Collage of French national guardsmen, and French painter Philippe Lenoir in National Guard uniform.
The National Guard was the home forces of the First French Republic and French Empire that were responsible for putting down insurrections in their home country as well as serving as the standing army during extreme cases, such as the French Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s and the Defense of France in the 1814 campaign.
History[]
National Guardsmen at the Battle of Bar-le-Duc in 1814.
The French National Guard was formed in 1789, a result of “la Grande Peur”, or the “Great Fear”. Failed harvests led to unrest and the National Assembly needed a police force. The Troupes Provinciales were unreliable because they were recruited, by lottery, from the peasantry who were the source of the unrest. The National Guard, on the other hand, attracted the middle classes to its ranks, if only because guardsmen were expected to pay for their own uniforms and equipment. That social difference made them a more reliable force.
During the French Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s the French army consisted almost exclusively of National Guardsmen, hastily assembled to defend France from the First Coalition. At the Battle of Neerwinden in 1793 the French National Guard was defeated and Charles Dumouriez defected from the French ranks, and the French army reformed, lest they face the same consequences of lacking a professional standing army.
In 1814, when Paris was occupied by the Sixth Coalition, the National Guard recruited 35,000 men. It was meant for maintaining public order, and it performed this job under the Bourbon Monarchy. In 1830 it fought the July Revolution and although they were defeated, they were kept in power by the House of Orleans. Their general Georges Mouton crushed the June Rebellion in 1832 and other rebellions. In 1848, however, it assisted the republican rebels and overthrew Louis-Philippe I of France.
In 1870 the National Guard was bolstered by new volunteers in order to defend against the Prussian invaders who were fighting in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1871 it became the armed wing of the Commune of Paris rebels, who declared independence from the Third French Republic. Upon the rebellion's quashing in 1872, the National Guard was suppressed and disbanded. In 2016, the National Guard was reestablished as a 75,000-strong reserve force in reaction to Salafist terrorist attacks.