Changing Attitudes to the Army's Role in French Society

THE ARMED FORCES, whose existence protects the integrity, ensures the prestige and serves the ends of a civil society, can be seen as a mere instrument, or as an emanation of this society. The former approach characterized pre-revolutionary Europe, in which all dynasties recruited mercenary troops whilst relying on the nobility's tradition of service to the sovereign and quest for military glory to provide the cadres of their armies. The second was exemplified under the Revolution by the nation-in-arms endeavouring to repel the onslaught of a European coalition. To a new kind of warfare, directed against the principles on which the organization of the civil society rested, corresponded a new kind of army. Since it was no longer separated from the community, it was bound to reflect the divisions existing therein and to become involved in internal political upheavals. Even when military intervention in the political sphere was ordered or prompted by the government of the country, as was repeatedly the case in the last years of the revolutionary period, it created a dangerous precedent. The republican ideal of a national army resulted in making the army responsible for the fate of the State, even though it did not seek this responsibility. Therefore one of the contradictions latent in this ideal led to bona

Sociology · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis

• The French Army

  Open Access•Henry Bertram Hill, Paul-Marie De La Gorce•Modern Language Journal•1963

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