French Royal Army

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French Royal Army
Vendôme
Maurice de Saxe
Berwick
Nicolas Catinat
Lafayette
Rochambeau
Jean-de-Dieu Soult
Nicolas Oudinot
Insignia
UniformGray-white/white for regular infantry
Blue for royal or guards infantry
Red for Swiss mercenaries
Blue for all units after 1814

The French Royal Army (

Bourbon dynasty from the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-17th century to that of Charles X in the 19th, with an interlude from 1792 to 1814 and another during the Hundred Days in 1815. It was permanently dissolved following the July Revolution in 1830. The French Royal Army became a model for the new regimental system that was to be imitated throughout Europe from the mid-17th century onward.[1] It was regarded as Europe's greatest military force for much of its existence.[2]

History

Army of Louis XIV

Louis XIV

Creation of a professional royal army

When Louis XIV came to the French throne in 1661 he inherited a large but loosely organized force of about 70,000 men. Like the other European armies of the period, it consisted of a mixture of mercenaries, guard units, local militias and levies conscripted only for specific campaigns and then disbanded. Organization, cohesion, training and equipment were not of the highest standard.[3]

Under Louis' two Secretaries of War Michel Le Tellier and his son the Marquis de Louvois, the French Royal Army was restructured into a highly disciplined and professional force made up of permanent regiments under central control. Weapons, promotion, drill, uniforms and organisation were improved or introduced and the army nearly doubled in size.

Military history of the reign

When Louis' father,

Fronde civil war broke out and Mazarin was forced to flee.[4]

When Louis XIV came of age in 1652, the Fronde ended and Mazarin was permitted to return and appointed chief minister for a second time. The leader of the anti-Mazarin faction, the

Marshal Turenne, the Anglo-French army decisively defeated the Spanish in Flanders
, part of which was a province of Spain.

In 1660, Louis married the Spanish princess

Courtrai, Veurne, Binche, Charleroi and Ath
made future offensives much easier, as demonstrated in 1672.

From 1672 until 1678, France was embroiled in the

Peace of Nijmegen
between France and the Grand Alliance left the Dutch Republic intact and France generously aggrandized in the Spanish Netherlands.

The famed engineer

Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban designed his intricate fortifications during Louis XIV's reign. Vauban, a genius at siege warfare,[8]
oversaw the building or improvement of many fortresses in Flanders and elsewhere.

In 1688, the Catholic King of England,

League of Augsburg
and other European states.

The war ended with no major territorial gains or losses for either side, and the two alliances were at war again by 1701.

Marshal Vendôme but despite a major victory at Denain
in 1712, the war had turned into a stalemate and ended in peace that somewhat favored the French in 1714.

Louis XV's reign

Louis XV

Louis XV, the great-grandson of Louis XIV, was the only direct heir alive when the elderly king died in 1715. His reign was much more peaceful than his great-grandfather's, although three major wars occurred. First was the War of the Polish Succession of 1733. The second, the War of the Austrian Succession, began when Maria Theresa inherited the Habsburg monarchy in 1740. Her father Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor had appointed her as his heir, and other European countries agreed to respect his wishes. However, the new Prussian king, Frederick II, ignored the agreement, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, and annexed Habsburg Silesia.[11]

French Guards.[12]

Britain allied itself with Maria Theresa, while Louis XV forged an alliance with Frederick. Louis provided military support in the form of detachments from France's Irish Brigade, in support of Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745.[11] The Pragmatic Allies initially defeated the French in the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 but the battle had little effect on the wider war and has been described as "a happy escape, rather than a great victory".[13] A series of French victories (including Marshal de Saxe's great triumph at Fontenoy in 1745) made the French conquest of much of the Austrian Netherlands possible; however, this territory was returned to Austria at the end of the war.

The situation after the war was almost the same as before, but it set the stage for the

Indians attacked English settlements in North America. This war, known as the French and Indian War, was the last of four wars that occurred in North America at the same time as a European conflict. However, by 1759, the British had gone onto the offensive in America and captured Quebec, the French colonial capital.[14]

Fighting also occurred on the

Indian subcontinent during Louis XV's reign. During the War of the Austrian Succession, French troops captured several settlements in India, but its allies were defeated by British troops in 1756. On the whole, the Seven Years' War went badly for the French, who were forced to sign an unfavorable treaty
in 1763.

