Politics, professionalism, and the fate of army generals after thermidor

Rough drafts and preparatory notes generated by repeated attempts to reduce and reorganize the general staffs during 1795 provide a unique insight into the interaction of professionalism and politics in determining the fate of army generals after Thermidor. Twenty-five years are usually described as ones in which France acquired a praetorian army led by military professionals largely beyond the control of civilian authorities and increasingly willing to interfere in national politics. The government’s choice of generals helped to ensure that Bonaparte took over a considerably more professional army when he seized power in 1799 than had driven foreign armies from France in 1794. The overall quality of French generals reached its revolutionary nadir in early 1794. This is not generally admitted by historians, most of whom laud the Revolutionary Government for having appointed many of the generals who later became Napoleonic marshals.