Plausibility Check: French Counterrevolution

[Askelion]

Hello to evereyone.
Whilst investigating the War in the Vendee (an uprising of French Counterrevolutionaries in the wake of Robespierre's nationalization of the French priesthood), I noted that there is mention of the British facilitating the deployment of several thousand (even tens of thousands) of veteran emigre troops to support the uprising. It seems that the goal of the 1st Coalition was to capture a city on the channel (French side, obviously) and then ferry the Emigres across. The question, then, is:

Starting in 1792, do you think that there was any chance for the Catholic and Royal Army (Armee Catholique et Royal) to successfully reconquer France in the name of the King? If not, what are the alternatives? Could there be both a Royal and Republican France? Would saving Louis XVII from his death in the Temple prison complex help?

I am eager to hear all of your thoughts on the matter!

 

[Falecius]

The trouble is that the Revolution freed the peasants from feudal obligations and largely turned them into a wide class of farmer owning their fields.
So they would be loyal to the Revolution and actively opposing any attempt to restore Ancien Regime at least for agrarian relationships. It was what made the Revolution successful more than else. Millions of Frenchmen were willing to fight to defend the Revolution because of this.
You would need the Jacobins go really unpleasant to overturn this support. They resorted to mass murder in Vendée and sometimes elsewhere, but it was not enough.

 

[Askelion]

The trouble is that the Revolution freed the peasants from feudal obligations and largely turned them into a wide class of farmer owning their fields.
So they would be loyal to the Revolution and actively opposing any attempt to restore Ancien Regime at least for agrarian relationships. It was what made the Revolution successful more than else. Millions of Frenchmen were willing to fight to defend the Revolution because of this.
You would need the Jacobins go really unpleasant to overturn this support. They resorted to mass murder in Vendée and sometimes elsewhere, but it was not enough.

A good point. But weren't the Vendeeans mostly peasants?

 

[Falecius]

A good point. But weren't the Vendeeans mostly peasants?

Yes. But they revolt never really managed to connect with any other region. Peasants revolted in other places as well, both opposing the centralising policies of the jacobins and, mostly, the nationalization of the Church. But majority had a strong interest in defending the Revolution and a great deal of gratitude towards the jacobin rule who had beneifited them granting their land. Those who rebelled were often instigated by local priests, and guess it was the case in Vendée. The brutality of the repression probably played a role in making the resistance stronger, since I guess that at some point the Vendeeans felt like they had nothing more to lose.

 

[Yorel]

Yes. But they revolt never really managed to connect with any other region. Peasants revolted in other places as well, both opposing the centralising policies of the jacobins and, mostly, the nationalization of the Church. But majority had a strong interest in defending the Revolution and a great deal of gratitude towards the jacobin rule who had beneifited them granting their land. Those who rebelled were often instigated by local priests, and guess it was the case in Vendée. The brutality of the repression probably played a role in making the resistance stronger, since I guess that at some point the Vendeeans felt like they had nothing more to lose.

The Vendean Wars are far more complicated than that. There was a counter-revolutionnary movement led by Royalists and opposants to the nationalisation of the clergy but there was also a feeling of "anti-revolution".

It's true that the revolution was supposed to please the Peasants. However, the Vendean peasantry didn't get much wealth from the Revolution : when the Clergy's properties were sold, few peasants were able to buy some because it was too expensive for them. Plus, the revolution was going too fast about its reforms : the people got angry and got fed up with the Republican Regime. In 1793, when the War of Vendée first began, most of the region was hostile to the French Republic.

The Vendean rebellion was very successful in the beginning : despite being worse equipped, the "Blancs" (=White, term used to talk about the Vendeans during the Vendean War) managed to defeat several "Bleus" (=Blue, term for the Republicans) armies. They even had an occasion to march on Paris, but they refused to do so because of the distance. They thus went to besiege Nantes, but the chief of the Armée Catholique et Royale, Cathelineau, was killed during the battle. After that, the luck of the Vendeans turned from good to bad, but the region never quieted down before Napoleon took power : you had constant Guerilla in Vendee from 1794 to 1799, despite the colonnes infernales of Turreau (a scorched earth policy).

