La Grande Armée (Episode 2) - The Infantry & Officer Corps [15:06-20:11]

for a year, with that number determined by military necessity. With 50 to 60,000 young men coming of fighting age each year, a class system was both flexible and stable. What gradually stretched the system to its breaking point was the year-on-year increase in the manpower demands imposed by Napoleon to expand and then defend his empire. Theoretically, if a yearly class was underutilised, it would create a surplus for the next year. But by that same token, over-utilising, over-conscripting for a year would create a deficit, and Napoleon almost always demanded more than can be reasonably provided, kicking the manpower deficit down the road until the debt could not be paid. Most of the Napoleonic reforms to conscription occurred during the peace of Amiens. Napoleon accepted 60,000 conscripts in 1802 and an early sign of things to come, many were borrowed against 1803. This pattern choked along for the next few years, a levy of 60 to 80,000 conscripts borrowed against the next year, with around a quarter to a third of this number secondered to the reserve in France. The years 1805 and 1806 were the first in which Napoleon could nominate the quota himself, and yielded particularly bumper crops, especially with the victories of ourselets and yana ourshtet triggering a surge of volunteerism. By 1807, however, conscription was facing widespread resistance. Not only were the manpower demands of Le Grand Al-Mé rapidly scaling, but the French population grown tired of sending their sons, brothers, and husbands to war. Desertion was rife. Young men took to the hills of the first inkling of a recruiting party. Conscripts fled their training fields, given half a chance. Even active duty frontline troopers quietly slipped the centuries, or in the extreme, self-mutilated. By law, priests, bureaucrats, students, and those in essential services were automatically exempted from service. For the average citizen, the only ticket out of service was to seek a replacement. If you could convince a veteran to reenlist, they could go in your place. Alternatively, a lump 900 francs sum brought an exemption after a single year of service. But this led to further hostility to conscription as the burden of service fell on the shoulders of the poor masses of French peasants and laborers, especially as the cost of replacement ballooned to several thousand francs later in the wars. Several authorities, especially in the south of France and Piedmont, protected local families that refused to offer their sons. By 1811, there were an estimated 31,000 desertes loose in France, and the main army suffered desertions of thousands more each year. This trend was only curbed by increased patrols of the Jean-Damarit, bounties for apprehended draft dodgers or the surgical use of martial law. A favorite tactic was to build at soldiers with a family or village known to be protecting fugitives. This bear their families and neighbours the burden, desertes and draft dodgers willingly chose to return to the colours. Such was the desperation for men power that a malefactor was generally treated leniently. First-time offenders could pay a fine to be returned to full pay and status. More sustained delinquency saw a deserter placed into a refractory battalion on Garrison Gidey. These units had a good track record of reforming their soldiers, most of whom returned to regular service at risk of foregoing their pension. The unreformable soldiers faced possible execution, though a vast majority was sent on a colonial assignment instead, from which most had never returned. The Battle of I-Law in February 1807 saw the Grand Arme suffer a ghastly 25,000 casualties. Its worst single day butchers built to that date. Replacements were called in from the reserve, which in turn had to be refilled. Therefore in March Napoleon ordered the class for 1808 to be called a year early. He did the same in 1809 to meet the renewed threat from Austria. What's more, the class of previous years were ordered to transfer their quotas of conscripts currently in reserve duty to frontline service. The French training and supply pipeline was adequate for training and equipping the average of around 80,000 recruits a year. But to suddenly make soldiers out of about 250,000 was an impossible order without attendant drops in discipline, morale and combat effectiveness. And surprisingly then Le Grand Arme began to suffer on the field. Performance in the War of the Fifth Coalition was subpar, and France suffered its first total defeat when an entire field army was annihilated by the Spanish and by Len. That said we shouldn't overstate the drop in French army quality after 1807, morale was high and the regiment still drilled to exacting standards. This was a decline, not a collapse, that speaks just as much to the definitive improvement to the combat abilities of coalition armies that coincided with a loss in performance for Le Grand Arme. There could be no doubt, however, that the glory days of 1805 and 1806 were in the review mirror. The closest return to form for Le Grand Arme came in 1811 with the build-up for the Russian