On the number of troops of the French and Russian armies. Napoleon's army

Interesting. that Napoleon cared about the memory that he would leave, and therefore falsified some documents in advance, during his lifetime. Thus, for example, the correspondence contains an instruction to Murat to spare the religious and national feelings of the Spaniards, so as not to cause them to revolt - an instruction that Napoleon never gave and which was written retroactively, for posterity, in order to blame the political mistakes made in Spain on Murat.

Jomini- a general, first of the French, then of the Russian service, the famous military writer of the first half of the 19th century, is the most authoritative interpreter of the experience of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and their first historian. His writings on military history, strategy and "grand tactics" popularize the basic principle, formulated by him, as the concentration of superior forces at the decisive point of the theater of war and the battlefield at the decisive moment and the simultaneous production of effort by them. The works of Jomini pushed military thought to recognition. The Napoleonic strategy of crushing is the only correct one and to condemn other commanders, since they did not stand on the basis of crushing. Jomini himself, however, refrained from such a gross error. The works of Jomini, right up to the outbreak of the World War, constituted a significant part of the strategic baggage of all general staffs.

Acquisition. The revolutionary career of Bonaparte is characterized by a complete, irreversible break with the political forces of the old world; militarily, General Bonaparte differed from other revolutionary generals in that he did not cling, like others, to forms of linear tactics that were drifting into the past, inaccessible to revolutionary troops.

The Bonapartist army retained the essential achievements of the revolution in the art of war - the recruitment of the masses into the army through conscription, the abolition of the class distinction between officers and soldiers, fighting in loose formation, the use of local means. General military service was not easy for the French. Confirmed in 1798 by the Directory, it caused numerous protests; in 1800 it underwent a significant limitation: the wealthy classes were given the right to nominate deputies. Military service extended to men aged 20 to 25 years. A soldier who has reached the age of 25 could either be demobilized or remain on extended service. The number of young people who reached military age in France was 190,000; during the period of peace, from 1801 to 1804, Bonaparte set a very moderate recruitment figure - 30,000 were called up annually for active service, and, moreover, 30,000 were credited to the reserve; the reservists received two weeks of training and were then called to practice for one Sunday each month. Despite the fact that the conscription thus covered less in terms of the conscripts, nevertheless, throughout the world, the number of those who evaded military service and deserted after recruitment was significant. When, from 1805, a period of uninterrupted wars began, and it was necessary to resort ... to emergency recruitment, the resistance of the population to military service began to grow. The campaigns of 1805 - 1807 required the mobilization of 420 thousand people, and in 1813 and the first quarter of 1814 the recruitment reached 1,250,000 people. The exhaustion and exhaustion of the population by recruiting was expressed in the growing number of "greens" who evaded duty, on whom large detachments of the gendarmerie staged constant raids. In 1813, when there were no cadres of old soldiers left in the army, and an unsatisfactory last draft was in the ranks, one was a crossbow for five wounded Frenchmen; 2,000 "fingers" were recorded in the battle of Bautzen.

Desertion. If Frederick the Great, in order to combat desertion in the army, relied only on a deeply thought-out cycle of police techniques, internal security, lodging for the night only in a bivouac, expulsion of each team for water or firewood in close formation, under the command of an officer, etc., then Napoleon turned to moral the forces of the army itself, to the soldiers who remained in the ranks, who were supposed to influence those who did not take part in the labors, dangers and victories. Desertion is a crime against the remaining comrade, on whom the deserter pushes his share of combat work. After the Ulm operation, a large number of "backward" who engaged in looting were gathered in Braunau and returned to the regiments. In the companies, the soldiers first of all took away from them all the loot and divided it among themselves. After each battle, the platoons went to jury trials; a soldier who evaded battle or who sat out in battle behind a bush was judged by his comrades, who listened to his explanations; the platoon either justified or sentenced to fraternal flogging, which was immediately carried out.

The institution of substitution led to the fact that the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia - classes in which a critical attitude is especially developed - paid off military service and the soldier mass received a homogeneous character, which was more easily processed in the direction desired by Napoleon. The Bonapartist organization was looking for strong hands, but did not pursue cultured people. While in Egypt, cut off by the English fleet from the possibility of receiving reinforcements from his homeland, on June 22, 1799, Napoleon wrote to Desaix: "I can buy two to three thousand blacks over the age of 16 and put into operation each battalion a hundred blacks."

Discipline the Bonapartist army was primarily based on the fact that the soldier did not see in the officer a protege of the ruling classes - the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia; in a soldier's environment, in which the revolution firmly imprinted the principles of equality, neither nobility, nor wealth, nor high education could be the basis for creating authority. Officers and generals were to be the same soldiers, but older, more experienced, more able to understand the combat situation, a reliable example of soldierly virtues. Every soldier had to feel the opportunity to ascend to the top of the military hierarchy; therefore, Napoleon defiantly emphasized that officer ranks were not closed to the illiterate. In the memoirs of Meneval, a scene is described when, during the distribution of awards, the regiment commander pointed to his best non-commissioned officer in combat, who, unfortunately, cannot be presented for production as officers, due to a major drawback - he could neither read nor write; Napoleon immediately promoted him to an officer's rank.

In the Bonapartist army there was no place for the intellectual hero. Emphasized soldierly virtues, soldierly appearance, kinship with the mass of soldiers were necessary for the Bonapartist leaders. Such was the hero of the First Empire - Marshal Ney, and such was the hero of the Second Empire - Marshal Bazin. Most of the chief officers came out of the soldier's environment and were of mature years; only the generals were young.

A whole series of measures were used by Napoleon to capture the soldiers' hearts. He sometimes entered into correspondence with a distinguished soldier who turned to him with a request; in the course of being promoted to officer, before the ranks, he rejected young candidates without a beard and demanded that “his terrorists”, that is, the old republican soldiers of 1793, be introduced to him; at palace dinners, on the occasion of the distribution of awards, the soldiers were seated mixed with the generals and officials of the court, and the lackeys were instructed to treat the soldiers with special respect. The merits, virtues and power of the old soldier were glorified in literature, in art and on the stage of the theater; a whole cult of the old soldier was created, which later became a serious obstacle to the transition of the French army to short terms of service. In addition to the "home for the disabled", which received great attention, the state provided a significant number of positions for retired military personnel. The living personification of the cult of the old soldier was the imperial guard, staffed by soldiers who distinguished themselves in battles and called old, in contrast to the young, staffed by recruitment. Napoleon's charm in the guard was endless; even after the Leipzig catastrophe, the guards greeted Napoleon wildly.

The authoritative voice of the old soldiers, who received the best material support and remained in the war, as a reserve, in the most extreme case, had an infectious effect on the newcomers, awakening young energy in them. In the campaign of 1813, the troops, crowded with recruits, fought successfully only when some Guards division was nearby - the presence of the Guards produced a moral break.

Napoleon by no means aspired to the ideal of an armed people. It was even desirable for him to isolate the army from the nation, to form from the army a special state within a state.

Since 1805, dismissals from the army of soldiers for length of service have ceased. Constant campaigns did not allow the troops to take root in the garrisons they occupied. During the period of peace (1802-1805), Napoleon did not leave troops scattered around the cities, but gathered them on the deserted shores of the Atlantic Ocean, in camps near Boulogne, where a landing was being prepared for England. During this period, the peasant, forcibly cut off from the land, hostile to military service, was completely reworked. The camp, the barracks became his homeland, the concept of the fatherland began to be personified by Bonaparte, patriotism degenerated into chauvinism, the desire for glory and distinction drowned out the idea of ​​​​freedom.

In order for the soldier in the regiment to stop yearning for his native home, it was necessary that the barracks lose the character of a moral bone-cutter. The discipline acquired a peculiar character: the soldier in his superiors, up to and including the marshal, saw his equals, standing above him only in the order of issuing orders. Mushtra was banished altogether; from the education of a sense of duty by exactingness in everyday trifles had to be abandoned. "Don't be picky" - Napoleon repeated more than once, and turned a blind eye to many things. Punishments, and very severe ones - execution - took place, mainly to set an example, to confirm that the authorities, rewarding the worthy, impose punishment on the guilty; but, in general, the cases of punishment were almost isolated in nature and far from covering the masses of marauders, robbers and rapists in the ranks of the army. The discipline was based on the terrible authority that Napoleon enjoyed in the army, and on the ability to use every opportunity to solder the soldiers into one moral whole.

