Levée en masse (literally "massed levy" or "mass uprising") is defined in Article 4, letter A paragraph 6 of the Third Geneva Convention The Third Geneva Convention, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was first adopted in 1929, but was significantly updated in 1949. It defines humanitarian protections for prisoners of war. It is a French French is a Romance language globally spoken by about 110 million people who speak French (native and first language speakers combined). Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as as an acquired foreign language.[citation needed] French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and term for mass conscription Conscription is a general term for involuntary enrollment in the service of a country. It is most often used in the specific sense of requiring citizens to serve in the armed forces. It is known by various names — for example, the most recent conscription program in the United States was known colloquially as "the draft". Many nations during the French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states. Marked by French revolutionary fervour and military innovations, the campaigns saw the French Revolutionary Armies defeat a number of opposing coalitions and expand French control to, particularly for the one from 23 August 1793.
Terminology
The term Levée en masse denotes a short-term requisition of all able-bodied men to defend the nation A nation is a grouping of people who share real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, often possessing or seeking its own government. The development and conceptualization of a nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth and has to be viewed in connection with the political events in revolutionary France, namely the new concept of the democratic citizen Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities. "Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public service, volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens. In this as opposed to a royal subject.
Central to the understanding of the Levée is the idea that the new political rights given to the mass of the French people also created new obligations to the state. As the nation now understood itself as a community of all people, its defense also was assumed to become a responsibility of all. Thus, the Levée en masse was created and understood as a means to defend the nation for the nation by the nation.
Historically, the Levée en masse heralded the age of the people's war and displaced prior restricted forms of warfare as the cabinet wars (1715 - 1792) when armies of professional soldiers fought without general participation of the population.
The French Revolutionary Wars
The first modern use levée en masse occurred during the French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states. Marked by French revolutionary fervour and military innovations, the campaigns saw the French Revolutionary Armies defeat a number of opposing coalitions and expand French control to. Under the Ancien Régime Ancien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social, and political system established in France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties (14th century to 18th century). The term is French for "Former Regime," but rendered in English as "Old Rule," "Old Order," or simply "Old (or Ancient) Regime", there had been some conscription (by ballot) to a militia, milice, to supplement the large standing army in times of war. This had proven unpopular with the peasant communities on which it fell and was one of their grievances which they expected to be addressed by the French States-General In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly (see The States) of the different classes (or estates) of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king. It had no true power in its own right; unlike the English parliament it, when it were convened in 1789 to put the French monarchy on a sounder footing. When this led instead to the French Revolution The French Revolution was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from liberal political, the milice was duly abolished by the National Assembly The National Assembly is either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral \|Reichstag]]) later. The legislature of the Estado Novo regime in Portugal was dubbed National Assembly, while the Corporative Assembly was a purely advisory chamber.
The progression of the Revolution came to produce friction between France and its European neighbors, who grew determined to invade France to restore the monarchical regime. War with Prussia Prussia (German: Preußen ; Latin: Borussia, Prutenia; Latvian: Prūsija; Lithuanian: Prūsija; Polish: Prusy; Old Prussian: Prūsa) was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history. The last capital of the state of and Austria Austria /ˈɔːstriə/ (German: Österreich (help·info)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich; Austro-Bavarian: Repubblik Östareich), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to was declared in April 1792. The invading forces were met in France by a mixture of what was left of the old professional army and volunteers (it was these, not the levée en masse, that won the battle of Valmy The Battle of Valmy, also known as the Cannonade of Valmy, was a tactically indecisive artillery engagement, but strategically it ensured the survival of the French Revolution. As such, and despite its minor size, it appears as one of the most decisive battles in history, as well as one of the first times a mix of old soldiers and raw volunteers in September 1792).
