Amalgamation (amalgame) of the French Revolutionary Army

Background

France had only 200,000 men under arms in February 1793; the figure rose to 500,000 in July, 732,000 in September and 804,000 in December, spread across 15 armies. The Republic then had two very different armies: the old royal army, whose battalions had been thinned by emigration and desertion but still followed Ancien Régime regulations, and numerous volunteer battalions with elected officers.

Enactment and implementation

The reform was proposed by the deputy Edmond Louis Alexis Dubois-Crancé, whose report on the state of the army recommended rapid advancement of lower officers and the fusion of volunteers with veteran troops; French sources date the proposition to 23 January 1793 (4 pluviôse an I) and 21 February 1793. The National Convention decreed the amalgam of the royal army and the volunteer battalions by decree of 26 February 1793 (8 ventôse an I), and decrees of 26 February and 12 August 1793 prescribed that line infantry cease to be designated régiment and take the name demi-brigade. The 12 August decree designated the corps for the new organization and authorized generals to amalgamate line regiments, light-infantry battalions and national volunteers. English sources date the amalgamating law to late August 1793, whereas French sources cite 12 August 1793; both dates are recorded rather than forcing one.

The plan was to unite 198 line battalions with 396 volunteer battalions to form 198 line demi-brigades of first formation, and 15 light-infantry battalions with free corps and legion infantry to form 15 light demi-brigades. These figures were later raised to 209 line and 40 light demi-brigades, giving on paper 254 line and 42 light. Each demi-brigade was to number 2,437 men including officers and gunners, with one gunner company and three battalions of nine companies including one of grenadiers, but actual strengths varied widely.

The gap between decree and enforcement

The amalgam was not effected completely. Of 254 line demi-brigades, 49 could not be organized, leaving 205 actually created between 1793 and 1796; of 42 light demi-brigades, 7 were never amalgamated, leaving 35 complete. Specific first-formation demi-brigades (the 7th, 8th, 11th, 15th and 18th) were never formed, because their core battalion was unamalgamated, in the colonies, taken prisoner at Condé on 13 July 1793, or simply not organized before the second amalgamation. Volunteer battalions that did not enter first-formation demi-brigades went into those of the second formation. Implementation of Dubois-Crancé's decree began with the instructions of 10 January 1794 (21 nivôse an II) but was only fully realized two years later, with the second amalgamation; the organization was definitively effected from 28 January 1794 (9 pluviôse an II), and the first demi-brigades were not raised until early 1794. Scholars date the first amalgame to February 1793 to January 1794 and stress that 20 demi-brigades were actually created in that first period.

The first amalgamation was decreed in 1793 and effective from early 1794, and the French documentation gives the measure's span as creation 1793 to dissolution 1796. Its later development continued with the second amalgamation from 1796 onward.

The second amalgamation and the end

As war losses reduced some demi-brigades so that battalions fell to an average of 2.3, in 1796 the Directory prescribed a complete reworking of all battalions. The second amalgamation was prescribed by its arrêté of 8 January 1796 (18 nivôse an IV) and organized by the decree of 26 February 1796 (7 ventôse an IV), with execution confided to army commanders-in-chief during the first five months of 1796. Because losses from desertion and recruitment difficulties left many companies with as many officers and NCOs as soldiers, each new corps was built by leveling the battalions of the amalgamated units (1st battalion from the first battalions, and so on), with number series assigned per army by lot (19 April, 12 May, 25 May, 1 June) and roughly 3,000 men each. 238 existing demi-brigades and numerous isolated battalions were reorganized into 140 new demi-brigades (110 line and 30 light). The operation was largely executed in 1796 and finished in 1799, surviving until 24 September 1803, when the infantry was reorganized and the demi-brigades received the name regiments once more.

Character and evaluation

The stated aims of the fusion were to control the spirit of the soldiers and prevent the defection of professional soldiers who were a minority among republican soldiers, and to improve the training of young recruits through contact with experienced veterans. The demi-brigade aimed at identical equipment, organization, pay and uniforms across three types of infantry that had differed in all four, eliminating animosity caused by unequal pay: regulars in white with Tarleton helmets, National Guard in blue, and fédérés with only the red phrygian cap and tricolour cockade. The measure survived the transition to the Directory in 1795, the end of the First Coalition in 1797, the Second Coalition and Bonaparte's seizure of power in 1799, until Napoleon ordered the historic term régiment reinstated in 1803; the English account credits the amalgamation strategy with an important part in the Revolutionary Army's later effectiveness. Contemporaries and later authors also noted problems distinct from the military effect, such as the hostility between volunteer units and the local population; Carnot's statement, cited via Camille Rousset, that the volunteers submitted to no discipline and devastated the countryside should be attributed, not quoted as an established fact.

Attribution and scope

English sources credit the amalgamation strategy to Lazare Carnot, later Napoleon's Minister of War, who placed young volunteers and old royal-army veterans in the same regiment in different battalions. This is compatible with the French accounts but attributes initiative differently (Dubois-Crancé versus Carnot), so neither attribution is collapsed into the other. The entry concerns infantry: in the infantry the battalions of the old royal army were merged with freshly raised volunteers to form new demi-brigades, whereas the cavalry retained its regimental identities throughout the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. The amalgame must not be conflated with mass conscription: the levée en masse (23 August 1793; English sources date the proclamation to 16 August 1793) swelled the army past a million men by August 1794, whereas the amalgame was a separate unit-reorganization measure for the infantry. The volunteers system itself declined in weight in 1793 once the Convention adopted conscription (the levée of 300,000 in March 1793, then the levée en masse).