_Military Details--Plan of the Conscription--Its Nature--and
Effects--Enforced with unsparing rigour--Its influence upon the
general Character of the French Soldiery--New mode of Conducting
Hostilities introduced by the Revolution--Constitution of the
French Armies, Forced Marches--_La Maraude_--Its Nature--and
Effects--on the Enemy's Country, and on the French Soldiers
themselves--Policy of Napoleon, in his personal conduct to his
Officers and Soldiers--Altered Character of the French Soldiery
during, and after, the Revolution._
[Sidenote: THE CONSCRIPTION.]
We have shown that the course of education practised in France was so
directed, as to turn the thoughts and hopes of the youth to a military
life, and prepare them to obey the call of the conscription. This means
of recruiting the military force, the most formidable ever established
in a civilized nation, was originally presented to the Council of Five
Hundred in 1798.[330] It comprehended a series of lists, containing the
names of the whole youth of the kingdom, from the age of twenty to
twenty-five, and empowering government to call them out successively, in
such numbers as the exigencies of the state should require. The classes
were five in number. The first contained those who were aged twenty
years complete, before the commencement of the year relative to which
the conscription was demanded, and the same rule applied to the other
four classes of men, who had attained the twenty-first, twenty-second,
twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth years successively, before
the same period. In practice, however, the second class of conscripts
were not called out until the first were actually in service, nor was it
usual to demand more than the first class in any one year. But as the
first class amounted to 60 or 80,000, so forcible and general a levy
presented immense facilities to the government, and was proportionally
burdensome to the people.[331]
This law, undoubtedly, has its general principle in the duty which every
one owes to his country. Nothing can be more true, than that all men
capable of bearing arms are liable to be employed in the defence of the
state; and nothing can be more politic, than that the obligation which
is incumbent upon all, should be, in the first instance, imposed upon
the youth, who are best qualified for military service by the freshness
of their age, and whose absence from the ordinary business of the
country will occasion the least inconvenience. But it is obvious, that
such a measure can only be vindicated in defensive war, and that the
conduct of Buonaparte, who applied the system to the conduct of distant
offensive wars, no otherwise necessary than for the satisfaction of his
own ambition, stands liable to the heavy charge of having drained the
very life-blood of the people intrusted to his charge, not for the
defence of their own country, but to extend the ravages of war to
distant and unoffending regions.
The French conscription was yet more severely felt by the extreme rigour
of its conditions. No distinction was made betwixt the married man,
whose absence might be the ruin of his family, and the single member of
a numerous lineage, who could be easily spared. The son of the widow,
the child of the decrepid and helpless, had no right to claim an
exemption. Three sons might be carried off in three successive years
from the same desolated parents; there was no allowance made for having
already supplied a recruit. Those unable to serve were mulcted in a
charge proportioned to the quota of taxes which they or their parents
contributed to the state, and which might vary from fifty to twelve
hundred francs. Substitutes might indeed be offered, but then it was
both difficult and expensive to procure them, as the law required that
such substitutes should not only have the usual personal qualifications
for a military life, but should be domesticated within the same district
as their principal, or come within the conscription of the year.
Suitable persons were sure to know their own value, and had learned so
well to profit by it, that they were not to be bribed to serve without
excessive bounties. The substitutes also had the practice of deserting
upon the road, and thus cheated the principal, who remained answerable
for them till they joined their colours. On the whole, the difficulty of
obtaining exemption by substitution was so great, that very many young
men, well educated, and of respectable families, were torn from all
their more propitious prospects, to bear the life, discharge the duties,
and die the death, of common soldiers in a marching regiment.
There was no part of Napoleon's government enforced with such extreme
rigour as the levy of the conscriptions.[332] The mayor, upon whom the
duty devolved of seeing the number called for selected by lot from the
class to whom they belonged, was compelled, under the most severe
penalties, to avoid showing the slightest indulgence--the brand, the
pillory, or the galleys, awaited the magistrate himself, if he was found
to have favoured any individuals on whom the law of conscription had
claims. The same laws held out the utmost extent of their terrors
against refractory conscripts, and the public functionaries were every
where in search of them. When arrested, they were treated like convicts
of the most infamous description. Clothed in a dress of infamy, loaded
with chains, and dragging weights which were attached to them, they were
condemned like galley slaves to work upon the public fortifications.
