This subdivision of forces was intimately connected with the general method of making war adopted by the "New French," as their enemies called them. What astonished the Allies most of all was the number and the velocity of the Republicans. These improvised armies had in fact nothing to delay them. Tents were unprocurable for want of money, untransportable for want of the enormous number of wagons that would have been required, and also unnecessary, for the discomfort that would have caused wholesale desertion in professional armies was cheerfully borne by the men of 1793-1794. Supplies for armies of then unheard-of size could not be carried in convoys, and the French soon became familiar with "living on the country." Thus 1793 saw the birth of the modern system of war--rapidity of movement, full development of national strength, bivouacs and requisitions, and force, as against cautious manoeuvring, small professional armies, tents and full rations, and chicane. The first represented the decision-compelling spirit, the second the spirit of risking little to gain a little. Above all, the decision-compelling spirit was reinforced by the presence of the emissaries of the Committee of Public Safety, the "representatives on mission" who practically controlled the guillotine. There were civil officials with the armies of the Allies too, but their chief function was not to infuse desperate energy into the military operations, but to see that the troops did not maltreat civilians. Such were the fundamental principles of the "New French" method of warfare, from which the warfare of to-day descends in the direct line. But it was only after a painful period of trial and error, of waste and misdirection, that it became possible for the French army to have evolved Napoleon, and for Napoleon to evolve the principles and methods of war that conformed to and profited to the utmost by the new conditions. Those campaigns and battles of this army which are described in detail in the present article have been selected, some on account of their historical importance--as producing great results; others from their military interest--as typifying and illustrating the nature of the revolution undergone by the art of war in these heroic years. CAMPAIGNS IN THE NETHERLANDS