The French Revolutionary armies initially lost, and badly, which Rochambeau and Lafayette had predicted, outraged that the Assembly was pressing Louis XVI to declare war when the armies were not prepared.3 Moreover, the army had a plethora of problems: the first army commanders were aristocrats and not fully trusted — Rochambeau, Arthur Dillon, Lafayette, Dumouriez, et al. Commanders depended too much on zeal. There was a shortage of officers, formerly almost all aristocrats, some 55 percent of whom had fled the country; they were replaced by middle-class volunteers and former N C O s who (at first)

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were obeyed selectively, if at all. The troops were infected with vague democratic ideas, which emboldened them to question their generals' orders and demand votes, with catastrophic results.