Collapse of the royal army

Siege of Yorktown

When Britain's North American colonies rebelled in 1775, France initially offered limited support. However, after the American victory in the

Jean-François Coste was appointed Chief Consulting Physician of the Camps and Armies of the King.[16]

By the 1780s, the political balance in France had shifted. The aristocracy had become despised by many lower-and-middle-class citizens who faced famine in the winter of 1788/89 and had almost no political freedom.

Versailles
or on their country estates.

Many French soldiers sympathised with the masses from which they were drawn, and increasing numbers deserted in 1789. The bulk of the rank and file of the

Gardes Françaises: the largest regiment of the maison militaire du roi de France and the permanent garrison of Paris, refused to obey their officers at a crucial point in the early stages of the Revolution. Some Gardes joined with the Parisian mob on 14 July 1789 and participated in the storming of the Bastille
, the medieval fortress-prison thought of as a symbol of governmental repression.

King Louis' powers were regulated by the National Assembly, which also authorized the creation of the National Guard, which was intended to be used as a counterweight to the royal army. The regular army was weakened by the flight of many aristocratic officers. Faced with the creation of soldiers' clubs (Jacobin committees), erosion of discipline, loss of their privileges as nobles and political mistrust,[18] perhaps two thirds of the commissioned ranks emigrated after June 1791.[19] They were largely replaced by experienced non-commissioned officers. In July 1791, twelve foreign regiments of mostly German mercenaries were amalgamated into the line, followed by the disbanding of the Swiss regiments a year later.[20]

Major reorganizations of the army took place in 1791 and 1792. New officers were elected and the structure of the army was changed. Battalions of volunteers were authorized and subsequently merged with surviving units of the former royal army, to form amalgamated demi-brigades.

Imperial Army, and during the Hundred Days
in 1815, was reconstituted before being officially disbanded.

First Bourbon restoration

Louis XVIII

Louis XVI was guillotined in 1793. By 1800, the First Republic, at war with much of Europe, had adopted a weak form of government that was overthrown by General Napoleon Bonaparte, who later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. When Austrian, British, Prussian, and Russian armies invaded France in 1814, Napoleon was forced to abdicate. Louis XVI's brother, the Count of Provence, was declared King Louis XVIII. Under Louis XVIII, no major changes were made to the army, beyond the recreation of several regiments of the pre-revolutionary maison militaire du roi. However, when Napoleon returned from exile in 1815, the army, for the most part, went over to his side, and Louis fled.

Second Bourbon restoration and July Revolution

Napoleon was defeated by a combined Allied army in 1815 at

Ferdinand VII when his regime was threatened by an uprising
.

In 1830, King

the Duke of Orléans was installed as Louis-Philippe I in what was supposed to be a constitutional monarchy. The army transferred its allegiance to Louis-Philippe's House of Orléans until his overthrow in 1848, when the short-lived Second Republic
was established.

Conflicts

Mounted grenadiers of Louis XV during the War of the Polish Succession

Notable battles

Franco-Spanish War

Franco-Dutch War

Nine Years' War

War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Polish Succession

War of the Austrian Succession

Seven Years' War/French and Indian War

Anglo-French War/American Revolutionary War

French Revolution/French Revolutionary Wars

French invasion of Spain

Notable personnel

Organisation

Before the French Revolution:

Following the First and Second Reformations:

Uniforms

French troops at Carillon in 1758 in white uniforms

The guard regiments of the Maison du Roi adopted complete uniforms in the early 1660s as a substitute for the cassocks with civilian clothing worn previously. As an example the Garden Francais were reported as wearing grey and red uniforms with silver embroidery shortly after 1661.[23] The line infantry adopted clothing in various regimental colours decided on by their colonels, in an extended process starting in the early 1660s but not completed until the late 1670s.[24] Cavalry wore buff leather coats and breeches without specific uniform features until "grey cloth lined in the same colour" and dark blue for royal mounted units was ordered in November 1671.[25]

During the 1680s there was a movement towards more standardised dress, although

tricorn like the fusiliers, rather than a mitre or a bearskin
. Bearskins came into full use by about 1770.

