Forging Napoleon's Grande Armée

Motivation, Military Culture, and Masculinity in the French Army, 1800-1808

Michael J Hughes, Michael J. Hughes

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780814737484
• eBook ISBN: 9780814724118
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The men who fought in Napoleon's Grande Armée built a new empire that changed the world. Remarkably, the same men raised arms during the French Revolution for liberté, égalité, and fraternité. In just over a decade, these freedom fighters, who had once struggled to overthrow tyrants, rallied to the side of a man who wanted to dominate Europe. What was behind this drastic change of heart? In this ground-breaking study, Michael J. Hughes shows how Napoleonic military culture shaped the motivation of Napoleon's soldiers. Relying on extensive archival research and blending cultural and military history, Hughes demonstrates that the Napoleonic regime incorporated elements from both the Old Regime and French Revolutionary military culture to craft a new military culture, characterized by loyalty to both Napoleon and the preservation of French hegemony in Europe. Underscoring this new, hybrid military culture were five sources of motivation: honor, patriotism, a martial and virile masculinity, devotion to Napoleon, and coercion. Forging Napoleon's Grande Armée vividly illustrates how this many-pronged culture gave Napoleon's soldiers reasons to fight.

1
From the Coasts of the Ocean to the Snows of Poland
The Grande Armée and Napoleonic Military Culture

After weeks of marching across France, the soldiers of the Grande Armée finally discovered the task that lay ahead. As the army’s formations advanced into Germany, they received a proclamation from Napoleon. Issued on September 29, 1805, it announced, “Soldiers, the War of the Third Coalition has begun. The Austrian Army has passed the Inn [River], violated treaties, attacked and driven our ally from his capital.” In response, the proclamation declared, the Grande Armée would fight to assure the independence of Germany, aid the allies of France, and destroy the “new league which the hatred and gold of England had fabricated.” It also reminded the troops that the emperor marched with them and that they were the “advanced guard of the Great People.” Asserting that they would overcome “any obstacles,” it concluded with the defiant vow, “we will not rest until we have planted our eagles on the territory of our enemies.”¹

The proclamation proved prophetic. Over the next few months, the Grande Armée compelled an entire Habsburg army to surrender, captured Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg Empire, and dismantled the Third Coalition, along with the main Allied field army, at the battle of Austerlitz. The campaign of 1805 was noteworthy for a number of reasons, not the least of which was its rapid and decisive conclusion. It opened a new stage in the Napoleonic wars, inaugurating a period of French military success that culminated in the establishment of French hegemony in Europe. If the campaign of 1805 represents the start of a new era, the preparations for it began two years earlier when First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte began to build an army for an invasion of Great Britain. The army assembled to confront France’s most implacable foe never would set foot on English shores, but it did become the Grande Armée and consistently defeated its opponents from 1805 to 1808. One of the primary sources of its success was a distinctive military culture developed by Napoleon and his supporters to sustain the motivation of France’s soldiers. After presenting a brief history of these armies, this chapter introduces the different forms of media and symbolic activities used to create their military culture to provide a context for the material presented in the rest of the book.

The Expedition to England and the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean

The forging of the Grande Armée began with the end of the Peace of Amiens, which was signed between Britain and France in 1802. The treaty was especially significant because it established a general peace in Europe after almost ten years of continuous warfare provoked by the French Revolution. The ambitious new leader of France, First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, perceived the respite as a chance to increase French power and influence abroad. Consequently, he refused to allow British goods free access to French markets, maintained French troops in the Netherlands in violation of earlier diplomatic agreements, added Piedmont and Elba to France, publicly contemplated reconquering Egypt, and pursued diplomatic initiatives in India. The British government understandably perceived these measures as provocations, and viewed French expansion in the Mediterranean with apprehension. For their part, the British retained Malta, which they had promised to vacate at Amiens, and their press savaged the first consul in print. Under these conditions, tensions quickly escalated, and hostilities between Britain and France resumed on May 18, 1803.

To defeat “perfidious Albion,” Napoleon planned to undertake a new amphibious invasion of the British Isles. It would take time, however, to assemble the military forces needed to ensure the expedition’s success. The first consul therefore began the war by launching a campaign against British holdings on the Continent. The first major military operation was the invasion of the Electorate of Hanover, a British possession in Germany. In May of 1803, Napoleon ordered General Adolphe Edouard Casimir Joseph Mortier to march against Hanover with approximately fourteen thousand men. The French overran the Electorate and forced its army to surrender a few months later. Mortier’s army, the Army of Hanover, occupied the Electorate until September of 1805. General Jean-Baptiste-Jules Bernadotte arrived to take command in 1804, and the army’s size was expanded until it contained twenty-six thousand troops.²