Napoleon drew his strength from convincing the soldiers that his first concern was soldier's happiness. When, in 1807, after the end of the war, the French infantryman dreamed of returning to France from East Prussia as soon as possible, entire corps were transported on cradles, although for this a significant part of the Germans had to be turned into tankers. Napoleon did not forget that he gained popularity in the army and among the people in 1797 not so much with his brilliant victories, but with the peace at Campo Formio that he concluded. Napoleon, who dragged France into an endless war, achieved power as a peacemaker, and understood that even among veterans, amid the labors and dangers of a campaign, the thought of the delights of a quiet, calm, peaceful life flickers - and the emperor used this craving for peace, demanding in his orders before great battles of energetic effort to break the enemy at once and get the opportunity to taste a peaceful rest.

Napoleon reminded the soldiers of the victories won, thanks to his art, with little bloodshed - Ulm, where Mack was forced to surrender without a fight, or Austerlitz, where French losses were 8 times less than the losses of the Russian-Austrian army.

Management conditions. Before turning to the study of Napoleon's strategy and tactics, it is necessary to pay attention to the conditions of command and control of the troops of his era. The only means of communication was the dispatch of mounted orderlies; Although the optical telegraph had already been invented, it was a means that required considerable time to establish and was not applicable in conditions of mobile warfare. Thus, the rapid delivery of combat orders was ensured only if the corps of the army were within a running distance of a good ordinary horse. The maps at the disposal of Napoleon do not stand up to the most modest modern criticism; only very large roads are thinned out on them, the relief is almost not expressed at all, even large villages are not completely signed. The nature of the cards resembled a modern, carelessly drawn up scheme. It was very dangerous to dispose of such cards behind the eyes; their use required the production of numerous additional reconnaissance. The proverb of the Napoleonic era was that the worst guide is better than the best map.

But the nature of Napoleon was such that his subordinates were given a minimal share of creative initiative; marshals were not employees, but executors of the orders of the emperor. They could show their independence only in the ways of execution; the creative part remained entirely in the hands of Napoleon. In the person of his chief of staff, Berthier, Napoleon did not have an assistant for the operational unit, but only the chief of communications, who conscientiously ensured that Napoleon's orders were sent out to the destination and could always report on the location of the army units according to the latest information. Napoleon dictated orders to him, but did not initiate him into the course of his thought. Inseparable from Napoleon in his office on the campaign was the topographer Buckler d "Alb, who placed flags on the emperor's map indicating data on his own and enemy troops, and helped to understand the reports on the map. A good draftsman, Buckler d" Alb was deprived of any was a military education and was far from being able to get out of the role of a mechanical assistant and become a real officer of the general staff. Thus, management was extremely centralized, and Napoleon did without operational assistants, without a real general staff. In the presence of his overwhelming personality, employees turned into clerks. He went into detail, was himself his own chief of military communications, not only set tasks for the rear, but he himself chose points for the location of large stages and determined what reserves, in what size and where to concentrate.

Napoleon's contempt for the general staff can be seen at least from his order of June 2, 1812, in the mountains of Vilna: the officers of the general staff and gendarmes to observe the burial of the corpses of fallen horses and sewage both in the city of Vilna and in a circle 8 miles from the city. Such a task at the moment of the beginning of a majestic campaign that required serious operational work!

Napoleon was not a mentor. Only Davout can be pointed out as his student in operational art. With the energy of Napoleon, in the prime of his physical and mental strength, when he had to dispose of relatively small armies, in cramped theaters of war, he succeeded in brilliant operations, on which the imprint of the unity of thought and will, which penetrated all orders, lay. But when, approaching the age of 40, he shook his body with incessant nervous tension, when the army began to approach half a million, and the theater of operations expanded to enormous proportions (1812-1813), the disadvantageous aspects of excessive centralization of control began to clearly affect As a result, the Empire was brought to ruin.

The nature of Napoleon's strategy is determined, firstly, by the enormous moral and material forces he inherited from the French Revolution; the revolution destroyed all feudal partitions between the citizen and the state and placed at the disposal of the latter all the blood and all the paying capacity of the population; and, secondly, the need for Napoleon to centralize administration, in view of the poor means of communication.

Being materially and morally much stronger than his opponents, Napoleon broke with the method of waging a border war, with the strategy of exhaustion so characteristic of the 18th century, and moved from limited goals to setting decisive goals: Napoleon never thought about taking away from the enemy an interesting his province and stay in it. The task of each campaign, he set the complete crushing of the enemy, depriving him of the opportunity to offer any resistance, subordinating him completely to his will. The path to this has always been the same - the complete defeat of his armed forces and then the capture of his capital. The battle, which, in the wars of the eighteenth century, had the value of only one of the methods for achieving final success, with Napoleon acquired exceptional importance in strategy: as soon as war is declared, the troops concentrate and move with the sole purpose of reaching and defeating the enemy. With the sharp movement of the Napoleonic army to strike the enemy in the heart, the war lost the character of refined swordsmanship. Napoleon's strategy, impossible in the 18th century, became feasible only after the French Revolution, since only now did the armies become numerically and morally strong enough to set out to deliver a mortal blow to the enemy. Predecessor. Napoleon, by the boldness and vastness of the strategic plan, was Charles XII, but in the situation of small armies of the XVIII century, the Swedish king, of course, had to find his Poltava. The political, social and organizational prerequisites for wars in the pre-revolutionary era placed enormous obstacles to the scope, speed and free choice of the direction of operations. It is impossible to encroach on the subjugation of a state with tens of millions of people, with healthy principles of its state life, with an army of two tens of thousands of soldiers. Even the 600,000 people organized by Napoleon for a campaign in Russia turned out to be insufficient to carry out his strategy with the gigantic scale of the Russian defense. Military theory, being insufficiently aware of the historical conditions, proclaimed the strategic achievements of the 17th and 18th centuries to be ugly and delusional, and the only correct one, meeting the eternal and unshakable laws of military art, was Napoleon's strategy. last world war ( WWI), in which Germany, in relation to its opponents, did not have the advantages of Napoleonic France - a rich, renewed revolution - in relation to the states of the old regime, again questioned the beginnings of the Napoleonic strategy as the only true theory, since the victory was not given by deadly operational blows, and endurance in the fight to the point of exhaustion.

A decisive battle is the only goal that Napoleon set for himself. His opponents, like the French armies during the revolution, in order to better cover the border, to secure their base, to more conveniently supply the troops, were usually divided into several groups, and when located in the mountains, they completely switched to a cordon arrangement. Napoleon was dominated by the idea - not to scatter, not to isolate large parts far away, which, with the then means of control, he would not have been able to directly control. Napoleon sought to gather everything he could into a fist, to form, in his words during the Jena operation, "a battalion square of 200 thousand people" and to search with the assembled mass of battle in such conditions as to, if possible, end the entire campaign with one blow. Belit was facing a war in several theaters - for example, German and Italian, separated from each other by the massif of the Swiss Alps, then all attention, the entire center of gravity of Napoleon's actions turns out to be transferred to that theater of operations where he himself will lead the operations Napoleon did not stop before in order to oppose the Austrians in Italy in 1805 with smaller forces, in order to secure more than a triple numerical superiority in the Ulm operation against Mack

Against the scattered, divided enemy, Napoleon used a strategic breakthrough, hitting the center of the enemy location with the collected mass, as soon as the army divided the enemy into parts, Napoleon showed amazing skill in actions along the internal lines of operations, falling with the whole mass in turn on separate enemy columns . With a small army (1796, 1814), operations along internal lines led to brilliant successes; but with heavy, numerous and low combat capability of the armies (1813), Napoleon could not beat the necessary speed and energy, and the internal lines of operations were partly the cause of the Leipzig disaster.

If the enemy kept his forces concentrated, then Napoleon sought to avoid an ordinary battle; he staged the struggle in such conditions that victory and defeat were complete, that everything stood on the map of this battle - and he resorted to the method that Jomini calls "strategic Leithen" - the mass is not directed at the enemy, but past him; having passed the enemy, Napoleon turns the army to the enemy’s messages, cuts off his retreat, a battle takes place with inverted fronts, the most risky for both sides, since there is no retreat, and the smallest tactical failure is a strategic disaster (Marengo) Such an "extraordinary" battle - goal of the entire Napoleonic strategy.

