La Grande Armée (Episode 2) - The Infantry & Officer Corps [10:03-15:06]

Compoteur, or trumpeteers, performed the light regiments signals in the same way as the tambouriste of the line. Experiments ensued, all failures. Though the shrill tone of the cornet pierced the air-like lightning, it couldn't produce the range of sounds needed for a line regiments complex signals. Bugles, glera in French, proved a better fit, but no match for the drums. A happy byproduct of this experimentation was the introduction of wind and brass instruments into la musique. Though they weren't fit for battlefield use, most regiments did adopt cornets and giggles as well as fives for use during marches. The fives was particularly popular as it could play a pure tone and so was perfect for holding a tune during marching songs. The French had no shortage of proud and irreverent marching songs which the troops belted out as they marched. The simplest would be body tavern songs and shanties, or diddies recalling half-on-home. Six, like saïra, l'Arcarmanole, veillant au soleur de l'Empire, and la chante de Père, were popular with veterans of the revolutionary era. Each found a new life in the voices of France's next generation, alongside some originals. La Marche du premier consul, echoed from the 1800 Italian campaign well into the heyday of the Empire. Why far the most popular song was La Mercieze, a revolutionary anthem reluctantly adopted by Napoleon as the official imperial anthem. Official five-and-drum marches, like la victoire éternue, le drapeau d'Astélitz, Malbec, le Paire d'Oblé, and le Paire de Chauch, were often accompanied by lyrics concocted by board troops. Indeed this habit of adding lyrics to marching beats or martial refrains, produced most of the songs of this era. This is how the famous refrain, le chanson de le magnum, literally the song of the onion, was popularized by the consula and later imperial god, from where it spread to the rest of the army. Returning the favour, the rank and file took the tune of la rousse chiffonnerie, but added their own lyrics to make en bas le bit perse le flanc. Literally, we're going to piece his sides, or to invoke the spirit in which it was meant will stab him in the arse. Alongside the unofficial list of martial songs was an official list of approved marches to be played of a ceremonial or celebratory occasions. This higher order of music necessitated a dedicated, non-combat band beyond call for each regiment. There was no room for amateurism or improvisation in la musique autre, as compared to the music of five and drum. A classically trained band master, a chef de musique, and picked an eight-man band. Soldiers in the regimental music were preferred as they could be cross-trained, followed by the offonde troupe. Countries were drafted in when no musicians could be found in the regiment. Civilian draftees were called gajiste, and were especially common on parades as a Colonel would fork out funds to beef up the band to several dozen members for a deeper sound. That need to have a deep wall of sound meant a Colonel was not picky about where his gajiste came from. Some were poached from other regiments, others taken as prisoners and deserters from foreign armies, or down on their luck musician to tag along with the army. He brought their own instruments, adding a unique regional flair to each regimental band. Traditional French instruments like obos, trombones, the horn, and the flute were joined by Breton bagpipes, basque tambourines, German bassoons, and Italian violins. Be he a fuselier of the line, a skirmisher and century, or drummer beating heavily, the process by which a French citizen became a soldier always began the same way at the departmental level. The empire maintained Jean-Baptiste Géardin's conscription laws of 1798. Each department conducted their own census for unmarried and physically able men aged 2225. This crop of potential recruits was called a class. As envisaged, Géardin's programme could furnish France with up to a quarter million conscripts per year, however the programme failed to live up to immediate expectation, yielding pitiful returns. Were still conscripts were often unfit or unwilling to serve. In 1799, for instance, a class of 33,000 was demanded, but not even 10,000 conscripts were returned. The centre performance was the result of two factors. The first was bog standard corruption. The second and more important factor was that the departments had leeway to provide only the amount of recruits that they felt that they could manage, a number which was always far below expectations. Once pretty administrative reforms under the consulate from 1800 to 1804, which formed the framework of the coming empire, curtailed local graft and corruption. For the more a quota system was placed on the yearly class of 1805. Essentially, each department was required to furnish a set number of conscripts and recruits