[Teaser] Career in Napoleon's Army featuring the 21eme Regiment de Ligne

Coming soon to the channel (date TBD), a live history documentary on having a career in Napoleon's army. The introduction (and remainder of the script) is a still a work in progress, but here's a good chunk for you all to read in the meantime. Enjoy!

Systems of Recruitment

From the formation of the First Coalition in 1792 to Napoleon’s final downfall at Waterloo in 1815, France fought most of Europe for the better part of two decades, from the hills of Portugal to the depths of Russia and colonial theaters across the seas. Satisfying the wars’ vast appetite for manpower became the central issue for Napoleon’s empire, and failure to resolve it led to its ultimate collapse.

As such we will now discuss the process by which soldiers were recruited. Since the storming of the Bastille, the various revolutionary governments had relied largely on volunteers to fill its ranks. However, following a string of defeats, the French Royal Army moved to institute a series of emergency mass conscription, culminating in the Levée en masse of 1793. Starting with a quota for the nation to raise 300,000 soldiers, it was a bold move meant to pull France from the brink of defeat. The decree read as follows: quote

"From this moment until such time as its enemies shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic, all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the services of the armies. The young men shall fight; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn old linen into lint; the old men shall betake themselves to the public squares in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic."

This revolutionary spirit and the swelling nationalism of the common people had now unlocked a vast pool of manpower unrivaled by many of its contemporaries. Over the course of the Revolutionary Wars, perhaps a million men fought for France, allowing it to not only defend itself but take the offensive against a growing Coalition of hostile neighbors. But even these vast forces dwindled in time. Thus it was necessary to establish a more permanent system to maintain French armies.

This was done in 1798 [19 of Fructidor in Year 6], when a military commission passed the Jourdan Law which established the legal basis of recruitment. Once more it highlighted the war footing of the nation with article 1 stating that quote: “Every Frenchman is a soldier and must defend the country.” Shortly after, article 3 lays out the broad terms of the reform: quote “Outside of the case of danger to the country, the army is formed from voluntary enrollment and by way of military conscription."

We will now take a look at both volunteer and conscripted service, beginning with the former.

Volunteer Service

According to the law, men aged 18 to 30 could enlist voluntarily for a term of four years in peacetime. Some exceptions were made for younger volunteers. For instance the children of soldiers could enlist at the age of 16. In 1806 Napoleon extended this exception to civilian 16 year olds who had their parents’ permission.

According to the law, all such volunteers would need to present a certificate of good conduct signed by the mayor of their municipality and the justice of the peace. Their enrollment would then be registered in a town hall where records would be taken of the citizen’s identity, residence, and physical description.

As an incentive for such volunteers to come forward, they were paid more than conscripts with this bonus gradually increasing the longer they served. However despite such incentives and the lofty rhetoric of the law, volunteers were not enough to meet the manpower needs of the French Army which, during the Napoleonic Wars, consisted mostly of conscripts. Let us now turn to this practice.

Conscripted Service

Officially, the law subjected men aged 20 to 25 to conscription, dividing them into five age classes. Local authorities were ordered to maintain lists of all such men in their district. Information included the names, professions, and residences of all men of suitable age.

When the call from up high came for conscription, it would involve a quota of men which must be raised from the various territorial regions known as Cantons. Each cantonal authority would then consult its list of eligible men and select conscripts by lottery. Each man would have a number randomly drawn, ranging from 1 to the total number of eligible candidates. Those whose number was below or equal to the required quota were selected.

Next they would face a council to determine their fitness to serve. This recruitment council was headed by the department prefect. Alongside him was the senior military officer of the department and a major from the Ministry of War. A captain from one of the regiments slated to receive the new draft advised the council but could not vote.

This council screened men based on various criteria. Generally speaking conscripts had to be in good health and stand at least 1.488 meters tall. A host of other exemptions existed, including men whose brothers had already been killed, single fathers with children to care for, and men already registered for conscription into the navy.

Men lacking sight in the right eye, front teeth necessary to tear open paper cartridges, or the right thumb or index finger were exempt from service. Loss of a whole left hand or other limb also disqualified potential conscripts.

As a result, self mutilation was a common means of draft evasion. Should they be discovered, these men would be punished with 5 years of hard labor. Those who had come by their infirmities honestly, or at least remained undetected, had to pay a 50 franc indemnity, the rough equivalent of five months wages for a soldier.

Substitute Service

However another method of recruitment occurred in the form of substitution whereby a conscript might hire another to take his place. While initially a somewhat informal practice, this actually became legalized in 1800. However not just anyone could become a substitute. They had to be in good health, stand at least 1.651 meters tall, and not themselves be a potential conscript.

As the wars of the Empire proved increasingly deadly, the demand for substitutional service skyrocketed. Not only would draft dodging conscripts have to pay the 100 francs for their substitute’s uniform but they would also pay them a sign-on fee many times a soldier’s annual wage. Sadly this often meant that it was the poorest and most desperate who took the place in Napoleon’s front lines.

Yet even the system put in place by the Jourdan Law could not keep up with the meat grinder of the Empire’s Wars. As such the French Government increasingly began to stretch the age limits of conscription beyond the initial 20 to 25 year range while also forbidding men from leaving the ranks regardless of how long they had already served.

In this way, roughly one and a half million men were mobilized to fight for an Empire which ultimately came to gobble up much of Europe and directly rule over 44 million people. The vast majority of these troops who fought under the eagles did so in the infantry, and so it shall be they whom we focus on as we explore the life of a Napoleonic soldier.