Research Project

Violence in the French and Austrian armies in the context of military penal law, the law of war and the customs of war during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815)

During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815), there was no codified international law of war to regulate the violent behaviour of armies. Instead, there were three types of law whose rules often overlapped and sometimes contradicted each other. First, the armies involved were subject to an already highly differentiated military penal law as a unilateral disciplinary law imposed by the state. Second, there was the law of war, which was discussed by lawyers as a branch of international law and whose content was disseminated by the press in particular. Thirdly, there was the customary law that had developed in military organisations, which could have different facets depending on the army and sometimes even the unit, and which often appears in sources under the heading of customs of war. Focusing on the French and Austrian armies, my EViR project will analyse how these three types of law developed in the course of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, how they related to each other, and what significance they had for the legitimate and illegitimate assessment of violence in the French and Austrian armies.