I personnaly tend to think that the Vendeans could have defeated the Revolution. It even seems to me that Napoleon thought and said as much in his written works : had the Vendeans marched on Paris, they could have taken it and the Revolution would have collapsed.

I also have a doubts on the millions ready to defend the Republic : the Revolutionnaries were fighting each other when the Jacobin came in because they had expelled the Girondins and this lead to several pro-girondin uprisings in several cities. Plus, the military situation of 1793 and 1794 wasn't very good for the Republic and conscription was really unpopular.

 

[Askelion]

The Vendean Wars are far more complicated than that. There was a counter-revolutionnary movement led by Royalists and opposants to the nationalisation of the clergy but there was also a feeling of "anti-revolution".

It's true that the revolution was supposed to please the Peasants. However, the Vendean peasantry didn't get much wealth from the Revolution : when the Clergy's properties were sold, few peasants were able to buy some because it was too expensive for them. Plus, the revolution was going too fast about its reforms : the people got angry and got fed up with the Republican Regime. In 1793, when the War of Vendée first began, most of the region was hostile to the French Republic.

The Vendean rebellion was very successful in the beginning : despite being worse equipped, the "Blancs" (=White, term used to talk about the Vendeans during the Vendean War) managed to defeat several "Bleus" (=Blue, term for the Republicans) armies. They even had an occasion to march on Paris, but they refused to do so because of the distance. They thus went to besiege Nantes, but the chief of the Armée Catholique et Royale, Cathelineau, was killed during the battle. After that, the luck of the Vendeans turned from good to bad, but the region never quieted down before Napoleon took power : you had constant Guerilla in Vendee from 1794 to 1799, despite the colonnes infernales of Turreau (a scorched earth policy).

I personnaly tend to think that the Vendeans could have defeated the Revolution. It even seems to me that Napoleon thought and said as much in his written works : had the Vendeans marched on Paris, they could have taken it and the Revolution would have collapsed.

I also have a doubts on the millions ready to defend the Republic : the Revolutionnaries were fighting each other when the Jacobin came in because they had expelled the Girondins and this lead to several pro-girondin uprisings in several cities. Plus, the military situation of 1793 and 1794 wasn't very good for the Republic and conscription was really unpopular.

Could you detail the averted march on Paris? That might be an excellent POD.

 

[Falecius]

The Vendean Wars are far more complicated than that. There was a counter-revolutionnary movement led by Royalists and opposants to the nationalisation of the clergy but there was also a feeling of "anti-revolution".

It's true that the revolution was supposed to please the Peasants. However, the Vendean peasantry didn't get much wealth from the Revolution : when the Clergy's properties were sold, few peasants were able to buy some because it was too expensive for them. Plus, the revolution was going too fast about its reforms : the people got angry and got fed up with the Republican Regime. In 1793, when the War of Vendée first began, most of the region was hostile to the French Republic.

The Vendean rebellion was very successful in the beginning : despite being worse equipped, the "Blancs" (=White, term used to talk about the Vendeans during the Vendean War) managed to defeat several "Bleus" (=Blue, term for the Republicans) armies. They even had an occasion to march on Paris, but they refused to do so because of the distance. They thus went to besiege Nantes, but the chief of the Armée Catholique et Royale, Cathelineau, was killed during the battle. After that, the luck of the Vendeans turned from good to bad, but the region never quieted down before Napoleon took power : you had constant Guerilla in Vendee from 1794 to 1799, despite the colonnes infernales of Turreau (a scorched earth policy).

I personnaly tend to think that the Vendeans could have defeated the Revolution. It even seems to me that Napoleon thought and said as much in his written works : had the Vendeans marched on Paris, they could have taken it and the Revolution would have collapsed.

I also have a doubts on the millions ready to defend the Republic : the Revolutionnaries were fighting each other when the Jacobin came in because they had expelled the Girondins and this lead to several pro-girondin uprisings in several cities. Plus, the military situation of 1793 and 1794 wasn't very good for the Republic and conscription was really unpopular.

