General Defense Committee

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The General Defense Committee ( French Comité de la défense générale ) was a short-term from January 4 to March 24, 1793 existing central committee, which - in contrast to the Provisional Executive Council - represented the legislative part of the French government.

The General Defense Committee should be appointed by the other committees. The new institution was therefore an offshoot of the existing committees and was therefore still closely linked to the Convention. The legislature had reacted according to the same logic and created the Commission of Twelve on March 6, 1792, which was converted into the Commission of 21 on July 18, 1792 by integrating 9 additional members in order to give it a more Jacobean color. The Central Committee consisted of three members each from the Petitions, Agriculture, Trade, Monitoring, Military, and Administrative Committees.

On January 1, 1793, MP Armand de Kersaint reported to the National Convention on the change in the conduct of the British Government on everything to do with the Revolution, on its armament and its preparations against France. In a draft decree in 9 articles, he proposed various provisions, mainly related to the navy. Article 9 was the subject of an immediate decree stating: “The Committees on War, Finance and Colonial, Navy, Diplomacy, Constitution and Trade will each appoint three of their members who will meet in a committee, particularly locally, at the name of the General Defense Committee . This committee will continuously deal with the ministers, the measures required for the coming struggle and the current state of affairs. "

The seven main committees of the Convention were invited to appoint three of their members, but the Naval Committee appointed five and the Diplomatic Committee delegated four, for a total of 24 members instead of the originally planned 21.

The MPs nominated by their colleagues were mostly experienced MPs who had attended either the Constituent Assembly (11) or the Legislative Assembly (12), with the exception of the three delegates from the Trade Committee. The Girondins Marc Antoine Alexis Giraud from the Charente-Inférieure and Jean-Marie François Merlino from the Ain played a decisive role . The Gironde had a simple majority of eleven MPs, while the Mountain Party had only seven and the Marais only four.

The members of the committees in detail:

The devastating criticism of the poor and chaotic way of working of the committee, especially put forward by Charles-François Dumouriez , led to the committee being replaced on March 25, 1793 by the newly created welfare commission.