La Grande Armée (Episode 2) - The Infantry & Officer Corps [73:29-78:30]

examination. They had to be numerous and literate, fit and healthy, and deemed well-mannered. If they passed these tests and interviews, they were inculcated into a martial culture of strict discipline and intensive study. There was to be no julling, no popular literature, and most odiously of all, no tobacco. Early on Napoleon inspected these schools personally and kept deprived of their conditions. It was insistent that a graduate leave the school with a broad base of knowledge. There could be nothing in the military sphere which they could not perform at least decently. Those included much of what Napoleon had learnt, marksmanship, mathematics, languages, history, swordsmanship, and field works. They were even dedicated classes for things like intonation, quite literally, how to yell properly. Mercerfully, classes on dancing, cosmetics, and etiquette didn't have a place in a post-revolutionary officer call and were dropped from the curriculum. Throughout the Napoleonic era, existing schools would be expanded, and new ones opened. After a lackluster inspection by Napoleon in 1803, the Pyrternae main campus in Sonsier in Paris was turned into its own school. The Pyrternae then relocated to La Flèche in the south, where it specialised in training officers from French allies in client-states. Eventually, the Ecole Militaire was moved from Frontenbleu to Sonsier in 1808, massively expanding its size and scope. By this time it had become a de facto infantry school. Perspective cavalry officers graduated from the Ecole spatial de Cavalierie de Saint-Germain, founded in 1809. The main artillery and engineering school was the famous Ecole Polytechnique, founded in 1794 and militarised in 1804. The Polytechnique was in friendly competition with the Ecole d'application de la Tillerie and the Ecole d'application d'Ogenie, the applied artillery and engineering schools respectively, both located in Metz. Graduates from all of these institutions eventually earned their epolette and joined their branch of service. Older officers were almost immediately unimpressed with the fresh-faced graduates. They were hot-headed, prone to aggression, and constantly looking for a fight. In times of peace or in the real lines, they spent dueling and playing pranks. Elisabeth Blas, who graduated the Ecole de Militaire as a sous-luteau in 1806, recounts in his memoirs one story where he was placed under house arrest for commandeering a mayor's coach. In revenge, his maids disassembled a coach under cover of night and rebuilt it on the mayor's roof. Escapades like this were common, in addition to the daily vioces of smoking, gambling, and hauring, enjoyed to the full now that the young officers weren't under the over-oing gaze of their headmasters and prefects. The problem here seems to have been a clash of cultures in the Esprit du Cour of the New Generation versus the previous generation. The new officers had been waned on stories of French martial excellence regaled by their brothers, fathers, and educators. They never known France to be anything less than victorious. This inculcated a strong spirit of aggression and bravado, they clashed with the quiet professionalism of established senior officers, who lived through the trial and tribulation of some of France's bleakest hours. Culture clashed aside, the newest generation were competent, as was proved when La Grande Arme was unleashed on Europe in 1805. Gradually the generational divide faded, and the officer corps found a cohesive identity under fire, exactly in the same way the volunteers and veterans of the revolution had. New generations of officers churned out from 1809 onwards, struggled to find a place within the officer corps. Their educational standards declined as the wars of the coalition progressed due to the constant need to replace officer casualties and find ones to embed in foreign regiments. The initial two-year course to be made sous-lute-neur, which included at least a few months' practical instruction, was abbreviated to just a year. Replacements year-on-year were simply not up to the same caliber as those of the previous. Electricity, delinquency, and incompetence became critical issues. Irreplaceable officer losses in Eastern Europe and then the crisis year of 1813 saw the education system all but collapse. Cadets were given a few weeks' instruction and then sent to the front. Reserve officers in the National Guard, with precious little experience, led frontline units. Even when bolstered by retired or invalidated officers hastily returned to service, the damage was mortal. The backbone of cohesion within the officer corps was its promotion system. Established officers placed a premium on seniority. Ambitious, usually junior officers, had little regard for the existing hierarchy, asserting that their ability and actions