levée en masse

Levée en masse (Fr., mass levy) (23 August 1793). Responding to continued military crisis during the French Revolutionary wars, the National Convention sought to call up more troops to defend the new republic. Appeals for volunteers had gone out in 1791 and 1792, and limited conscription had been applied since then, but more recruits were needed again by the summer of 1793. After debate, the Representatives in the Convention declared a levée en masse in the following terms: ‘Young men will go to battle; married men will forge arms and transport supplies; women will make tents, uniforms, and serve in the hospitals; children will pick rags; old men will have themselves carried to public squares, to inspire the courage of the warriors, and to preach the hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic.’

This was more than conscription; it mobilized an entire nation. The practical effect was to send all able-bodied unmarried men aged 18 to 25 to the front, an infusion of some 300, 000 new recruits who raised the official strength of the army to 1, 000, 000 men. However, the impact of the levée en masse went beyond this, for it announced a new era of warfare in which peoples, not simply rulers, fought.

Bibliography

• Bertaud, Jean-Paul, The Army of the French Revolution, trans. R. R. Palmer (Princeton, 1988).
• Lynn, John A., The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791-1794 (Boulder, Colo., 1996)

— John A. Lynn

Universal military conscription; the call-up for military service of all or most of a nation's male population of military age. The first levée en masse in modern times was the announcement by the French revolutionary government in August 1793 of the conscription of the entire male population (of military age) to resist counter-revolutionary forces.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.