While the French extended their control over Hanover, Napoleon built a much larger army for the invasion of England. In June of 1803, he issued instructions for the creation of an expeditionary force concentrated in six camps stretching from the south of France to the Netherlands. The sites originally chosen included Holland, Gand, Saint-Omer, Compiègne, Saint-Malo, and Bayonne. Some of these locations were discovered to be insuitable as staging areas for military operations against Britain. The first consul therefore adjusted his plans and assembled the new army in five main camps near Bayonne, Boulogne, Montreuil, Bruges in Belgium, and Utrecht in Holland. After the conclusion of successful diplomatic negotiations with Spain, Napoleon transferred the camp at Bayonne to Brest. The units in the Camp of Bruges also eventually relocated to Ambleteuse, a village a few miles from Boulogne. While these camps were identified with a particular city or town, they possessed so many troops that they tended to occupy a sizeable geographical area. The camp at Boulogne offers a good example. For most of its existence, its units were positioned at Boulogne, the neighboring town of Outreau, Ambleteuse, and the town of Wimereux. Altogether, the encampments extended for a nine-mile stretch along the coast. In addition to the principal army camps, there were also camps established at St. Omer, Amiens, Compiègne, Arras, and Paris for cavalry and reserve troops.

French preparations for the assault on Britain gained momentum in the summer and fall of 1803 as troops and supplies streamed toward the camps. Napoleon christened the army to which they were headed the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean and established its headquarters at the Camp of St. Omer, the official name of the camp at Boulogne. The size of the Army of the Coasts, the more manageable title by which it was often known, grew slowly, but steadily. It numbered only 70,000 men in January 1804. However, the army contained roughly 120,000 troops by March and reached a total of slightly more than 170,000 in the summer of 1805.³

While French troops trained to invade Great Britain, the nature of the French government changed profoundly. Much like ancient Rome, whose symbolism would conspicuously mark the transformation, the Republic evolved into an empire. Napoleon and his supporters in the government contemplated the possibility of making him a hereditary ruler during the Consulate, the government that they created in 1799. However, they were well aware that such a move might provoke opposition from a country that had toppled the Bourbon monarchy and fought for a decade to ensure that France remained a republic. Support for the return of monarchy increased as the first consul’s policies succeeded in providing peace, stability, and prosperity and in response to assassination plots against him, including one conspiracy that received the direct assistance of the British government. Many feared that Napoleon’s death would plunge France back into chaos and threaten the achievements of the French Revolution. Therefore, he and his supporters convinced the Republic’s government to offer him the position of monarch in May of 1804. Since France’s recent history rendered the label of king unthinkable, it bestowed upon Napoleon the more fitting title of Emperor of the French, and formally declared France an empire. The French population approved the change in a plebiscite by a margin of more than 3.5 million votes, and Napoleon crowned himself emperor at Notre Dame Cathedral on December 2.

The Army of the Coasts of the Ocean sent delegations to participate in the events of the coronation, but most of its men remained in their camps. They continued to occupy the Channel coasts for another ten months. The time that these troops spent preparing for the expedition to Britain was particularly important because it gave them crucial training and combat experience. France’s soldiers honed their skills by participating in firing exercises and conducting maneuvers to improve their ability to adapt to various tactical situations. For example, General Auguste Frederic Louis Viesse de Marmont, the commander of the Camp of Utrecht, proudly informed Napoleon, “We maneuver by division three times a week, & twice per month with [all] three divisions united. The troops have become very highly trained.”⁴ The soldiers on the coasts also skirmished with British naval forces. They fought against boarding parties sent to disrupt Napoleon’s plans, engaged in artillery duels with British ships, and embarked on French vessels where they saw combat in small-scale ship-to-ship actions.

The Army of the Coasts of the Ocean not only prepared the bodies of its members for war; it also trained their hearts and minds. The years from 1803 to 1805 represented a crucial period for the development of the French army and French military culture. During the later phases of the French Revolution, the armies of the Republic became disillusioned with their country’s politicians and with French civilian society. France’s soldiers were forced to fend for themselves in various countries because the Directory, the executive council in charge of the French government, lacked the means to supply its armies. They felt that they had been abandoned by politicians, that the Republic had been corrupted, and that the citizenry of France was no longer grateful for their sacrifices. The troops came to believe that only they continued to remain true to the principles of the Revolution. Consequently, they gave their allegiance not to the Directory but to charismatic generals such as Bonaparte, Jean Victor Moreau, and Jean-Baptiste Kléber. After the establishment of the Consulate, Napoleon possessed a sizeable following in the army that was composed of the men whom he had led. However, substantial portions of the soldiery still harbored devotion to other generals.

The war with Britain provided Napoleon with the perfect opportunity to increase his influence. Forming the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean allowed him to concentrate most of the French army in a relatively small area for an extended period of time. Moreover, its camps were within easy reach of Paris. Napoleon thus possessed roughly two full years free from major interruptions to secure the loyalty of France’s soldiers for himself and the new government that he established. He did not waste them. The new leader of France frequently traveled to the encampments near the Channel coast. Much as he had done in Italy and Egypt, Napoleon spared no effort to acquire the allegiance of France’s largest army. Napoleon’s supporters inside and outside of the military complemented these activities with a series of measures that were designed to maintain the morale of its troops and ensure that they adopted their political and military values. Finally, since the Army of the Coasts remained on or near French soil, Napoleon’s agents kept a close watch on it to ensure that rivals in the military would not be able to recruit followers from within its ranks. As a soldier who acquired political power through a coup d’état, Napoleon was well aware of the threat posed by ambitious generals.

