National Guard (France)

On 5 December 1790 Robespierre held a speech on the urgent topic of the National Guard; envisaging an evolution from semi-organised militia to citizen-soldiers independent from the regular army. He repeated his ideas in the following year.[9][10][11] On 18 December it was decreed to supply the National Guard with 50,000 fusils.[12] According to Robespierre in January 1791 not only the National Guard but also the people had to be armed.[13][14] On 27 April 1791, Robespierre again opposed the plans for reorganizing the National Guard and restricting its membership to active citizens.[15][16] On 22 April and 15 June 1791, the Parliament recruited 400,000 National volunteers from the entire French National Guard. On 17 July 1791 Champ de Mars massacre took place. At the end of September a law passed to reorganize the National Guard formations in cantons and districts; each year officers and non-commissioned officers could be elected on 14 July.

Under the law of 14 October 1791, all active citizens and their children over 18 years were obliged to enlist in the National Guard. Their role was the maintenance of law and order and, if necessary, territorial defense in wartime. Following a nationwide scheme decided on in September 1791, the National Guard was organised on the basis of district or canton companies. Five of these neighbourhood units (designated as fusiliers or grenadiers) made up a National Guard infantry battalion. Eight to ten battalions comprised a legion. Districts might also provide companies of veterans and young citizens, respectively drawn from volunteers over 60 or under 18. Where possible, there was provision for mounted detachments and artillery batteries under the Guard.[17]

• The 23-years-old Napoleon Bonaparte began his "political career" as lieutenant-colonel of a Battalion of Corsican Volunteers in the National Guards (la Garde nationale des Volontaires corses) in February 1792.[18]
• Chevalier de Saint-Georges was one of the first in Lille to join its Garde Nationale.[lower-alpha 1]

On 2 July 1792, the Assembly authorized the National Guard's attendance as part of the Festival of Federation on 14 July, thus circumventing a royal veto. Section assemblies were permitting "passive" citizens to join their National Guard companies without seeking formal permission.[20] On 11 July, the Jacobins won an emergency vote in the wavering Assembly, declaring the nation in danger and drafting all Parisians with pikes or pistols into the National Guard.[21] On 17 July the municipality of Paris accepted all citizens armed with a pike for enlistment as part of the capital's own National Guard unit.

The citizens kept their weapons and their uniforms at home and set forth with them when required. The initially multi-coloured uniforms of the various provincial National Guard units were standardised in 1791, using as a model the dark blue coats with red collars, white lapels and cuffs worn by the Paris National Guard since its creation.[22] This combination of colours matched those of the then young revolutionary tricolour flag.

Soldiers of the Garde nationale of Quimper escorting royalist rebels in Brittany (1792). Painting by Jules Girardet.

The former Guet royal had held responsibility for the maintenance of law and order in Paris from 1254 to 1791, when the National Guard took over this role. In fact, the last commander of the Guet royal (Chevalier du Guet), de La Rothière, was elected to head the National Guard in 1791. In the summer of 1792, the fundamental character of the guard changed. The fédérés were admitted to the guard and the subsequent takeover of the guard by Antoine Joseph Santerre when Mandat was murdered in the first hours of the insurrection of 10 August placed a radical revolutionary at the head of the Guard. After the abolition of the monarchy (21 September 1792), the National Guard fought for the Revolution and it had an important role in forcing the wishes of the capital on the French National Assembly which was obliged to give way in front of the force of the "patriotic" bayonets. The Insurrection of 31 May started after François Henriot was chosen by the Commune to lead the Paris Guards.

After 9 Thermidor, year II (27 July 1794), the new government of the Thermidorian Reaction placed the National Guard under the control of more conservative leadership. Part of the National Guard then attempted to overthrow the Directory during the royalist insurrection on the 13 Vendémiaire, year IV (5 October 1795), but was defeated by forces led by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of 13 Vendémiaire. The Paris National Guard thereafter ceased to play a significant political role.

Philippe Lenoir, (1785–1867), French painter, in his National Guard uniform. By Horace Vernet (1789–1863)

Napoleon did not believe that the middle-class National Guard would be able to maintain order and suppress riots. Therefore, he created a Municipal Guard of Paris, a full-time gendarmerie which was strongly militarized. However, he did not abolish the National Guard but was content to partially disarm it. He kept the force in reserve and mobilised it for the defence of French territory in 1809 and 1814. In Paris during this period the National Guard comprised twelve thousand bourgeois property owners, serving part-time and equipped at their own expense, whose prime function was to guard public buildings on a roster basis.[23] Between 1811 and 1812 the National Guard was organized in "cohorts" to distinguish it from the regular army, and for home defence only. By a skilful appeal to patriotism, and judicious pressure applied through the prefects, it became a useful reservoir of half-trained men for new battalions of the active army.[24]

After the disastrous campaign in Russia in 1812, dozens of National Guard cohorts were called up for field duty the next year; four cohorts being combined to form one line infantry regiment. The 135ème to 156ème Régiments d'Infanterie de Ligne were thus formed.[25] Many of these fought in the campaigns in Germany in 1813 and the invasion of north-east France by Coalition forces in 1814. Existing National Guard units, such as those of Paris, were deployed as defence corps in their areas of recruitment. Mass conscription was extended to age groups previously exempt from military service, to provide more manpower for the expanded National Guard. Students and volunteers from gamekeepers and other professional groups formed separate units within the National Guard. Clothing and equipment were often in short supply and even the Paris National Guard was obliged to provide pikes as substitute weapons for some of its new recruits.[26] These field and regional units were disbanded in 1814 after the abdication of Napoleon I.

