Honor and military pay. The insurrection of the “captains” in Rome (February-March 1798)

Résumé 0

The wave of mutinies that broke out within the Italian army at the beginning of 1798 did not spare the military detachment from Rome. In Rome, however, the military Fronde took a singular turn. Even if it was driven, directed and controlled from beginning to end by junior officers, its main motivation was not only the recovery of back pay, but in addition the restoration of army’s honor, debased by the squandering committed by the general staff during the invasion of the Papal States. Largely eclipsed by the anti-French revolt that followed, this uprising was sometimes attributed to the controversial personality of Masséna, and sometimes reduced to a simple version of a counter-revolutionary plot. Against these interpretations, this article will examine the singularity of this insurrection of the captains by studying the specificities of the Roman terrain in which it took root, as well as the distinct political logic of this new Republic that the “captains” sought less to bury than to safeguard.