The strategy of the 18th century, which hoped to starve out the enemy, seemed extremely complicated; the goal could be approached in several ways, and it was not easy to choose one of them. Napoleon, focusing all his thinking, all his forces and means on the upcoming decisive battle, introduced extraordinary simplicity and clarity into the strategy - to inflict a complete defeat on the enemy and then pursue and to finish until he obeys our will.

The clear, transparent main idea of ​​the campaign led to the fact that all the technical work to adjust the wheels of the complex mechanism of the army and its rear was rational, straightforward, majestic.

The center of gravity of Napoleon's strategy was so transferred to the operation against the enemy's manpower that in his entire long military career, which began with the capture of Toulon, he besieged only two fortresses - Mantua - in 1796 and Danzig - in 1807, and then due to forced during these periods of halt in the development of hostilities and a temporary transition to the defense.

Tactics. This strategy, constructed in such a way as to open up full scope for dominance over the operation by the unified will of the commander, was also answered by the corresponding tactics. Napoleon's tactical thought was a direct continuation of his strategic thinking, and the battle plan followed from the campaign plan.

On a campaign, huge masses of troops had to be transferred on a narrow front, pursuing both the speed of movement and the speed of deployment. Napoleon's troops were able to move, do not stretch in depth. When calculating, for a corps of 30 thousand people, often no more than 8 kilometers were assigned, the depth of the marching column: when approaching the battlefield, one corps move after another after two hours of time. Such a depth was possible because, in cases of a concentrated approach to the battlefield, only artillery was drawn along the road, and infantry and cavalry, in close platoon columns, moved, if there were no major obstacles, along the sides of the road.

Napoleon attached great importance to the mobility of troops. Frederick the Great built canals to facilitate the delivery of food to the troops, and Napoleon built highways similar to Roman roads to ensure the rapid transfer of troops at any time of the year. mail is a normal way to travel to the deployment area.

Before the battle, in order to firmly take control, Napoleon pulled up and concentrated the entire army; all the corps, in reserve formations, were to be at hand with Napoleon. In the absence of a telegraph and telephone, and the impossibility of quickly communicating with a distant corps commander, Napoleon avoided sending columns in converging directions right on the battlefield. This now favorite technique for achieving coverage and encirclement seemed dangerous to Napoleon, since, with poor communication, it opened up a wide expanse of chance and limited the scope of its direct influence. Of course, all means for Napoleon to achieve victory were good, and Napoleon was not such a doctrinaire as not to include in the battle plan a group of troops successfully formed on the march “on the enemy’s flank. During the battle of Ekmul (1809), Napoleon himself with the main forces found himself in such a position, on the flank of the enemy, and, of course, with a forced 40-verst transition, he did not pull himself up to his other troops, but immediately rushed to the enemy flank. The same thing happened at the Battle of Preussisch-Eylau (1807): on the march, Davout's corps was in an advantageous starting position for a strike on the Russian left flank, and, of course, Napoleon did not show such pedantry to first pull it up to the army , and then send again to coverage. Near Bautzen (1813), the same task, in a broader framework, fell on the group of Ney, who was given the task of attacking the Russian rear and flank during the campaign. However, these cases represent only exceptions; the main rule that Napoleon was guided by was the preliminary concentration of all forces before the battle.

If the battle was not fought with an inverted front, then Napoleon sought to make up for the coverage of that blow to the messages that strategy could not remove; Napoleon needed dominance over the enemy rear in order to undermine the moral strength of the enemy as soon as possible and to make wider use of success in battle. But, having concentrated his main forces in front of the enemy front in close proximity before the battle, Napoleon, of course, had to transfer the center of gravity of actions to the battle at the front and often set the goal of the battle to break through the enemy center, against which the French troops were piled up.

The significance of numerical superiority was fully realized by Napoleon, and his tactics opened the way for the application of the forces of this numerical superiority. Napoleon did not use his superiority in numbers to occupy a wider front and envelop. surround the enemy, but in order to concentrate forces in a narrow area and here fall upon the enemy with overwhelming superiority. The distinction that Napoleon makes in strategy between the main and secondary theaters is also made on the battlefield between the sectors of the main and secondary attacks. Minimum expenditure of forces on secondary areas and maximum concentration on the main area. This concentration of forces is realized in the form of overwhelming artillery fire (a hundred-gun battery near Wagram) and in the form of an attack of large, massive columns; 8 - 10 battalions of the division assigned to attack were placed in a deployed front, each battalion in 3 ranks, one after the other, and after good artillery and rifle preparation, this mass of 25 - 30 ranks rushed forward. Near Wagram, Napoleon's enthusiasm for massing the infantry reached the point of building the famous MacDonald column: 5 divisions, totaling 56 battalions (30 thousand bayonets), were located, having 2 deployed battalions in their heads and forming three masses, almost closely adjoining one at the back of the other; these 80-100 ranks - a formation equal in massiveness to which military history knows no examples - when moving on the attack, of course, they suffered many unnecessary losses. Napoleon's massive blows made a huge moral impression on the enemy, the attack went on with great enthusiasm, but the columns themselves, in the event of vigorous enemy fire, fell into a helpless position: the soldiers were not able to use their guns. In the battle of Waterloo, Erlon's corps advanced on the British in 4 such columns and melted under fire. Even Jomini saw in Napoleon's huge divisional columns a hobby, a pursuit of effect, and recommended a more practical line of battalion columns. However, the Napoleonic formation of divisional columns represented a logical development of the desire to use the greatest possible numerical superiority in the main sector.

From the essay made, a sharp line between the methods of Napoleon and Frederick the Great is clear. In tactics, on the battlefield, the entire army of Frederick represented, as it were, one corps; the generals subordinate to Frederick only passed on the commander's commands to the troops, set an example of courage and sought to restore order in the upset units. Napoleon received from the revolution an army divided into divisions; with an increase in the number of troops, he continued this grouping, creating corps (2-5 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry brigade); his corps commanders and division chiefs, no matter how they were suppressed by the authority of Napoleon, nevertheless were not forced to advance, equaling left and right, but had their own independent sections of the battlefield, could apply their judgment to them, assess the situation, had the opportunity to apply their military experience . With Frederick the Great, the deployment of the entire army and the attack developed according to a certain idea of ​​​​the commander, and with Napoleon, each corps commander was the master in his own sector. The fighting of the corps was carried out according to the instructions of its commander; Napoleon often did not have a ready-made battle plan when he started it, the battle was started by Napoleon's army on the entire front, and this battle finally oriented the commander and gave him the data necessary for the decision. Whereas Frederick the Great had almost no reserve, and the most powerful blow that his army was capable of inflicting was the first blow, Napoleon immediately laid down a very strong reserve; Napoleon remained deaf to the requests for reinforcements that reached him from various sectors of the battle, and the most powerful blow that the French army delivered was the last blow, the blow of the general reserve in the most important sector on the already wounded, exhausted, exhausted their reserves in a few hours of battle on the front of the enemy. Whereas in the army of Frederick the Great the elasticity of the battle order was extremely weak, and chance played a colossal role in battle, chance meant a lot in Napoleon's battles, however, it did not balance superiority in numbers, organization and management.

The grouping of the cavalry in the army of Frederick has changed; the infantry represented, in essence, one corps, and the cavalry was grouped into two wings. In the army of Napoleon, there were many corps, there were internal flanks, there was a wide possibility of using cavalry not only on the flanks, but also at the front, when the actions of artillery and infantry would upset the enemy battle order. Therefore, the Napoleonic cavalry gathered in special reserve corps, the cavalry was massed on the battlefield not in a stereotyped way - along the flanks - but depending on the situation, and the main task of the cavalry was to fight in cooperation with other branches of the army, to protect their infantry from enemy cavalry attacks, to use any disorder in the enemy ranks, which the cavalry leaders could calmly observe from removal of 1000 steps, the development of the success of the main attack and the pursuit - cruel, persistent - of the defeated enemy - tactical and strategic, from Kena and Auerstedt the pursuit is carried out beyond the Elbe and to the shores of the Baltic Sea, all parts of the Prussian army that survived the battle were captured in captive at this, stretching wandering, for many hundreds of miles, in pursuit.