The National Guard at the Battle of Paris in 1814

Six thousand national guardsmen took part in the Battle of Paris in 1814. Following the occupation of Paris by the allied armies, the National Guard was expanded to 35,000 men and became the primary force for maintaining order within the city.[27]

Under the Restoration in 1814, the National Guard was maintained by Louis XVIII. Initially, the Guard, purged of its Napoleonic leadership, maintained good relations with the restored monarchy. The future Charles X served as its Colonel-General, reviewed the force regularly and intervened to veto its proposed disbandment on the grounds of economy by the Conseil Municipal of Paris.[28] However, by 1827, the middle-class men who still composed the Guard had come to feel a degree of hostility towards the reactionary monarchy. Following hostile cries, at a review on 29 April Charles X dissolved the Guard the following day, on the grounds of offensive behaviour towards the crown.[29] He neglected to disarm the disbanded force, and its muskets resurfaced in 1830 during the July Revolution.

Napoleon III confined the National Guard during the Second Empire to subordinate tasks to reduce its liberal and republican influence. During the Franco-Prussian War the Government of National Defense of 1870 called on the Guard to undertake a major role in defending Paris against the invading Prussian army. During the uprising of the Paris Commune, from March to May 1871, the National Guard in Paris was expanded to include all able-bodied citizens capable of carrying weapons. Following the Commune's defeat by the regular French Army, the National Guard was officially abolished and its units disbanded. Also disbanded was the Mobile National Guard (Garde Nationale Mobile) raised in 1866 to provide personnel and officers for rapid deployment operations nationwide, as well as to provide reserve personnel for the armed forces.

French Garde Nationale soldier with Tabatière rifle, 1870

Despite its major role in the Franco-Prussian War, the National Guard was disbanded soon after the establishment of the Third Republic. Having been converted from a volunteer reserve into a much larger force composed mainly of conscripts, the National Guard had lost its identity and raison d'être. It also faced opposition from the regular army which was opposed to such a large armed force outside its direct control. The role of the Paris units of the National Guard in the uprising of the Paris Commune led to a great degree of hostility towards the National Guard, especially from the army.

Perceived as an embodiment of the revolutionary republican "nation in arms" at the time of the Revolution of 1789, the National Guard was formally disbanded on 14 March 1872 as a threat to the security and order of the new Third Republic.

The National Guard was superseded by the creation of territorial regiments, made up of older men who had completed their period of full-time military service. These reserve units were embodied only in times of general mobilisation but remained an integral part of the regular army, distinguished only by details of insignia.

• Banat, Gabriel (2006). The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press. ISBN 978-1-57647-109-8.
• Crowdy, Terry (2004). French Revolutionary Infantry 1789–1802. Oxford: Osprey. p. 14. ISBN 1-84176-660-7.
• Mansel, Philip (2003). Paris Between Empires – Monarchy and Revolution 1814–1852. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 13–14, 217–218. ISBN 0-312-30857-4.
• Maude, Frederic Natusch (1911). "Napoleonic Campaigns" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 212–236.
• Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1st Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books, Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0679726101.

• Bianchi, Serge (ed.) ; Dupuy, Roger (ed.). La Garde nationale entre Nation et peuple en armes: Mythes et réalités, 1789–1871. New edition [online]. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2006 (generated 04 juillet 2021). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/pur/16594>. ISBN 978-2753531796. doi:10.4000/books.pur.16594.
• Roger Dupuy (2010) La Garde nationale 1789–1872. Paris, Gallimard, ISBN 978-2-07-034716-2
• Genty, Maurice. Les débuts de la Garde nationale parisienne (1789–1791) In: La Garde nationale entre Nation et peuple en armes: Mythes et réalités, 1789–1871 [online]. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2006 (generated 04 juillet 2021). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/pur/16612>. ISBN 978-2753531796. doi:10.4000/books.pur.16612.
• Tulard, Jean; Fayard, Jean-François; Fierro, Alfred (1987). Histoire et dictionnaire de la Révolution française, 1789–1799. Bouquins (in French). Paris: Robert Laffont. ISBN 2-7028-2076-X.
• Bruce Vandervort, National Guard (France), on the online Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions, James Chastain, ed.