Terror in the Army: Representatives on Mission and Military Discipline in the Armies of the French Revolution

This article explores the role of the French National Convention’s representatives on mission in relation to the functioning of military courts in the armies of the French Revolution. It argues that the intervention of representatives on mission, while at times dramatic, was not necessarily the only, or even dominant, factor in determining the exercise of military justice. Although both representatives on mission and court officers insisted that harsh exemplary punishment was the key in military discipline and expressed an ideological antipathy toward the officer caste, the pattern of sentencing gives evidence of both moderation and pragmatism.