Politics and strategy. Napoleon, no less than a commander, was a great politician. His campaigns, his battles, are the apotheosis of raw violence in strategy and tactics, but as soon as he was faced with a task that weapons could not solve, Napoleon became a subtle politician. Already in the campaign of 1796, when he began the operation by striking at the junction between the Sardinian and Austrian troops, divided them and forced Sardinia to conclude a separate peace, there was a combination of politician and commander in one person. In 1797, not a single diplomat, in Napoleon's place, would have coped with the task of concluding peace - he violated all the instructions of the Directory, made all possible concessions in order to persuade Austria to peace; the defeated empire, from the hands of Bonaparte, who stood with a victorious army several marches from Vienna, received Venice as a gift. Napoleon's moderation clearly corresponded to the strategic position of the army and the political position of France. In 1805, the Austerlitz victory and the conclusion of peace with Austria, necessary for Napoleon in view of the impending speech of Prussia, were achieved by a very subtle policy: Talleyrand was instructed to offer Austria the most moderate, honorable terms of peace; Napoleon simultaneously introduced a crack into the coalition, provoked the Russian army to go to a denouement, which, for the purposes of Russian strategy, was not at all timely, and by his moderation misled the enemy about the actual state of his forces. In 1807, despite the Friedland victory, it was impossible to force Russia to conclude peace with weapons, and Napoleon used a whole arsenal of political tricks to turn an unfinished enemy - Alexander I - at least a pretend ally. After 1809, Napoleon's political ability wanes even earlier and sooner than his strategic and tactical ones; catastrophes of 1812, 1813 and 1814 caused primarily by errors in the political, and then in the strategic calculation.

Napoleon needed great political art also because the masses, during the great ideological epic at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, began to take an extremely active part in the events. The entire 19th century, in comparison with the Napoleonic era, is a reactionary period in relation to the activity of the masses, and only in the 20th century the Russo-Japanese and world wars captured the masses even more strongly and gave them the opportunity to influence the results of the war even more decisively.

Already the military writer Bülow prophesied in 1803 that "if ever the Emperor of the French is destined to fall, it can only happen as a result of the final break between him and the Republican Party." This really took place in 1813 and 1814, when Napoleon even reproached Alexander I for instigating anarchy and revolution against him.

The Great Army of Napoleon is a huge military force that appeared as a result of numerous conquests led by a brilliant commander. It was on her that he pinned great hopes on the conquest of Russia, and then England.

Conflict between France and Great Britain

The Patriotic War of 1812 entered Russian history forever as an example of the military courage of the soldiers of our country and the genius of the strategic decisions of military leaders. The story of all this should be preceded by a consideration of the events that preceded it.

In the first decade of the nineteenth century, Bonaparte, who did not dare to launch a military campaign against Great Britain, decided to influence the enemy by imposing an economic blockade on him. That is why the first skirmish between Russian troops and the army of the great commander, although it ended in victory for the enemy, did not bring territorial losses to Russia. This happened in 1805 at Austerlitz.

Russia then fought along with several allies in the anti-French coalition. Those French troops are called the First Grand Army. Napoleon Bonaparte, who met with Emperor Alexander the First in the middle of the river on rafts, put forward a condition: Russia should not conduct any trade with Great Britain. It must be said that economic relations with this country were an important item for replenishing the budget for our fatherland at that time.

Many Russian-made goods were imported to England. Therefore, it was not in the interests of our country to violate such beneficial relations. For this reason, soon Alexander the First ordered the resumption of trade with Great Britain.

Pretext for war

This event was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the War of 1812.

Sending his Grand Army to fight Russia, Napoleon made a reckless and extremely short-sighted step, which became fatal for him. Bonaparte's message to the Russian tsar said that the violation of the agreement on maintaining the economic blockade of England by Russia would sooner or later lead to war. After that, both sides began a hasty mobilization of the military forces of their states.

Napoleon's second great army

The newly assembled military force was not all called great. The French commander planned to send not all the people who served in the Armed Forces of the empire to Russia. For this conflict, he allocated about half of the military personnel. These corps received the name of Napoleon's Great Army. This name is still the subject of controversy in the circles of the scientific community. This chapter will present several points of view on the question of why Napoleon's army was called great.

Some historians say that this adjective is used to refer to the largest part of the personnel of the Armed Forces of the French Empire. Other experts argue that the word "great" the author of the name, and it is obvious that he was Bonaparte himself, wanted to emphasize the military power, brilliant training and invincibility of his subordinates. It is worth noting that the second version is the most popular.

Characteristics of the personality of the French emperor

The choice of such a catchy name can be explained by Napoleon's constant desire to emphasize his military and political successes. His career as a statesman developed extremely rapidly. He climbed into the highest echelons of power, although he came from a poor family, belonging to the middle social class. Therefore, all his life he had to defend his right to a place in the sun.

He was born on the island of Corsica, which at that time was a province of the French Empire. His father had Italian roots, and the name of the future emperor originally sounded like Bonaparte. In Corsica, among representatives of the merchant class, wealthy artisans and other people belonging to the middle class, it was customary to acquire documents indicating that their bearer belongs to an ancient noble family.

Following this tradition, the father of the future emperor of France bought himself a similar paper, which speaks of the noble origin of their family. It is not surprising that Bonaparte, who inherited this highly developed vanity from his parent, called his troops Napoleon's Grand Army.

The ruler comes from childhood

Another important detail of the life of this outstanding person is that he was brought up in a large family. Parents sometimes did not have enough money to provide all their offspring with decent food. It is known that children coming from such families are particularly brisk.

An ardent temperament, combined with a constant desire for his goal - to stand at the head of a powerful empire - allowed him to subjugate many European states in a fairly short time.

multinational army

These conquests of European states made it possible to replenish the French troops at the expense of the male population of the occupied territories. If you look at the so-called "timetable of Napoleon's Grand Army" in 1812, you can see that it consists of only half of the representatives of the indigenous nationality of the state of France. The rest of the fighters were recruited in Poland, Austria-Hungary, Germany and other countries. It is interesting that Napoleon, who had a natural ability for military-theoretical sciences, did not have a particular talent for learning foreign languages.

One of his friends at the military academy recalled that one day, after studying German, Bonaparte said: “I don’t understand how you can even learn to speak this most difficult language?” Fate decreed that this man, who was never able to master German perfectly, subsequently conquered a country in which this language is considered the state language.

strategic miss

It would seem that by increasing the size of his army, Bonaparte should have thereby clearly strengthened its combat power. However, this advantage also had a downside. Such replenishment of personnel at the expense of citizens of other states conquered by force can be considered one of the disadvantages of managing Napoleon's Grand Army.

Going to fight not for their Fatherland, but for the glory of a foreign country, the soldiers could not have that fighting patriotic spirit that was inherent not only in the Russian army, but in the whole people. On the contrary, even being inferior to the enemy in numbers, our troops saw great meaning in their actions - they went to defend their country from intruders.

guerrilla war

The hot Corsican blood of Napoleon and his numerous military triumphs, with which the emperor was literally intoxicated, did not allow him to soberly assess the geographical features of the country where he sent his troops, as well as certain characteristics of the national mentality inherent in the local population.

All this ultimately contributed to the death of Napoleon's Great Army. But only it did not happen instantly - the army was dying slowly. Moreover, both the commander-in-chief and most of his subordinates for a very long time had the illusion that they were gradually moving towards their goal, approaching Moscow step by step.

Bonoparte failed to foresee that not only the soldiers of the Russian army, but also ordinary people would stand up for their country, forming numerous partisan detachments.

There are cases when even women not only participated in popular resistance, but also took command. Another fact from the history of the Patriotic War of 1812 is indicative. When the French near Smolensk asked a peasant how to get to the nearest settlement, he refused to show them the way under the pretext that at this time of the year it was impossible to get there because of the numerous forest swamps. As a result, the soldiers of the enemy army had to find their own way. And it is not surprising that they chose the most difficult and longest. The peasant deceived them: at that time, all the swamps were just dried up due to the abnormally hot summer.

Also, history has preserved the memory of a simple peasant from the people who fought near Moscow in the detachment of the famous hussar and famous poet Denis Davydov. The commander called this brave man his best friend and warrior of unprecedented courage.

