ABSTRACT
The extent to which the French Revolution led to a new age of European warfare has been a matter of controversy. Revolutionary and Napoleonic warfare can be seen in eighteenth-century terms in that there was scant novelty in the technology of war and the weaponry of battle. Furthermore, the tactical and strategic features associated with the French-a determination to win, a war of manoeuvre, enveloping strategic movements, and attack in column on the battlefield-were far less novel than is commonly argued. On the other hand, the popular enthusiasm displayed in 1792, the degree of mobilization for war displayed by Revolutionary France from 1793, the large numbers of men raised for the Revolutionary armies, and the enormous war effort made by Napoleonic France and its opponents, were recognizably different in type to the serious and sustained efforts that had been made in recent European conflicts. In his painting Marius Returning to Rome (1789), Baron François-Pascal-Simon Gérard prefigured the iron determination of Revolutionary violence. A demonic Marius leads a column of troops with heads on their spears, civilians are being slaughtered and there is terror on the face of the people.
