This open access book focuses on the contested understandings of illegitimate war violence during the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars. In using the concept of illegitimate violence as a tool of analysis, it sheds new light on the evaluation of war violence and the associated dynamics in the age of revolutions and reforms. It argues that instead of analysing the various systems of norms and the extent to which they were observed, it is far more useful to start with concrete practices of violence in the wars that were perceived as illegitimate and to examine the associated discourses, the interaction between discourses and practices, and the dynamics of violence. This approach allows for far-reaching insights into the patterns of interpretation, values and behaviour of belligerents that go beyond contemporary notions of ius in bello. In examining the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars through the lens of illegitimate war violence, this volume therefore also contributes to a better understanding of the international and national postwar legal, security and civil order.

Tanja Bührer is Professor of Global History at the University of Salzburg, Austria.

Isabelle Deflers is Professor of Early Modern History at the Universität der Bundeswehr Munich, Germany.

Gundula Gahlen is  Professor of Police History and Political Education at the German Police University in Münster, Germany.