in purple, pink, green, red, orange and blue jackets. Along with the problem of uniforms, many men of

1224-551: The Revolutionary Army lacked weapons and ammunition. Any weapons captured from the enemy were immediately absorbed into the ranks. After the Battle of Montenotte in 1796, 1,000 French soldiers who had been sent into battle unarmed were afterwards equipped with captured Austrian muskets. As a result, uniformity was also lacking in weapons. Besides the regular demi-brigades , light infantry demi-brigades also existed. These formations were formed from soldiers who had shown skill in marksmanship, and were used for skirmishing in front of

1275-638: The United Provinces (Holland), a provisional government was established under the Duke of Beaufort and local levies continued to be recruited separately by each of the three allies. The largest of these was the Belgian Legion which, under the command of the Belgian born Austrian General Count von Murray, was now intended to keep local order. Administered by the Baron Poederlé , secretary general for armaments, this Legion

1326-411: The beginning, the French armies were characterised by their revolutionary fervour, their poor equipment and their great numbers. However, the French Revolutionary Army had become arguably the most powerful army in the world by the mid-1790s, as the French armies had become well-experienced and organized, enabling them to comfortably outfight their enemies. Despite experiencing early disastrous defeats,

1377-472: The best in Europe thanks to the technical improvements of Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval . The Battle of Valmy ensured that the Revolutionary armies were respected and no longer underestimated by their enemies. For the next ten years, these armies not only defended the fledgling First French Republic , but, under the command of Generals such as Moreau , Jourdan , Kléber , Desaix and Bonaparte , expanded

1428-636: The borders of the French republic. While the Cannonade of Valmy had saved the Republic from imminent destruction and caused its enemies to take pause, the guillotining of Louis XVI in January 1793 and the National Convention 's proclamation that it would ' export the revolution ' hardened the resolve of France's enemies to destroy the Republic and reinstate a monarchy. In early 1793, the First Coalition

1479-517: The commissioner of the Nord department , Charles Delescluze , and by general Négrier . However, France's Minister for War Cavaignac , alerted by a recent incident provoked by Belgian workers who had returned to the frontier at Quiévrain by train, demanded that Négrier give no assistance to any violation of the Belgian frontier. Négrier obeyed by ordering the Polytechniciens to turn back and closing

1530-452: The early efforts to conform to the 1791 Reglement were met with disaster. The untrained troops could not perform the complex maneuvers required, unit cohesion was lost and defeat was ensured. Realizing that the army was not capable of conforming with the 1791 Reglement , commanders began experimenting with formations which required less training to perform. Many eminent French military thinkers had been clamoring for change decades before. In

1581-549: The frontier and began its march on Paris with the declared intention of restoring full power to Louis XVI. Several Revolutionary armies were easily defeated by the professional Austrian , Hessian , Brunswick and Prussian troops. The immediate result of this was the storming of the Tuileries Palace by an armed Parisian mob and the overthrow of the king. Successive Revolutionary forces failed to halt Brunswick's advance, and by mid-September it appeared that Paris would fall to

Belgian Legion - Misplaced Pages Continue

1632-435: The gates of Lille. On the evening of 28 March, however, the Legion broke camp and seized the arms and ammunition gathered by Delescluze before crossing the frontier between Neuville-en-Ferrain and Mouscron . They then confronted Belgian troops under General Joseph Fleury-Duray in Risquons-Tout (then a hamlet in the commune of Rekkem , but now part of Mouscron) and were defeated, with 7 killed, 26 wounded and 60 captured,

1683-567: The initial dismal performance of the Fédéré volunteer battalions, Carnot ordered that each demi-brigade was to consist of one regular (ex-Royal Army) and two fédéré battalions. These new formations, intended to combine the discipline and training of the old army with the enthusiasm of the new volunteers, were proven successful at Valmy in September 1792. In 1794, the new demi-brigade was universally adopted. The Revolutionary Army had been formed from

1734-422: The invading monarchists. The Convention ordered the remaining armies to be combined under the command of Dumouriez and François Christophe Kellermann . At the Battle of Valmy on 20 September 1792, the Revolutionary forces defeated Brunswick's advance guard, causing the invading army to begin a retreat all the way to the border. Much of the credit for the victory is owed to the French artillery , widely viewed as

1785-423: The main force. As with the line demi-brigades , the light demi-brigades lacked uniformity in either weapons or equipment. Supporting the skirmishers was the French artillery . The artillery had suffered least from the exodus of aristocratic officers during the early days of the Revolution, as it was commanded mostly by men drawn from the middle class. The man who would shape the era, Napoleon Bonaparte , himself

1836-435: The national Convention) each département to provide a quota of new recruits, a number totaling around 300,000. By mid-1793, the Revolutionary Army had increased around 645,000 men. On 23 August 1793, at Carnot's insistence, the Convention issued the following proclamation ordering a levée en masse All unmarried able bodied men aged between 18 and 25 were to report immediately for military service. Those married, as well as

1887-417: The new regime, resulted in a large influx of enthusiastic, yet untrained and undisciplined, volunteers. These were the first sans-culottes , so called because they wore peasants' trousers rather than the knee-breeches used by the other armies of the time. France's desperate military situation meant that these men were quickly inducted into the army. One reason for the success of the French Revolutionary Army

