La Grande Armée (Episode 2) - The Infantry & Officer Corps [68:25-73:29]

Jean-Rénie, Antoine Delmar, Vincent Sonilère, and of course, Napoleon Bonaparte. The same space which had opened to allow Academy-trained officers to gain rapid advancement also made space for motivated patriotic volunteers to carve their own place. In the main volunteer officers who served in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793, upper trade is highly motivated but totally in over their heads. This description, as is often the case, fails to explain the complexity of the situation. Volunteer officers often had some military experience and were elevated by a claim to lead a unit. In that situation, they didn't need to know how to form complex formations or handle administration, if all they were there to do was raise recruits and lead them into action. Technical and incompetence in the minutiae of warfare could be cushioned by the trained cadres of NCOs and junior officers. As the Revolutionary Army was professionalised under the stewardship of Les Arquelles, and led an Napoleon, it was this cadre of NCOs and junior officers who overtook the volunteer officers. We have another honor roll on our hands, veteran soldiers like Nicolas Udinou, who made general from Sargent. Jean-Lan, a volunteer with no formal training, who proved to be one of his generation's brightest talents. Joachim Murat, who enlisted in a cavalry as a private and would end up as the emperor's foremost cavalryman, Bertholomej Ubert, a volunteer corporal in 1791, general division by 1796. Jean-Paptiste Bernadotte, another private turned general. And even though we're beyond the gratuitous, I'll let the names Claude Victor Perin, Buviant Sanscire, Chalaclère, Victor Moreau, Pierre-Ojero, Henri de Lebeld, Micheliné, Ando-Juno, and Jean-Pierre Merchant. This list of officers, though impressive, relies a problem at the heart of the French army. These were the officers who made it, approved effective combat leaders and capable administrators. Upon assuming the consul ship, Napoleon found his officer corps had no lack of brave leaders, but once his abilities definitely had a ceiling. Without formal military training, and in many cases, any formal education at all, the officer corps was still only semi-professional. There were lieutenants who couldn't handle inspections, generals with no grasp of strategy, and illiterate captains who couldn't read nor write a report. All of this put greater strain on the trained officers who had come up through one of France's military schools or academies. This was especially problematic and specialist fields like in the medical service, engineers, and artillery. I'll stress that these officers were not incompetent, they'd won every war they'd fought, but they were not the kind of professionals needed to staff a permanent force. So as part of Napoleon's early military reforms, he penchained off a chunk of the junior and senior officer corps and limited the number of generals to only 360. The vacancies were filled up by promotions from within. All of whom came from the cadre of trained or experienced officers whose names we've covered. But this solution created its own problem, thousands of spaces to be filled in the now denuded junior officer ranks. As first consul, Napoleon's heavy investment in France's civil and military education system both repaired the damage done during the revolution and continued educational projects put on ice during the first few wars of the coalition. A fresh crop of talent had already reached maturity by the time La Grande Armey was formed. A typical cadet would began at a lisee for basic literacy and numeracy, then graduate to a collège for military education, until finally ending up at a necklace from where they would graduate as officers. This pathway built upon the primary, secondary, and tertiary distinction established in revolutionary era schools, though the ages of admission could vary widely, from boys' younger 7 all the way to 18. All over France abandoned schools were reopened, namely the Pyrtane, which started a new term as a collège in 1800. But the main event was the collège at Fontainebleur, established in 1803. Built on the basis of the old collège de Louis Le Grand, the Ecole Militaire National, the National Military School, reduced most of the officers who would fill the ranks of La Grande Armey's officer corps. At a mission was hotly contested, notable families of military pedigree vowed to have their sons enrolled. An annual fee of 1200 francs would have kept all but the wealthiest aspirants away, where it not for a series of concessions to sons of veterans and recipients of the lesion d'honneur. Special dispensations from Napoleon, as happened in the aftermath of asterlets, waived the fee entirely for orphans, or those soldiers whose sons wished to share their father's career. In all cases, Acadette was subjected to a stringent