The first generals of the Republic were fighting-men, and nothing more. The principal direction of affairs was in the hands of Carnot and of the Committee of Public Safety: it was sometimes judicious, but often bad. Carnot was the author of one of the finest strategic movements of the war. In 1793 he sent a reserve of fine troops successively to the aid of Dunkirk, Maubeuge, and Landau, so that this small force, moving rapidly from point to point, and aided by the troops already collected at these different points, compelled the enemy to evacuate France.
The campaign of 1794 opened badly. It was the force of circumstances, and not a premeditated plan, which brought about the strategic movement of the army of the Moselle on the Sambre; and it was this which led to the success of Fleurus and the conquest of Belgium.
In 1795 the mistakes of the French were so great that they were imputed to treachery. The Austrians, on the contrary, were better commanded by Clairfayt, Chateler, and Schmidt than they had been by Mack and the Prince of Coburg. The Archduke Charles, applying the principle of interior lines, triumphed over Moreau and Jourdan in 1796 by a single march.
Up to this time the fronts of the French armies had been large,—either to procure subsistence more easily, or because the generals thought it better to put all the divisions in line, leaving it to their commanders to arrange them for battle. The reserves were small detachments, incapable of redeeming the day even if the enemy succeeded in overwhelming but a single division. Such was the state of affairs when Napoleon made his début in Italy. His activity from the beginning worsted the Austrians and Piedmontese: free from useless incumbrances, his troops surpassed in mobility all modern armies. He conquered the Italian peninsula by a series of marches and strategic combats. His march on Vienna in 1797 was rash, but justified by the necessity of overcoming the Archduke Charles before he could receive reinforcements from the Rhine.