Moral decay

Few of the huge multinational army of Napoleon could boast of such professional and spiritual qualities. On the contrary, Bonaparte, raising the fighting spirit in his subordinates, sought first of all to play on their base desires and aspirations. Leading his army to Moscow, the emperor promised foreign soldiers, who had no motivation for heroism, to give the rich Russian city to their full disposal, that is, he allowed it to be plundered. He used similar techniques in relation to the soldiers, who were demoralized as a result of an exhausting campaign in harsh climatic conditions.

These actions of his did not have the most favorable consequences. When the army of the French emperor was left to the mercy of fate in winter Moscow, burned down by a fire set by Russian sabotage groups, the soldiers began to think not at all about the glory of their Fatherland. They did not even think about how best to retreat and return to France for the remnants of the once great army. They were busy looting. Everyone tried to take with them as many trophies as possible from the conquered enemy city. In this state of affairs, no doubt, there was a share of the fault of Napoleon Bonaparte, who provoked such behavior of the soldiers with his speeches.

When there was an invasion of Napoleon's Great Army into Russia, and it happened on June 24, 1812, the great commander himself at the head of the corps, which numbered about a quarter of a million people, crossed the Neman River. After him, after some time, other armies invaded our state. They were commanded by such generals who had already become famous by that time, such as Eugene Beauharnais, Macdonald, Girom and others.

grand plan

When was the invasion of Napoleon's Grand Army? It is necessary to repeat this date once again, since such a question is often found in history exams in educational institutions of all levels. This happened in 1812, and this operation began on June 24. The strategy of the Great Army was to limit the concentration of strikes. Bonaparte believed that one should not attack the enemy, surrounding regiments under the command of Russian generals from different sides.

He was a supporter of destroying the enemy in a simpler and at the same time effective scheme. The numerous invasions of his first army immediately had to bring such significant losses to the Russians as to prevent the regiments of Russian generals from combining their efforts by attacking the French army from different flanks. Such was the original plan of the Russian resistance.

Napoleon, not without pride, informed his generals that his brilliant military strategy would prevent Bagration (pictured below) and Barclay from ever meeting.

But the Great Army of Napoleon in 1812 became acquainted with the unexpected tactics of Russian generals. They changed their intention in time to fight a general battle as soon as possible. Instead, the Russian troops retreated farther inland, allowing the enemy to "enjoy" the harsh climate of the local territories and the courageous attacks against them, which were carried out by partisan detachments.

Of course, the Russian army also inflicted significant damage on the combat power of the Napoleonic troops in rare clashes.

Victory of military ingenuity

The result of such actions, planned by the Russian generals, fully justified all expectations.

The great army of Napoleon in the Battle of Borodino consisted, according to approximate estimates, of 250,000 people. This figure speaks of a major tragedy. More than half of Napoleon's Great Army that invaded Russia (date - 1812) was lost.

A new look at history

The book "In the footsteps of Napoleon's Great Army", published several years ago, allows you to look at the events of those distant days from a new position. Its author believes that in the study of this war, one should rely primarily on documentary evidence and the latest finds of archaeologists. He personally visited the sites of all the major battles, participating in excavations.

This book is in many ways similar to an album of photographs of finds that have been made by scientists in recent decades. The photographs are accompanied by scientifically substantiated conclusions, which will be useful and interesting for lovers of historical literature, as well as specialists in this field.

Conclusion

The personality of Napoleon and his art of military strategy still cause a lot of controversy. Some call him a tyrant and a despot who bled many European countries, including Russia. Others consider him a fighter for peace, who made his numerous military campaigns, pursuing humane and noble goals. This point of view is also not without foundation, since Bonaparte himself said that he wanted to unite the countries of Europe under his leadership in order to exclude the possibility of hostility between them in the future.

Therefore, the march of the Great Army of Napoleon and today, many people perceive as a hymn of freedom. But being a great commander, Bonaparte did not have the same talents in politics and diplomacy, which played a fatal role in his fate. He was betrayed by most of the generals of his own army after the Battle of Waterloo, where the final death of Napoleon's Grand Army took place.

Years and was dissolved in 1814 by a decree of the Senate, which announced the deposition of Napoleon. Actually, first of all, it is necessary to reveal the question of the origin of the composition and stages of the formation of the Great Army.

French Guards Mounted Grenadiers, 1807.

Until 1806, within the framework of the Great Army, there were 7 organized army corps, each of which initially contained 2-4 infantry divisions, a brigade or division of light cavalry, 36-40 guns, sappers and rear transport units. The composition of the forces allowed for the possibility for the corps to conduct combat operations in isolation from the main forces, so the corps was the basic operational unit. The corps commander had the rank of marshal or divisional general. The size of the corps was determined by the capabilities and human resources of the area (from 20 to 70 thousand soldiers) where it was formed, but the composition of the forces (infantry, cavalry, artillery, support) was balanced. The corps system made it possible to conduct military operations on a wide front over a large area.

In addition to the main army corps, Napoleon also created a cavalry reserve, consisting of two cuirassier divisions (they were supported by 24 artillery pieces). The total strength of this reserve was 22,000 men. An artillery reserve was also formed, which included almost a quarter of the army's firing fleet with a large number of 12-pounder guns. The emperor also created a guards reserve, which included units of elite grenadiers assembled from the line units of the army. Moreover, the cavalry and artillery reserves began to be formed by General Bonaparte as early as 1796, and in 1800 the reserve army was already organized on the basis of the initial principles of the army corps.

Including garrisons and troops of the second echelon, the Great Army until 1805 had about 350 thousand people. In subsequent years, it almost doubled due to the addition (since 1806) of an ever-increasing number of Allied troops to it. In 1812, at least 630 thousand people were mobilized against Russia alone, and another 250 thousand served in Spain.

If we talk in detail about the national composition of the Great Army, then in the year Napoleon invaded Russia with 10 infantry and 4 cavalry corps with a total of 390,000 soldiers. Of these soldiers, only half were French, the other Poles, Germans from the German states of the Confederation of the Rhine, Germans from Prussia, Italians, Spaniards, Croats. To this number should be added the Austrian corps under the command of Schwarzenberg (30 thousand), which was operationally subordinate to Napoleon.

1.2. Military organization of Napoleon's army

It should be noted that the infantry division appeared in France in the XVIII century. In 1759, the Marshal of France, Duke Victor Francois de Broglie, introduced the division into divisions in the French army, combining infantry and artillery units. In 1794, the Minister of War of the Republic, Lazar Nicola Carnot, improved the division by introducing units of all three branches of the military - infantry, cavalry and artillery, capable of performing independent operations. Until 1796, the divisional system spread throughout the French army.

Lazar Carnot

But only Napoleon Bonaparte developed all the potentialities inherent in the divisional system and used it in combat operations based on the tactics of quick maneuvering. Soldiers were trained to move at a rapid pace, supply systems upgraded to support them wherever they went. Finally, the division's mobility was further improved with increased artillery mobility, able to follow infantry on the march and maneuver on the battlefield.

Later, when the total strength of the army approached 200,000, it became necessary to group divisions into army corps in order to improve command and control. The first such organization appeared in 1800, when General Jean Victor Moreau grouped the eleven divisions of the Army of the Rhine into four corps. However, Napoleon introduced permanent army corps into the French troops no earlier than 1804, using them in the same way as he had previously used divisions. These corps included heavy cavalry units, mainly performing reconnaissance functions. In addition, Napoleon formed cavalry divisions and corps. However, the division still remained the main tactical unit, created from infantry and artillery and carried out certain operational tasks.

A Napoleonic infantry division consisted of two or three infantry brigades (each consisting of two to five battalions in one or more regiments) and one artillery brigade, consisting of one or more batteries, each of which included four to six field guns and two howitzers.

