2 - ‘The best means of national safety’: moral reform in wartime, 1795–1815

Summary

There can be no doubt that the era of the French wars marked as decisive a phase in debate about national morals as it did in debate about political rights or, for that matter, about the nature of human society itself. Prolonged experience of war, it may be argued, has a potentially dual impact on the perception and definition of morals. On the one hand, the economic and social confusions and uprootings which accompany war may act as a solvent on existing values and standards of behaviour. On the other hand, war may act as a generator of social cohesion. The stimulus of facing a clearly defined enemy may encourage, at the least, the expression of atavistic fears and passions – at the most, an attempt to impose disciplines of ideologically based conformity with virtually unlimited social reach.

Dimensions of wartime moral anxiety

English society during the French wars showed signs of reacting in both these ways. The war which began in February 1793 was an inescapable experience for a whole generation. Its impacts were both material and ideological. On the level of material life the demands which war placed on resources were unprecedented and the degree of mobilisation achieved has been compared with that of World War I. The most direct impact was that made on the lives of those one in six men who, at the height of mobilisation, were serving in the regular army, in the militia or in the various volunteer forces raised for home defence.