1938-485: The officers had been aristocrats, compared to only 3% in 1794. Revolutionary fervor was high, and was closely monitored by the Committee of Public Safety , which assigned Representatives on Mission to keep watch on the army generals. Indeed, during the war, some generals deserted, and others were removed or executed. The government demanded that soldiers be loyal to the government in Paris, not to their generals. Officially,

1989-517: The period following the humiliating performance of the French Army during the Seven Years' War , they began to experiment with new ideas. Guibert wrote his epic Essai général de Tactique , Bourcet focused on staff procedures and mountain warfare , and Mesnil-Durand spent his time advocating l'ordre profond , tactics of maneuvering and fighting in heavy columnar formations , placing emphasis on

2040-505: The remaining men, women and children, were to focus their efforts on arming and supplying the army. This increased the size of the Revolutionary Armies dramatically, providing the armies in the field with the manpower to hold off the enemy attacks. Carnot was hailed by the government as the Organizer of Victory . By September 1794, the Revolutionary Army had 1,500,000 men under arms. Carnot's levée en masse had provided so much manpower that it

2091-404: The revolutionary armies successfully expelled foreign forces from French soil and then overran many neighboring countries, establishing client republics . Leading generals included Napoleon Bonaparte , Jean-Baptiste Jourdan , André Masséna , Jean Victor Marie Moreau and Étienne Macdonald . As a general description of French military forces during this period, it should not be confused with

Belgian Legion - Misplaced Pages Continue

2142-448: The shock of cold steel over firepower. In the 1770s, some commanders, among them the brilliant duc de Broglie performed exercises testing these tactics. It was finally decided to launch a series of experiments to try out the new tactics, and comparing them to the standard Fredrickian linear formation known as l'ordre mince which was universally popular throughout Europe. De Broglie decided that l'ordre profond worked best when it

2193-595: The site. The current fort dates to in 1818 during the period of Dutch rule in Belgium and took five years to build. The citadel was frequently used to house political prisoners. In the 19th century, members of the revolutionary Belgian Legion were imprisoned after their failed invasion of Belgium at Risquons-Tout in 1848. During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II , six thousand Belgian political prisoners, including

2244-472: Was an artilleryman. The various technical improvements of Général Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval in the years preceding the Revolution, and the subsequent efforts of Baron du Teil and his brother Chevalier Jean du Teil meant that the French artillery was the finest in Europe. The Revolutionary Artillery was responsible for several of the Republic's early victories; for example at Valmy , on 13 Vendémiaire , and at Lodi . The revolutionary cannon played

2295-424: Was finally disbanded after Waterloo. The French Aerostatic Corps ( compagnie d'aérostiers ) was the first French air force , founded in 1794 to use balloons , primarily for reconnaissance . The first military use of the balloon occurred on 2 June 1794, when it was used for reconnaissance during an enemy bombardment. On 22 June, the corps received orders to move the balloon to the plain of Fleurus , in front of

2346-460: Was formed, not only from Prussia and Austria, but also Sardinia , Naples , the Dutch Republic , Spain and Great Britain . The Republic was under attack on several fronts, and in the fiercely Catholic region of La Vendée an armed revolt had broken out. The Revolutionary army was greatly overstretched, and it seemed that the fall of the republic was imminent. In early 1793 Lazare Carnot ,

2397-571: Was made up of 4 line infantry regiments (from Brabant , Flanders , Hainaut and Namur ), a light infantry regiment, two cavalry regiments and an artillery regiment. This unit merged into the army of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 1 September 1814, when that nation annexed the territory that would later form Belgium. The Corps of Belgian Riflemen fought for the Portuguese Liberals in

2448-399: Was not necessary to repeat it again until 1797. Seeing the failure of the 1791 Reglement , several early revolutionary commanders followed de Broglie's example and experimented with the pre-revolutionary ideas, gradually adapting them until they discovered a system that worked. The final standard used by the early Revolutionary Armies consisted of the following: Following the dissolution of

2499-527: Was seldom that any of these regiments reached even half strength. However, unlike the infantry, where all battalions of the old Royal Army were merged with freshly raised volunteers to form new demi-brigades , the cavalry retained their regimental identities throughout the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. As one example, the Regiment de Chasseurs d'Alsace (raised in 1651) was renamed the 1er Regiment de Chasseurs in 1791 but otherwise remained unchanged until it

2550-528: Was supported by artillery and large numbers of skirmishers. Despite these exercises, l'ordre mince had strong and powerful supporters in the French Royal Army, and it was this formation which went into the 1791 Reglement as the standard. The French struck first, with an invasion of the Austrian Netherlands proposed by foreign minister Charles François Dumouriez . This invasion soon turned into

2601-578: Was the army. Almost all of the officers of the French Royal Army had been drawn from the aristocracy. During the period preceding the final overthrow of the Monarchy, large numbers of officers left their regiments and emigrated. Between 15 September and 1 December 1791 alone, 2,160 officers of the royal army fled France eventually to join the émigré army of Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé . Of those who stayed, many were either imprisoned or killed during

SECTION 50

#1732851219513
#512487