Their relations did not escape, but were often rendered liable for fines
and penalties.
But perhaps the most horrible part of the fate of the conscript, was,
that it was determined for life. Two or three, even four or five years
spent in military service, might have formed a more endurable, though
certainly a severe tax upon human life, with its natural prospects and
purposes. But the conscription effectually and for ever changed the
character of its victims. The youth, when he left his father's hearth,
was aware that he was bidding it adieu, in all mortal apprehension, for
ever; and the parents who had parted with him, young, virtuous, and
ingenuous, and with a tendency, perhaps, to acquire the advantages of
education, could only expect to see him again (should so unlikely an
event ever take place) with the habits, thoughts, manners, and morals,
of a private soldier.
But whatever distress was inflicted on the country by this mode of
compulsory levy, it was a weapon particularly qualified to serve
Buonaparte's purposes. He succeeded to the power which it gave the
government, amongst other spoils of the Revolution, and he used it to
the greatest possible extent.
The conscription, of course, comprehended recruits of every kind, good,
bad, and indifferent; but chosen as they were from the mass of the
people, without distinction, they were, upon the whole, much superior to
that description of persons among whom volunteers for the army are
usually levied in other countries, which comprehends chiefly the
desperate, the reckless, the profligate, and those whose unsettled or
vicious habits render them unfit for peaceful life. The number of young
men of some education who were compelled to serve in the ranks, gave a
tone and feeling to the French army of a very superior character, and
explains why a good deal of intellect and power of observation was often
found amongst the private sentinels. The habits of the nation also being
strongly turned towards war, the French formed, upon the whole, the most
orderly, most obedient, most easily commanded, and best regulated
troops, that ever took the field in any age or country. In the long and
protracted struggle of battle, their fiery courage might sometimes be
exhausted before that of the determined British; but in all that
respects the science, practice, and usages of war, the French are
generally allowed to have excelled their more stubborn, but less
ingenious rivals. They excelled especially in the art of shifting for
themselves; and it was one in which the wars of Napoleon required them
to be peculiarly adroit.[333]
The French Revolution first introduced into Europe a mode of conducting
hostilities, which transferred almost the whole burden of the war to the
country which had the ill-fortune to be the seat of its operations, and
rendered it a resource rather than a drain to the successful
belligerent. This we shall presently explain.
[Sidenote: THE CONSCRIPTION--CORPS D'ARMÉE.]
At the commencement of a campaign, nothing could be so complete as the
arrangement of a French army. It was formed into large bodies, called
_corps d'armée_, each commanded by a king, viceroy, mareschal, or
general officer of high pretensions, founded on former services. Each
corps d'armée formed a complete army within itself, and had its allotted
proportion of cavalry, infantry, artillery, and troops of every
description. The corps d'armée consisted of from six to ten divisions,
each commanded by a general of division. The divisions, again, were
subdivided into brigades, of which each, comprehending two or three
regiments, (consisting of two or more battalions,) was commanded by a
general of brigade. A corps d'armée might vary in number from fifty to
eighty thousand men, and upwards; and the general of such a body
exercised the full military authority over it, without the control of
any one excepting the Emperor himself. There were very few instances of
the Emperor's putting the officers who were capable of this high charge
under command of each other; indeed, so very few, as might almost imply
some doubt on his part, of his commands to this effect being obeyed, had
they been issued. This system of dividing his collected forces into
separate and nearly independent armies, the generals of which were each
intrusted with and responsible for his execution of some separate
portion of an immense combined plan, gave great celerity and efficacy to
the French movements; and, superintended as it was by the master-spirit
which planned the campaign, often contributed to the most brilliant
results. But whenever it became necessary to combine two corps d'armée
in one operation, it required the personal presence of Napoleon himself.
Thus organised, the French army was poured into some foreign country by
forced marches, without any previous arrangement of stores or magazines
for their maintenance, and with the purpose of maintaining them solely
at the expense of the inhabitants. Buonaparte was exercised in this
system; and the combination of great masses, by means of such forced
marches, was one great principle of his tactics. This species of war was
carried on at the least possible expense of money to his treasury; but
it was necessarily at the greatest possible expenditure of human life,
and the incalculable increase of human misery. Napoleon's usual object
was to surprise the enemy by the rapidity of his marches, defeat him in
some great battle, and then seize upon his capital, levy contributions,
make a peace with such advantages as he could obtain, and finally return
to Paris.