In general, in the year the army had 408,000 infantry and 45,000 cavalry. In subsequent years, the size of the army increased. In 1812, the French army, excluding the troops of the allied countries participating in the campaign against Russia, numbered up to 1 million people (1 thousand battalions - 800 thousand people, 400 squadrons - 100 thousand, engineering and artillery troops - 100 thousand people). The army mainly consisted of peasants. The principle of admission of soldiers to officer positions continued to be respected. Under Napoleon, the organization of the troops changed significantly. The army was divided into corps, the composition of the corps was not, it included from 2 to 5 infantry divisions, while the division consisted of 2 or 3 infantry brigades, the brigade - from 2 regiments (the brigades were canceled and again replaced by regiments), the regiment - from 4 linear battalions and 1 spare. The battalion, which consisted of 850 people, was subdivided into 6 companies: 4 fusiliers, 1 grenadier and 1 Voltigers. In addition to infantry divisions, the corps included 1-2 cavalry brigades or 1 division and a brigade: a division consisted of 2 brigades, a brigade - from 2 cavalry regiments, a regiment - from 4 squadrons. The corps had 24 or more reserve artillery guns, in addition to divisional artillery; divisions often had 2 batteries (guns) and several sapper companies. The size of the corps was unstable. The strongest corps numbered 30-40 thousand people. The corps was a higher organizational unit. It consisted of three types of troops: infantry, cavalry and artillery - and could conduct combat operations independently. Marshals commanded the corps.

Jean Victor Moreau

Sometimes Napoleon created military groups from several corps, deploying forces and means to carry out strategic maneuvers on the field or to strike at the enemy. However, military groups (actually the army organization) did not develop due to the methods of warfare that prevailed at that time, the primitiveness of the means of communication and communications. The organization of the armed forces and individual branches of the armed forces had to correspond to the mode of their actions, to ensure the speed of movement of troops and the convenience of controlling relatively large masses. The mode of action and organization of the troops were in mutual connection and mutual dependence.

1.3. recruiting system

The imperial army was no longer an organic part of the people. In the era of the Convention, thanks to the then-dominant system of the general militia, all the French were equal in relation to military service. The Jourdan law, which established recruitment in 1798, also determined that in the event of war, one or more sets could be in service and kept under flags to conclude peace. In the eyes of Napoleon, only the soldier who had spent many years in the service, that is, for whom military discipline had become, as it were, second nature, had a price. In 1800 he established the Whig as an amendment to the law on the recruitment of patronage, and in 1804 - the drawing of lots. Now not a single conscription could be taken into service in full force, and, consequently, completely exterminated in an unsuccessful war. Only the one on whom fate will fall is called to the service, but if he prefers civilian life to military life, he has certain means, he can hire a deputy for himself cheaply. The bourgeoisie welcomed with pleasure the establishment of this money ransom instead of the tax in blood.

The term of service was set at 5 years - from 20 to 25 years, the service of veterans was widely practiced. Old soldiers were divided into ranks, each rank was assigned a certain salary. The guard was made up of veterans.

1.4. Large army management

In 1802, the military ministry splits into two parts: production and military operations remain under the jurisdiction of the minister of war (who was Berthier, then Clark until 1807), and the head of military affairs - the so-called minister director de l "administration de la guerre - manages the recruitment and This second minister is a civilian person: Dejean (1802), Lacuet (1810), he is preparing the war, and the Minister of War is waging war. Napoleon remained supreme minister, the soul of all reforms and operations.

His assistants, the leaders of his army, were a whole galaxy of young generals who had passed the combat scale in the titanic wars of the revolution. After coming to power, he immediately appointed 14 marshals of France and 4 honorary marshals - none of these chosen ones turned out to be unworthy of such an honor. Many of his other associates also deserved and later received this high title.

He chose his assistants from all walks of life without distinction of class. If Davout, MacDonald, Marmont, Pears and Clark belonged to the old nobility, Moses, Bernadotte, Soult, Mortier, Gouvion, Suchet, Brun, Junot came from simple bourgeois families, and Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Murat, Bessières, Her , Lannes, Victor, Oudinot, Lecourbe, Sebastian and Drouot were commoners by origin, and there were more of the latter. However, Napoleon always giving preference to people of noble origin, considering them the most humble, graceful and more representative. He promoted some of them very quickly, such as Segur or Znamya. For others, he founded the College of Pages and the cavalry school in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where officers were trained in a short time, for infantry and for cavalry. Then Napoleon fell asleep in succession in two corps: the greats, in the number of 800 people, and the emperor’s guards (spring 1806), which were crowned with the same privileges, like the number of the Life Guards, and, naresht, in 1813 the regiments of the guards - the guards : there were some handcuffs, who vouched for the fidelity of the greater classes of the court, who already began to sway. A skinny young man, having joined one of these corps, is guilty of a special income of not less than 300 francs and for his rahunka to buy equipment and a horse; commanders in these corps were called commanders who were already in the rank of colonel and more.

At the same time, with the actions of Napoleon, among his officers, representatives of the most distinguished names of the French nobility, it is necessary to indicate the most reasonable turbot for the possibility of increasing the number of officer personnel. Napoleon sacrificed a large number of officers as a sacrifice to the war, and he used up his strength. After all, most of them - navit ti, yaki mali high ranks - were not too young. Moreover, it was necessary to recognize the greatest recognitions and the greatest gifts with the prospect of being promoted in the service, according to their merits.

In this rank, Napoleon prepared people to replace his generals and marshals. Those of yogo military comrades-in-arms, such vins having gained the unstoppable reach of the rank of marshal of France, took the rank of colonel-general, like Junot and Barague d "Іllє; others became commandants of the fort, members of the senate for the Sovereign's sake, sometimes they became civil servants, prefects. In 1813, only one cavalry had 41 senior generals, moreover, all of them were younger than 60 years. To the languor of the best of the best military leaders.

The management of the troops was transcendently centralized, which was indicated, for example, on the divisions of the corps, the commanders of which, in fact, were converted to simple vikonavtsiv will, Napoleon, and often, without indulging the beast, did not dare to show initiative on their own.

The General Staff did not take off the proper development. Napoleon, having respected it no more than a technical governing body, the officers of which duty were well aware of the map, carried out reconnaissance in a masterful way, guarded for the expansion of orders, simply controlled the most complicated operations of the army. Headquarters were at the chiefs of artillery, engineers and the quartermaster general, who saw the provisional part. The headquarters of the army, which knew under the uninterrupted command of Napoleon, bewitched Marshal Berthier (until the end of 1814), which was worthy of the great trust of the emperor.

2. Discipline and honor

The French army was inspired by high combat training and discipline. Discipline, Napoleon said, is guilty, but based more on honor and honor. On the view of Gustavus Adolphus, that in the past the soldiers were punished with spitzruten "krіz striy" and that having taken into account that the hand of the kat is to beat the soldier, but if the soldiers themselves punish the wine soldier, then there is no dishonor, otherwise Frederick II chim cool enemy, Napoleon vvazhav podіbnu system petulant. Vіn rozumіv, that the republican armies did great deeds to that which was formed from the village blues, and not from the hirelings, but in that hour, having taken into account that the soldier was only for the sake of glory, a sign and a city. training and strict discipline make good soldiers independent of what the soldiers will fight for.

The French commander, with all his might, having broken through the soldiers of the pragnennya to glory, a sign and a city. For feats and faithful service, the soldiers were rewarded with armor, shablis, silver trumpets, the Order of the Legion of Honor and the Order of the Three Golden Runes were instituted. Heaps of boules of pov "yazan іz zbіlshennyam penny vipats. Often after the battles not only generals, but also officers and officers won large pennies of wine. Marshals and generals, who were angry, Napoleon gave out the titles of princes, dukes, counts, barons, chevaliers.

Each such title was associated with monetary subsidies, paid partly by the French treasury, partly from a fund of fifteen hundred thousand from the income of the territory for which this title was received. The salary, which grew with each image, was joined by a pension assigned to various knights of the Order of the Legion of Honor. Berthier received up to 1 million 364 thousand 945 francs of annual income, Massena - more than a million, Davout - 910 thousand, Ney - 628 thousand, Duroc - 270 thousand, which after his death passed to his daughter, Savary - 162 thousand, Sebastiani - 720,000 , Rapp - 110 thousand, the rest - in the same size. On the evening of the day of the battle of Eylau, each of those invited to the imperial table found under his napkin a treasury bill of 1,000 francs. Napoleon demanded a lot from everyone, but he also knew how to generously pay for devotion to himself.

3. Logistics

Napoleon was a master of both planned and impromptu delivery. Logistics planning, which previously provided for points for organizing military depots and distributing army supplies, took matters to a higher level and made it much more efficient than before.

