ABSTRACT
Central European history in the period of the French Revolution and Revolutionary Wars (1789–1801) is normally depicted as a clash between old and new in which the “moribund” Reich stood little chance of withstanding the new ideology and force of a unified national state. 1 In nowhere else does the contrast seem more pronounced than in the field of military organization: against unified, centralized France with its mass army of motivated citizens-inar ms was pitted the apparently antiquated Reic h, with its decentralized, fragmented structure producing an army that was an object of mockery, commanded by incompetents and composed of men held together only by fear of punishment. 2 Explanations for the Reich’s collapse by 1806 are inseparable from accounts of the French victor ies, since the two are seen as different sides of the same coin; the revolutionary transformation of France enabling it to defeat the obsolete, reactionar y Ger man political system. This chapter reappraises these arguments to indicate that the Reich coped comparatively well with both the ideological and material challenge from France, falling less through the strength of its enemies than through a lack of political will from its main components to continue its defence.