[Sidenote: LA MARAUDE.]
In these dazzling campaigns, the army usually began their march with
provisions, that is, bread or biscuit for a certain number of days, on
the soldiers' backs. Cattle also were for a time driven along with them,
and slaughtered as wanted. These articles were usually provided from
some large town or populous district, in which the troops might have
been cantoned. The horses of the cavalry were likewise loaded with
forage, for the consumption of two or three days. Thus provided, the
army set forward on its expedition by forced marches. In a very short
time the soldiers became impatient of their burdens, and either wasted
them by prodigal consumption, or actually threw them away. It was then
that the officers, who soon entertained just apprehensions of the troops
suffering scarcity before another regular issue of provisions, gave
authority to secure supplies by what was called _la maraude_, in other
words, by plunder. To ensure that these forced supplies should be
collected and distributed systematically, a certain number of soldiers
from each company were despatched to obtain provisions at the villages
and farm-houses in the neighbourhood of the march, or of the ground upon
which the army was encamped. These soldiers were authorised to compel
the inhabitants to deliver their provisions without receipt or payment;
and, such being their regular duty, it may be well supposed that they
did not confine themselves to provisions, but exacted money and articles
of value, and committed many other similar abuses.
[Sidenote: THE FRENCH SOLDIERY.]
It must be owned, that the intellectual character of the French, and the
good-nature which is the real ground of their national character,
rendered their conduct more endurable under the evils of this system
than could have been expected, provided always that provisions were
plenty, and the country populous. A sort of order was then observed,
even in the disorder of the _maraude_, and pains were taken to divide
regularly the provisions thus irregularly obtained. The general temper
of the soldiery, when unprovoked by resistance, made them not wholly
barbarous; and their original good discipline, the education which many
had received, with the habits of docility which all had acquired,
prevented them from breaking up into bands of absolute banditti, and
destroying themselves by their own irregularities. No troops except the
French could have subsisted in the same manner; for no other army is
sufficiently under the command of its officers.
But the most hideous features of this system were shown when the army
marched through a thinly-peopled country, or when the national
character, and perhaps local facilities, encouraged the natives and
peasants to offer resistance. Then the soldiers became animated alike by
the scarcity of provisions, and irritated at the danger which they
sometimes incurred in collecting them. As their hardships increased,
their temper became relentless and reckless, and, besides indulging in
every other species of violence, they increased their own distresses by
destroying what they could not use. Famine and sickness were not long of
visiting an army which traversed by forced marches a country exhausted
of provisions. These stern attendants followed the French columns as
they struggled on. Without hospitals, and without magazines, every
straggler who could not regain his ranks fell a victim to hunger, to
weather, to weariness, to the vengeance of an incensed peasantry. In
this manner, the French army suffered woes, which, till these tremendous
wars, had never been the lot of troops in hostilities carried on between
civilized nations. Still Buonaparte's object was gained; he attained,
amid these losses and sacrifices, and at the expense of them, the point
which he had desired; displayed his masses to the terrified eyes of a
surprised enemy; reaped the reward of his despatch in a general victory;
and furnished new subjects of triumph to the _Moniteur_. So much did he
rely upon the celerity of movement, that if an officer asked time to
execute any of his commands, it was frequently his remarkable
answer--"Ask me for any thing except time." That celerity depended on
the uncompromising system of forced marches, without established
magazines; and we have described how wasteful it must have been to
human life.[334] But when the battle was over, the dead were at rest,
and could not complain; the living were victors, and soon forgot their
sufferings; and the loss of the recruits who had been wasted in the
campaign, was supplied by another draught upon the youth of France, in
the usual forms of the conscription.
