Subproject 3: Cultures of Violence in the Armies of the European Great Powers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Violent Offences and International Discourses (1792-1815)

• Applicant: Dr. Gundula Gahlen
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 407133841

This project aims to compare the military cultures of violence of the European great powers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. At the level of events and discourses, it examines internationally debated acts of violence in the armies of France, Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia. By focusing on acts of violence that were denounced as illegitimate, the project reveals the specific characteristics of the armies’ cultures of violence and their contemporary view of themselves and others in the context of wartime events. The project has a twofold aim: firstly, to clarify the question of whether specific cultures of violence existed in the armies during this period, how they developed during the wars and, above all, to what extent they contributed to excesses of violence - killings and acts of violence against civilians, prisoners of war and wounded soldiers, sexual and sexualised violence, looting and the destruction of cultural assets - by incorporating explanatory approaches from the history of violence and military history. Secondly, the project aims to analyse how excesses of violence in the context of warfare were interpreted and evaluated in the military, political, legal and social spheres of the European great powers of the time.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2898: Military Cultures of Violence - Illegitimate Military Violence from the Early Modern Period to the Second World War