Actually, there were windows of opportunity for Counter-Revolutionary forces especially when the Jacobins were at the height of their unpopularity. But still, any attempt to restore even partially the feudal order would meet absolute opposition from most of French peasantry, which was an armed peasantry at the time due to conscription. The nobility would have to compromise heavily if it wanted to return to power . The Republican field was divided, true, but so were their enemies.

 

[Falastur]

I think talk of a Vendeen counter-Revolution marching on and capturing Paris is a bit of an 18th Century sea mammal, to be honest. I was actually on holiday in the Vendee this summer and had the chance to go to several Vendee War museums and locations. One of the gave an in-depth talk through the war (albeit in French) and when it got to the talk of the march on Paris, made it in no way uncertain that the reason it never happened was because the peasants were very much after looking after their own interests, and didn't want to leave the Vendee as they didn't want to leave their homes unguarded, and they actually didn't really care about the rest of the country so long as they could fight for Vendee rights. Of course, the logical extension of the need to take Paris to secure their freedom back home just didn't figure into the equation for them. The Generals knew that if they left their base in the Vendee and the captured city of Nantes then their army would start to desert in droves and flee back to return to their homes. In addition, there was a recognition that they weren't getting much sympathy from the rest of the country (though IIRC the citizens of Nantes greeted them joyfully) so they knew that they wouldn't be able to fill their numbers by recruiting on the march. In all likelihood, if the Vendee army had marched on Paris, by the time it got there (bearing in mind the distance of something like 250 miles, and the slow speed at which armies tend to march would by all likelihood have taken several weeks) they would have arrived with about 2,000 men of an original 12,000 or so, and that would not be enough to do anything. Even if they had managed to move their entire army to Paris, they probably would have failed to breach the city's defenses. And then there was the extra problem that the Revolutionary Government was very worried and was rapidly raising large armies to face them. In a matter of a couple of months, they would have been completely outnumbered and eventually they would have met their match and been slaughtered, as eventually happened. It's one of those events where people at the time seriously thought it could have happened, but a bit of examination in hindsight shows it could never have worked.

 

[Askelion]

Let's not forget the potential emigre involvment and the War of the First Coalition that was going on at the time. Does anyone know the reason that the emigres couldn't make it? I read that it was the Vendeean failure to seize Granville, but I'm far from well-read.

Thoughts?

 

[Captain Poplar]

Let's not forget the potential emigre involvment and the War of the First Coalition that was going on at the time. Does anyone know the reason that the emigres couldn't make it? I read that it was the Vendeean failure to seize Granville, but I'm far from well-read.

Thoughts?

Well, the real failure of Emigré involvment happened in 1795, in Britanny (in Quiberon more precisely), where a sizeable Emigré force, backed by British ships, tried to land on Quiberon Island, seized a fort with the help of the local Chouans (the Breton equivalent for Vendéens, although Chouans always sticked to guerilla tactics and never organised as a standing army as the vendéens did), and was ultimately routed by Republican forces.

The Emigrés were not in real position to help the Vendée. British support was lukewarm at best, the Emigrés had no or little knowledge of the Vendée leaders (not to mention the Vendéens themselves), and they were a small faction of the exiled Royalists, the main force, including the Princes, placing their bets on Austria and german princes, not on Britain.

 

[Askelion]

Well, the real failure of Emigré involvment happened in 1795, in Britanny (in Quiberon more precisely), where a sizeable Emigré force, backed by British ships, tried to land on Quiberon Island, seized a fort with the help of the local Chouans (the Breton equivalent for Vendéens, although Chouans always sticked to guerilla tactics and never organised as a standing army as the vendéens did), and was ultimately routed by Republican forces.

The Emigrés were not in real position to help the Vendée. British support was lukewarm at best, the Emigrés had no or little knowledge of the Vendée leaders (not to mention the Vendéens themselves), and they were a small faction of the exiled Royalists, the main force, including the Princes, placing their bets on Austria and german princes, not on Britain.

Interesting.

Does anyone have any views on what the most successfuly POD might be for a French counterrevolution? I read a TL somewhere (LTTW?) where the western half of France simply seceeded from the Republic, perhaps that's the most simple way?