By February 1793 the new regime needed more men, so the National Convention passed a decree on 14 February allowing for the a national levy Conscription is a general term for involuntary enrollment in the service of a country. It is most often used in the specific sense of requiring citizens to serve in the armed forces. It is known by various names — for example, the most recent conscription program in the United States was known colloquially as "the draft". Many nations of about 300,000 with each French département In the terminology of political geography and historiography a national department is an administrative political subdivision of a country established by the cognizant (usually legislative) government authority holding sovereign power for the territory to supply a quota of recruits. By March 1793 France was at war with Austria Austria /ˈɔːstriə/ (German: Österreich (help·info)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich; Austro-Bavarian: Repubblik Östareich), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to, Prussia Prussia (German: Preußen ; Latin: Borussia, Prutenia; Latvian: Prūsija; Lithuanian: Prūsija; Polish: Prusy; Old Prussian: Prūsa) was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history. The last capital of the state of, Spain Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small, Britain The Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1801. It was created by the merger of the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England, under the Acts of Union 1707, to create a single kingdom encompassing the whole of the island of Great, Piedmont Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,399 km2 and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys. Franco-Provençal is also spoken by another minority in the alpine heights of the Province of Turin. The name and the United Provinces The Dutch Republic, officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands Republic of the United Netherlands the Seventeen Provinces or Republic of the Seven United Provinces (Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Provinciën), was a European republic existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands. Alternative names. The introduction of recruitment for the Levy in the Vendée The Vendée is a department in the Pays-de-la-Loire region in west central France, on the Atlantic Ocean. The name Vendée is taken from the Vendée river which runs through the south-eastern part of the department, a political and religiously conservative region, added to local discontent over other revolutionary directives emanating from Paris, and on 11 March the Vendée erupted into civil war—just days after France declared war on Spain and adding further strains on the French armies' limited manpower.[1] By some accounts, only about half this number appears to have been actually raised, bringing the army strength up to about 645,000 in mid-1793, and the military situation continued to worsen.
In response to this desperate situation, at war with European states, and insurrection, a levée en masse was decreed by the National Convention During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic. It was succeeded by the Directory, commencing 2 November 1795. Prominent on 23 August 1793 in ringing terms, beginning:
- From this moment until such time as its enemies shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic, all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the services of the armies. The young men shall fight; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn old lint into linen; the old men shall betake themselves to the public squares in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic.[2]
All unmarried able-bodied men between 18 and 25 were requisitioned with immediate effect for military service. This significantly increased the number of men in the army, reaching a peak of about 1,500,000 in September 1794, although the actual fighting strength probably peaked at no more than 800,000. In addition, as the decree suggests, much of the civilian population was turned towards supporting the armies through armaments production and other war industries as well as supplying food and provisions to the front.
As Barere put it, '…all the French, both sexes, all ages are called by the nation to defend liberty'
For all the rhetoric, the levée en masse was not popular; desertion and evasion were high. But the effort was sufficient to turn the tide of the war, and there was no need for any further conscription until 1797, when a more permanent system of annual intakes was instituted. An effect of the levée en masse was the creation of a national army in France, made up of citizens, rather than an all professional army, as was the standard practice of the time.
Its main result, protecting French borders against all enemies surprised and shocked Europe. The levée en masse was also effective in that by putting on the field many men, even untrained, it required France's opponents to man all fortresses and expand their own standing armies, far beyond their capacity to pay professional soldiers.
The levée en masse also offered many opportunities for untrained people who could demonstrate their military proficiency, allowing the French army to build a strong officer and non-commissioned cadre.
Though not a novel idea—cf. thinkers as diverse as Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of natural philosophy, science, and Western philosophy, above and the lawyer and linguist Sir William Jones Sir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages. He was also the founder of the Asiatic Society (who thought every adult male should be armed with a musket at public expense)—the actual practice of a levée en masse was rare before the French Revolution. The levée was a key development in modern warfare and would lead to steadily larger armies with each successive war - culminating in the enormous bloodbaths of World War I World War I was a military conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918 and involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 15 million people were and World War II Albania · Australia · Austria · Azerbaijan · Belarus · Belgium · Brazil · Bulgaria · Burma · Cambodia · Canada · Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Channel Islands · China · Czechoslovakia · Denmark · Dutch East Indies · Egypt · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Gibraltar · Greece · Japanese occupation of Hong Kong · Hungary · during the first half of the 20th century.
References
- ^ James Maxwell Anderson (2007). Daily Life During the French Revolution. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 205. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique[clarification needed] numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin,[clarification needed] for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0313336830. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LWLkLT_hEsQC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&source=web&ots=wdiRCxv0t9&sig=bUlrxRpKrBWmUkKfS6WBKQuI_LQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result.
- ^ Original decree in French
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