A Grande Armée for La Grande Nation

Despite Napoleon’s best efforts to carry the fight to England’s shores, the battles of the Army of the Coasts remained limited to skirmishes at sea. The strength of the Royal navy and the inability of the French navy to concentrate sufficient forces in the English Channel prevented Napoleon from launching the invasion of Great Britain. The preparation that France’s soldiers received, however, would be put to good use on the Continent. Napoleon’s expansionist foreign policy, and transgressions such as his decision to abduct Louis Antoine de Bourbon, the Duke d’Enghien, in the neutral territory of Baden in order to carry out his execution, provoked the creation of a new alliance against France. By the summer of 1805, the Habsburg Empire, Russia, Naples, and Sweden joined Britain to forge the third Allied coalition to oppose France since the start of the French Revolution, hence its designation as the Third Coalition.

To confront the threat posed by Habsburg and Russian forces, Napoleon reorganized the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean into the Grande Armée. Each of the main camps and the Army of Hanover was made a separate corps in the new army. For example, the Army of Hanover became I Corps, and the Camp of St. Omer at Boulogne became IV Corps. Usually commanded by a marshal of the Empire, a corps was a small army combining infantry, cavalry, and artillery that was capable of operating by itself. From 1805 to 1808, the Grande Armée normally consisted of nine to twelve corps, including Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, and each corps had between fifteen thousand and thirty thousand troops. The corps were organized into three or four divisions. Divisions were in turn divided into two or more brigades, which were composed of one or more regiments. Infantry regiments generally possessed three or four battalions, one of which functioned as a training and garrison unit, or depot battalion. War battalions, the battalions that accompanied the army in the field, had a paper strength of 1,078 men in nine companies. Cavalry regiments, on the other hand, contained between two and four squadrons, each with two companies. The theoretical size of the squadrons was approximately 180-230 troopers, depending on the type of cavalry. The infantry battalion and the cavalry squadron constituted the basic tactical units of Napoleon’s armies, along with the artillery company, which tended to be comprised of one hundred soldiers and eight cannons.⁵ While on campaign, the Grande Armée’s battalions typically fielded around 600-800 soldiers, and its squadrons 80-150 troopers. The size of the army as a whole fluctuated, but it usually averaged 180,000 men. The Grande Armée started the campaign of 1805 with approximately 194,000 soldiers. Sickness and other factors, however, reduced the number of combatants to roughly 178,000 after it crossed the Rhine.⁶ Later, when Napoleon conducted operations against the Fourth Coalition in the fall of 1806 and the spring of 1807, it numbered between 175,000 and 190,000 troops.⁷

In the initial stages of the war of the Third Coalition, Napoleon sought to separate the Habsburg forces and the Russians, his most dangerous enemies on the Continent, and defeat each in detail. The Austrians assisted him by invading Bavaria and assembling an army near the city of Ulm under the command of General Karl Leiberich, Baron Mack. Moving faster than his enemies expected, the French emperor marched the nine corps of the Grande Armée along parallel routes to surround Mack’s troops. A series of engagements around Ulm, including Wertingen, Haslach, and Elchingen, prevented them from escaping. The French then drove the Austrians back into Ulm, where they were forced to surrender over twenty thousand soldiers. Marshal Pierre François Charles Augereau’s VII Corps followed the remnants of Mack’s forces, and captured them at Dornbirn. The Grande Armée’s other formations continued east, seizing Vienna and confronting a combined Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz. On December 2, 1805, exactly a year after Napoleon’s coronation, the French emperor won his greatest victory, shattering the Allied forces in a battle presided over by Alexander I, the tsar of Russia, and Francis I, the Hapsburg emperor. The French victory at the “Battle of the Three Emperors” dissolved the Third Coalition. It convinced Francis I to sign a peace treaty with France on January 1, 1806, and the tsar agreed to an armistice.

A fourth coalition formed ten months later. The ruling class of Prussia resented the intervention of Napoleon’s government in German affairs. It was also humiliated by Prussian impotence in the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Military Culture and Motivation in the Armies of Napoleon
• 1 From the Coasts of the Ocean to the Snows of Poland: The Grande Armée and Napoleonic Military Culture
• 2 Honneur, Gloire, et Patrie: Honor in Napoleon’s Legions
• 3 Imperial Virtue: The Evolution of French Patriotism
• 4 Napoleon’s Manhood: Sex and Martial Masculinity in the French Army
• 5 Clothing the New Emperor: Creating the Cult of Napoleon
• 6 The Emperor’s Grognards: The Officer Corps
• 7 Devoted Soldiers and Reluctant Conquerors: The Rank and File
• Conclusion: Vive l’Empereur! Sustaining Motivation in the Armies of Napoleon, 1803-1808
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author