Thread by @dhmontgomery

Last week I wrote about how student radicals were one of the big drivers behind France's wave of revolutionary conspiracy in 1821-2. Today I'd like to talk a little bit more about the other big group of conspirators: soldiers (and especially ex-soldiers). 1/

https://twitter.com/dhmontgomery/status/1335966965433774082

2/ The archetypical anti-government veteran in France’s Bourbon Restoration (1814-1830) was the “demi-solde,” or “half-pay officer.” These were former soldiers who were no longer on active duty, but instead were sort of pensioned off, receiving half their old salary.

3/ At first glance, that doesn’t sound bad — you get half your old salary for doing nothing at all? But there are good reasons that many demi-soldes were quite resentful.

4/ The most obvious is that these were professional military officers, who enjoyed their career and were good at it, and now had that denied to them.

5/ But even beyond that, the circumstances of being a demi-solde had limitations. You weren’t actually pensioned — you were technically still in the military. Which meant that you were forbidden to work other jobs. Your half salary was ALL you got (unless you had wealth).

6/ You could always quit the army, of course, and do whatever you wanted. But these were, again, professional soldiers who wanted to be in the army. Being a demi-solde meant at least a *chance* that you’d eventually get called up to active duty again.

7/ The circumstances of all this was the military wind-down after the Napoleonic Wars. King Louis XVIII slashed the army’s ranks for budget reasons — France was nearly broke, and didn’t NEED a huge army now that it was at peace, so reductions saved money — but also politics.

8/ France’s huge Napoleonic army included lots of army officers who were still politically sympathetic to Napoleon — “Bonapartists.” The Hundred Days in 1815, when Napoleon escaped Elba and co-opted the French army, showed the danger of leaving these men in command.

9/ So huge numbers of active duty officers were put on half-pay status. And the officers most likely to keep their posts were the ones who were ostentatiously loyal to Louis XVIII, while Bonapartist officers often found themselves on half-pay.

10/ On active duty, a captain might earn 148 francs/month, or 1,776/year, a respectable salary. A lieutenant could earn 88/month, a sous-lieutenant 82.

Now halve that: 74, 44, 41 francs per month.

An unskilled day laborer earned between 30 & 60 francs/month at this time.

11/ Beyond just scraping by in forced retirement, unable to do another trade, the government (very reasonably) saw these men as security risks — and so subjected them to constant surveillance. Insult to injury.

12/ So it’s not surprising that these demi-soldes became notorious anti-government intriguers, and that many of them were quick join up when secret societies began plotting coups in 1821, as I cover in Episode 23 of @TheSiecle: thesiecle.com/episode23/

@TheSiecle 13/ In fact, this idea of the Bonapartist demi-solde has become a bit overblown. Only a small share of the thousands of half-pay officers were ever identified as seditious; as one historian writes, “many of them were ostentatiously loyal in the hope of recall.”

14/ But it wasn’t a myth. A "very vocal and highly visible minority” of demi-soldes were active in the political opposition, through both legal and illegal means, during the Bourbon Restoration.

15/ Those demi-soldes lucky enough to live in Paris were especially likely to conspire.

Another drawback of half-pay status was you were required to live in your home town — often some tiny village these officers had left a decade or two ago, and had few ties to.

16/ In Paris, aside from the city’s many other charms, there was at least the possibility that you could work some connections with the war ministry to get put back on active duty. It happened occasionally, if rarely. In your “home town” that was much less likely.

17/ So these put-upon half-pay officers were prime recruits for anti-government conspiracies — and welcome recruits, since veterans could be very useful in getting to the conspirators’ real recruitment targets: *active-duty* soldiers, who could provide the muscle for a coup.

18/18 You can find out how this conspiring all went down in the latest episode of my history podcast, @TheSiecle: thesiecle.com/episode23/