At first, the Napoleonic troops existed, as far as possible, at the expense of the areas that passed or where they fought, and when they stopped for apartments in cities and villages, it was necessary to provide the army with food from the local population. Over time, the situation has changed. The soldiers had a four-day emergency supply with them. In addition, food was stored at the main base and intermediate depots, the latter being moved forward as the troops advanced.

Thanks to such foresight, the French army moved with amazing speed. An outstanding example is the 800-kilometer march carried out in 1805 from the northern coast of France through Western Europe to Ulm, Vienna and Austerlitz. Troops totaling about nine hundred thousand people for five weeks daily passed an average of 20-25 km. - The fastest of all more or less long army marches since the time of Genghis Khan.

Such a system of logistic support proved to be satisfactory until the very Russian campaign of 1812, when it completely went wrong due to bad Russian roads, poverty and devastation of the country, as well as the actions of Russian partisans.

In preparing the campaign, Napoleon carefully cared not only for the training of soldiers, but especially for the procurement of everything that is required for battle and camp life. Weapons, ammunition, clothing and bivouac supplies were prepared in huge quantities. Napoleon, down to the smallest detail, was aware of the location of each part of the land and sea forces, their condition, the resources of arsenals and military depots. According to French sources, he paid less attention to the food supply of the troops.

The supply of the army was carried out by requisitions on the spot, that is, according to the principle put forward by the revolution - "war must feed the war" - and by equipping bases and communication lines guarded by the troops. In 1807, military furshtadt battalions were introduced. In the division, according to Napoleon, there should have been 120 Furstadt and ordinary wagons, and in the corps - 480 (240 military and 240 requisitioned). Most of the army convoy consisted of heavy food trucks loaded with breadcrumbs and flour. It was believed that the army should have a monthly supply of food: a ten-day supply should be on people and pack animals, and a twenty-day supply should carry a park.

Food stocks were spent in case of impossibility to resort to requisition. The issuance of fodder was strictly regulated. For each type of cavalry, a special diet was established.

In order to reduce the convoy, tents were not issued to the soldiers. Tents were only for battalion commanders, regimental commanders and generals. There were hospitals in the army, in which there were (since 1809) ten sanitary companies.

Campaigns of the French troops, carried out in large masses over considerable distances, with an unusual speed for Western European troops, were possible and, due to the fact that the army was freed from the fetters of the store supply system, it fettered. Therefore, despite the amazing organizational talent of Napoleon, the Great Army had to live all the time either by requisitions or by robbery. Requisitions were even taken into account in advance in case of late needs.

3.1. Armament of the Napoleonic army

Describing the weapons of various armies of the period of the Napoleonic Wars, it should be noted that the most popular type of weapon of this period was the infantry musket, which was developed at the beginning of the 18th century by the famous French fortification engineer Vauban, who created a seemingly absolutely insignificant innovation - he improved the flint lock making it simple and reliable. It was from that moment on that the flintlock rifle with a bayonet (which, by the way, was developed by the same Vauban) became the main and, in fact, the only regular weapon of an infantryman. The guns of all the armies of Europe were immediately equipped with a similar lock, and its design remained essentially unchanged for about a century and a half.

French artillery in the battle for Smolensk

In France itself, since 1717, various modifications of guns with the Vauban lock have been successively adopted. The last of this "lineup" was an infantry rifle, put into service in 1777, it was with him that the French infantryman went through all the wars of the times, both the Revolution and the Empire. Although this weapon was slightly improved in 1801, the changes were so superficial that despite the official name ("The gun of 1777, modified in the IX year"), it was almost everywhere, including in official correspondence, continued to be called simply " Shotgun model 1777".

The total length of the main weapon of the French infantry was about 1.5 m with a barrel length of 1.1 m, its weight fluctuated around the 4.5 kg mark, the caliber was 17.5 mm, and the gun cost from 24 to 34 francs - depending on the place of manufacture and the materials used. The average rate of fire of such a weapon in the hands of an experienced soldier was 2-3 aimed shots per minute. The bayonet with a bayonet tube had a total length of 48 cm with a blade length of 40 cm, its weight was about a third of a kilogram. It is worth adding that, for example, in Russia in 1808 a gun was adopted, it is almost an exact copy of the French one; only in small things did the guns used in other European armies differ from them.

Despite the high degree of its unification in almost all armies of the continent, in the historical literature the combat characteristics of the infantry musket of the Napoleonic era - rate of fire, range, etc. - differ greatly. It’s worth noting that most authors give not absolute figures, but parameters of efficiency, on which the large number of other officials can also be added. Don’t forget that the smooth-bore flint towel is smooth-bore, even if it was well-finished, bouldered to the people, which seemed to be good enough for a successful victorious. For example, the speed of fire of the towels lay in the main leeway of navigation, and the accuracy of the fire began not only to the correctness of the aim, but also to the same, to the extent of dbailivim and steadfastly, to look after the armor. Another popular type of armor at that time was the cavalry carbine (blunderbuss).

This is a strongly shortened towel, which was worn by hussars, cavalry rangers and cuirassiers. The main Napoleonic cavalry was fired by blunderbusses in 1801, the older models were defended in 1786 and in 1766. The main capacity of the cavalry musketon in the form of the infantry and dragoon musket was considered to be in the range: the total length of the sash was 114.5 cm, and the vaga - 3.289 kg. Later, the Great Army adopted the name of the enemy forces of Napoleonic France in the period from 1805 to 1812. At the heart of the organization of the army of Napoleon lay the divisional principle, that is about "the day of military masses in the division, as well as in the corps. This was one of the reasons for the high combat effectiveness of the armored forces of the Empire.

In the middle of the core warehouse of the great army, there were representatives of all versions of the population, who adopted the best discipline and improved the management of the army.

In the army of Napoleon, the security was well organized. Discipline was on a high level, as it was not only concerned with the fear of punishment, but with appeals to the honor of soldiers and officers.

Literature

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I. Organization of the army in the era of the Empire

Napoleonic army. In the era of the empire, the army is still much more than in the era of the consulate, loses its national character. During the invasions of 1792 and 1793. the army, politically as yet untainted by anything, was in the eyes of the people, as it were, a glorious and immaculate symbol of France. During the period of the empire, it belongs to one person; she zealously fulfills all his plans and, in addition to the consent of the people, contributes to the maintenance of a long turmoil in Europe. Napoleon lives only for war and for war. The army is his tool, his thing. The idea has been repeatedly expressed that the change in the character of the army was an inevitable consequence of the predominant role that the military element acquired in France due to the victories of the revolutionary era, and that it would have happened with any other commander. But one cannot at all assert that Gauche, Moreau or Joubert would appropriate the dictatorship. If history knows a lot of Bonapartes, then it knows people like Washington. Meanwhile, it is undeniable that it was Bonaparte who prompted the directory to form the first fraternal republics in Italy and Switzerland; he, having become autocrat, planned to subjugate all Germany, all Italy and all Spain to the French empire. France would have been invincible if, after the Peace of Basel, she had decided, in spite of any new attacks, to be content with her natural frontiers.

Changes in the recruiting system. The imperial army no longer constitutes an organic part of the people. In the era of the Convention, thanks to the then-dominant system of the general militia, all the French were equal in relation to military service. Even the Jourdan law, which established recruitment in 1798, determined that in the event of war, one or more sets could be fully called to arms and kept under the banners until peace was concluded. In the eyes of Napoleon, only the soldier who has spent many years in the service, that is, in whom military discipline has become, as it were, second nature, has value. In 1800, he established, as an amendment to the law on recruiting substitution, and in 1804 - lottery. From now on, not a single conscription could be taken into service in full force, and, therefore, completely exterminated in an unsuccessful war. Only the one on whom the lot falls is called to the service; if he prefers civilian life to military life and is not entirely poor, he can cheaply hire a deputy for himself. The bourgeoisie gladly welcomed the establishment of this monetary redemption against the blood tax. There was a strong prejudice in society against the recruited soldiers of the old order; young people from decent families who voluntarily entered military service were considered heliporters: on military looked upon as a man of a special kind, always with bad manners. Therefore, bourgeois families preferred to hire deputies for their sons. Meanwhile, there was never a lack of old soldiers, who, having received their first retirement and convinced of their unsuitability for anything other than military affairs, looked for an opportunity to enter the service again. They made up a large percentage of the young regiments; from them, hardened veterans of the imperial guard, this core of the French army, were produced. Military service became more and more a career; it was abandoned only because of the inability to continue it or because of death. The bulk of the army was made up of common people, and most of the officer staff were the offspring of noble families who recognized the new order; such people enjoyed the favor of Napoleon. Until the moment when happiness began to betray Napoleon, the Napoleonic army was a closed caste, perfectly trained for continuous war.