Buonaparte observed, with respect to his army, an adroit species of
policy. His mareschals, his generals, his officers of high rank, were
liberally honoured and rewarded by him; but he never treated them with
personal familiarity. The forms of etiquette were, upon all occasions,
strictly maintained. Perhaps he was of opinion that the original
equality in which they had stood with regard to each other, would have
been too strongly recalled by a more familiar mode of intercourse. But
to the common soldier, who could not misconstrue or intrude upon his
familiarity, Buonaparte observed a different line of conduct. He
permitted himself to be addressed by them on all suitable occasions, and
paid strict attention to their petitions, complaints, and even their
remonstrances. What they complained of was, in all instances, inquired
into and reformed, if the complaints were just. After a battle, he was
accustomed to consult the regiments which had distinguished themselves,
concerning the merits of those who had deserved the Legion of Honour, or
other military distinction. In these moments of conscious importance,
the sufferings of the whole campaign were forgotten; and Napoleon
seemed, to the soldiery who surrounded him, not as the ambitious man who
had dragged them from their homes, to waste their valour in foreign
fields, and had purchased victory at the expense of subjecting them to
every privation, but as the father of the war, to whom his soldiers were
as children, and to whom the honour of the meanest private was as dear
as his own.
Every attention was paid, to do justice to the claims of the soldier,
and provide for his preferment as it was merited. But with all this
encouragement, it was the remark of Buonaparte himself, that the army no
longer produced, under the Empire, such distinguished soldiers as
Pichegru, Kleber, Moreau, Massena, Desaix, Hoche, and he himself above
all, who, starting from the ranks of obscurity, like runners to a race,
had astonished the world by their progress. These men of the highest
genius, had been produced, as Buonaparte thought, in and by the fervour
of the Revolution; and he appears to have been of opinion, that, since
things had returned more and more into the ordinary and restricted
bounds of civil society, men of the same high class were no longer
created. There is, however, some fallacy in this statement. Times of
revolution do not create great men, but revolutions usually take place
in periods of society when great principles have been under discussion,
and the views of the young and of the old have been turned, by the
complexion of the times, towards matters of grand and serious
consideration, which elevate the character and raise the ambition. When
the collision of mutual violence, the explosion of the revolution itself
actually breaks out, it neither does nor can _create_ talent of any
kind. But it brings forth, (and in general destroys,) in the course of
its progress, all the talent which the predisposition to discussion of
public affairs had already encouraged and fostered; and when that talent
has perished, it cannot be replaced from a race educated amidst the
furies of civil war. The abilities of the Long Parliament ceased to be
seen under the Commonwealth, and the same is true of the French
Convention, and the Empire which succeeded it. Revolution is like a
conflagration, which throws temporary light upon the ornaments and
architecture of the house to which it attaches, but always ends by
destroying them.
It is said also, probably with less authority, that Napoleon, even when
surrounded by those Imperial Guards, whose discipline had been so
sedulously carried to the highest pitch, sometimes regretted the want of
the old Revolutionary soldiers, whose war-cry, "Vive la Republique!"
identified each individual with the cause which he maintained. Napoleon,
however, had no cause to regret any circumstance which referred to his
military power. It was already far too great, and had destroyed the
proper scale of government in France, by giving the military a decided
superiority over all men of civil professions, while he himself, with
the habits and reasoning of a despotic general, had assumed an almost
unlimited authority over the fairest part of Europe. Over foreign
countries, the military renown of France streamed like a comet,
inspiring universal dread and distrust; and whilst it rendered
indispensable similar preparations for resistance, it seemed as if peace
had departed from the earth for ever, and that its destinies were
hereafter to be disposed of according to the laws of brutal force alone.
FOOTNOTES:
[330] By General Jourdan.
[331] Montgaillard, tom. v., p. 139. See also Mounteney's Historical
Enquiry relative to Napoleon, p. 20.
[332] "The Emperor constantly insisted on subjecting the whole nation to
the laws of the conscription. 'I am inexorable on the subject of
exemption,' said he, one day in the Council of State, 'it would be
criminal. How could I acquit my conscience with having exposed the life
of one man, for the advantage of another? I do not even think I would
exempt my own son.'"--LAS CASES, tom. vii., p. 197.
[333] Mad. de Staël, tom. ii., p. 351.
[334] "This is not correct. Activity of movement and rapidity of attack
are as conducive to the well-being of mankind, as they are favourable to
victory. Where did Sir Walter Scott learn that the system of forced
marches pursued by the Emperor Napoleon was always without magazines? On
the contrary, his administrative system was admirable, and his
calculations on this head worthy of his plans: without the one, the
other could not have succeeded."--LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 54.