What happened?
America tried militias that elected their leaders and could dismiss them (pretty similar to the Cherokees I was rambling about) in the War of 1812 and it played out poorly.
Broke out my Osprey on French Revolutionary Infantry and Fighting the French Revolution.
Some highlights:
*Volunteer regiments, which France heavily relied on and promoted in the early years, had a clause where they could go home at any time as long as they gave their commanding officer two months notice. Combined with the soldiers having a massive shortage of warm clothing, it meant that these units would melt away once winter came. Once they were done looting or murdering superior officers. The republican government had to resort to putting up fliers in town squares with their names shaming them into not ending their contracts.
*not surprising with this fetishization of equality, units were often prone to insubordination; one case involves several battalions from Paris refusing to fight unless they could bring their cannon
*speaking of a lack of supplies, up to a third of the infantry didn't even have guns in some units. They had to use
pikes, the "true weapon the of the sovereign people" or even farming equipment
*By the start of the Revolutionary Wars in 1792, 60% the country's officer corp had fled the country. An even higher percentage of naval officers left. Reason being...
*sans-culottes (read: 18th century French antifa except poor) with little to no military experience were promoted over experienced officers, as the Jacobins feared that the later were secret royalists (ci-devant) and counterrevolutionary while the former were paragons of the revolution
*this resulted in a lot of demotions, imprisonments, and executions of officers for failures both real and imagined. A LOT of executions. One such case: General Houchard defeated an Anglo-German army at the battle of Hondschoote in 1793. Soon after, he was arrested and guillotined because if he so easily defeated the enemy, why didn't he launch a counter attack?. Obvious royalist spy! Off with his head!