During the 18th century a series of revised dress regulations made for repeated changes in the

facing colours of individual infantry regiments. The Swiss and Irish mercenary regiments retained their red coats throughout this period, while other foreign units generally wore medium blue.[27] Cavalry wore a variety of green, blue or red regimental uniforms, largely according to the whim of individual colonels. The regiments of the Royal Household were similarly variegated, although dark blue dominated. The change from the white or off-white uniforms, traditionally associated with the line infantry of the royal army, to dark blue was completed in 1793 after the overthrow of the monarchy. White uniforms were restored after the Bourbon Restoration, although modified for a more modern appearance, introducing trousers rather than breeches, taller shakos, and Fleur-de-lis insignia. Dark blue coatees were adopted in 1819.[28]

In 1829/30, red trousers and breeches were adopted for most infantry and cavalry regiments.[29] These pantalon rouge were to remain as an iconic symbol of the French Army until the early months of World War I,[30] and survive in a limited number of modern ceremonial uniforms.[31]

Weaponry

Like most other late-seventeenth and eighteenth-century armies, the French Royal Army was equipped primarily with muskets. However, fusils became standard firearms.[26] Pikes were used by French forces early on during the reign of Louis XIV.

Recruitment

Voluntary enlistment for periods of six to eight years, through regimental recruiting parties, was the French Royal Army's standard method. However, periods of service might be compulsorily extended if individual units fell below strength.[32] Conscription generally applied only to levies in war-time for part-time militia.

Recruitment was in part undertaken on a provincial basis, although up to half of the rank and file of a given regiment might be drawn from outside the designated regional area.

Employment of Swiss mercenaries

Massacre of the Swiss Guards, 1792

During the 17th and 18th centuries twelve regiments of Swiss mercenaries were employed in the French Royal Army, notably the Swiss Guards. During the 10 August riot of 1792, supporters of the French Revolution, including members of the radical-leaning National Guard marched on the Tuileries Palace. King Louis XVI escaped with his family, but, after fighting broke out in the palace courtyard, the Swiss Guards were massacred by the mob. Some Guards, including the commander, were captured, jailed, and later guillotined.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-85045-850-1
    .
  2. ^ R.R. Palmer; Joel Colton (1978). A History of the Modern World (5th ed.). p. 161.
  3. ISBN 0-85045-850-1
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  4. ^ a b The Fronde: 1649–1652. Thenagain.info (1998-10-13). Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  5. ^ The Anglo-Spanish War: Flanders 1657–58 Archived 2018-01-15 at the Wayback Machine. British-civil-wars.co.uk (2008-06-25). Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  6. ^ War of Devolution, (1667–68). Historyofwar.org. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  7. ^ 1672 Disaster Year Archived 24 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Rijksmuseum
  8. ^ Sébastien de Vauban. Nndb.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  9. ^ King William's War. Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  10. ^ a b The Spanish Succession and the War of the Spanish Succession. Spanishsuccession.nl. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  11. ^ a b The War of Austrian Accession. Britishbattles.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  12. ^ LII. Louis XV., The Ministry of Cardinal Fleury, 1723–1748 Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine. Web-books.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  13. ^ Lecky, WEH (1878). A history of England in the Eighteenth century; Volume I.
  14. ^ The Battle of Quebec 1759 Archived 2008-12-18 at the Wayback Machine. Britishbattles.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  15. ^ The French Contribution to the American War of Independence. People.csail.mit.edu (1999-02-12). Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  16. ^ Lane, John E. (John Edward) (1928). Jean-Francois Coste : chief physician of the French expeditionary forces in the American revolution. Wellcome Library. [Somerville, N.J.] ; [New York city] : [The American historical society, inc.]
  17. ^ Causes of the French Revolution. Thecorner.org. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  18. ISBN 1-84176-552-X
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  19. ^ a b The French Army : Military : History : Wars. Napolun.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  20. ISBN 1-84176-660-7
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  21. ISBN 1-84176-660-7
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  22. ISBN 0-333-17236-1
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  23. ISBN 0-85045-850-1
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  24. ISBN 0-85045-850-1
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  25. ISBN 0-85045-850-1
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  26. ^ a b c The French Army : Military : History : Wars. Napolun.com. Retrieved on 2010-09-14.
  27. ISBN 2-203-14315-0
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  28. ISBN 2-203-14324-X
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  29. ISBN 2-203-14324-X
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  30. ISBN 0-85045-850-1
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  31. ISBN 0-85045-850-1
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  32. ISBN 1-85532-625-6
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