Lawless recruiting kits.Grand Army It was formed by merging the Italian, Danubian and Rhine armies, each of which had previously lived an independent life and had its own special character. Since 1805, the Senate has authorized the emperor to call up recruits for service by decree and organize a national guard. From now on, sets quickly follow each other, and the empire devours huge numbers of people. In 1800, 100,000 recruits join the previously recruited 250,000. In 1806, after the battle of Jena, even a whole conscription was already insufficient: 80,000 men of the 1807 conscription had to be taken in advance. In 1808, 160,000 conscripts of 1809 and 1810 were recruited.

The following year, Napoleon takes two drafts in advance and again calls for service three who have already served their time. In 1813, he had to strain all the forces of the country to form a new army; he demands to arms all the recruits: 100,000 not taken and retired - the calls of 1809-1812, 240,000 of the call of 1814, and 10,000 people of the guard of honor, equipped at their own expense. Finally, the National Guard is also called into service, divided by the Senate decree of March 13, 1812, into three categories (from 20 to 26 years old, from 27 to 40 years old and from 41 to 60 years old). 180,000 warriors of the National Guard of the first category, who miraculously escaped enlistment in the regular army (because they were the support of their families, or due to weakness of physique), were placed at the disposal of the Minister of War. These weak young men in a blouse and clogs, later nicknamed “Marie Louises” for their feminine appearance, later aroused the surprise of the Russian Tsar with their exemplary behavior under Faire-Champenoise. It is calculated that under Napoleon, from 1800 to 1815, 3,153,000 Frenchmen were called up for military service in France, not counting the same number of soldiers who were part of the auxiliary and foreign corps. “Once having entered the service, a person did not leave it alive.” After 1808, each of these sullen and grouchy veterans knows for sure that he is destined to die from a cannonball, from a bullet or in a hospital bed. They console themselves with robbery, drunkenness and revelry. Inflammation of the intestines makes terrible havoc in their ranks. Brousset suggested drinking only clean water as a prophylactic; it is easy to imagine how many followed this advice. During the ten-year period of the empire, the percentage of deaths on the battlefield from wounds and diseases was very high. D'Argenvilliers, head of the recruiting department under Napoleon, officially determined the number of the dead, moreover, exclusively French, at 1,750,000 people. Naturally, everyone who could pay off military service with money tried to avoid it at all costs. Others paid off up to three times, and yet, having spent 20,000 francs, they finally ended up on the campaign of 1813 or 1814. But even earlier, Napoleon had already taken some of them into the service by force. On December 3, 1808, he ordered Fouchet to draw up a list of fifty Parisians and ten for each department of "old and rich families removed from the recruiting system"; their sons, between the ages of 16 and 18, will be forcibly sent to Saint-Cyr school. “If anyone protests,” the emperor wrote, “it is necessary to answer simply that such is my will.” From that time on, the hunt begins not only for those who evade service, but also for future officers; officials and gendarmes act in this respect with merciless severity, which is intensified as the aversion to military service increases in society. “Punishment for evading service, which until now has only befallen the most evader, since 1811 has extended to his father, mother, brothers, sisters and sons-in-law, in a word, to his entire family, to anyone who has an unfortunate fugitive, exhausted by hunger, cold and grief, ate, drank, worked or slept, and finally - for his entire commune ”(A. Doniol).

Composition of the army: imperial guard. The composition of the army was extremely complex. It contained many diverse elements. Napoleon tried to stir up competition in every group, in every regiment, in every component of the army. Here there was a continuous struggle for superiority: fame was understood solely as praise from Napoleon or as a distinction given to him. Concern about how best to fulfill the national duty, was replaced by the desire to catch up and get ahead of the opponent. Napoleon returned to the semi-brigades their old name of the regiments and elevated them to the rank army corps each group of two or three divisions. Army color - imperial guard, deservedly enjoying a brilliant reputation. Each element of each of the various types of weapons is represented in it by its most meritorious members. The Imperial Guard is an exact miniature of the entire army; from 7,000 people who made up the consular guard, in the very first years of the empire it was brought to 50,000, and in 1813 to 92,000 people. Since 1807, after the Eylau massacre, next to old guard becomes young guard, trying to equal her. The guard accompanies the emperor everywhere, goes into battle only with him, and usually only as a reserve in order to decide the fate of the battle. The infantry of the guard consists of 4 grenadier infantry regiments under the command of the incomparable Dorsenn, 3 infantry chasseurs, 1 grenadier fuselery, 1 chasseur fuselery, 1 flanker grenadier, 13 rifle and 13 voltiger, not counting the pupils and veterans of the guard. Artillery, commanded by Drouot, includes 1 cavalry and 2 infantry regiments. The cavalry is mounted grenadiers, formed at the consulate from the former guards of the Directory - the first part of the army to recognize the new regime. In 1806 it was one regiment of four squadrons, approximately 1,000 sabers. With their blue uniforms and their bearskin caps, this cavalry was reminiscent of the former grenadiers of the royal guard. Its first commander was Bessières, then successively Order, Walter and Guyot. Count Lepic, a typical veteran of the Napoleonic Guard, was a major in it. On April 15, 1806, a detachment joined it dragoons of the empress, commanded in succession by two Corsicans, cousins ​​of the emperor, Arrighi and Ornano.

By the same decree, a guard detachment of cavalry chasseurs or wingmen, who carried out intelligence service, was established. These were the closest associates of Napoleon; they followed him everywhere, from Arcole and the pyramids to Waterloo; they wore a green uniform, which was the color of the imperial livery. They formed an excellent orchestra. They had only two commanders, also close relatives of Napoleon: his stepson, Prince Eugene, and the latter's cousin, Lefebvre-Desnouette.

The best representatives of the best parts of the cavalry were gathered here. “This is a detachment of brave men, before whom the enemy cavalry has never resisted,” Napoleon once said about them. Finally, the fearless Mamluks were also included in the guard, who were initially recruited from Syrian and Coptic volunteers, and then accepted a considerable number of French into their composition. They retained their green turbans and their ponytails, among which the French banner fluttered. Rapp organized them; their lodgings were in Marseilles, and in spite of their excellent discipline they were massacred there in 1815 by the fanatical rabble.

New kinds of weapons. The organization of the infantry, brought to considerable perfection already in the era of the revolution, was little changed. Napoleon recruited into grenadiers beautiful and tall people. From the smallest ones (no more than 4 feet 11 inches) he formed detachments shooters, armed with light guns and supplied with incomplete ammunition; Napoleon had in mind to attach them detachments to regiments of light cavalry, which they could follow at a trot, holding on to a rider's boot or a horse's tail. Later (by an imperial decree of the 2nd of supplementary May of the 13th year) they limited themselves to forming a company of riflemen with each battalion, whose guns, of the dragoon type, were slightly lighter than ordinary ones. They were not assigned to the cavalry. Another attempt had the goal of accustoming part of the dragoons to foot combat, according to their original purpose; but after the defeat of the dismounted dragoons at Wertingen, this experience was abandoned. In 1809, Napoleon established entire rifle regiments; in 1814 their number reached 19. They were light infantry. The breeding grounds for infantry officers were the lyceums, the military pritanei in La Flèche, and the Fontainebleau military school, which was moved to Saint-Cyr in 1808. The largest number of army officers came out of the infantry - an average of 70%.

On the contrary, the cavalry needed a radical transformation. She played a rather pale role in the wars of the revolution. Cavalry cannot be created in one day, and the cavalry of the old royal army was completely upset by the emigration of almost all of its officers. Moreover, there were no horses, since horse factories were abolished; horses were now obtained only by requisition. Napoleon in 1807 reopened horse factories, and in 1809 organized large repair depots under the control of cavalry generals. “For the needs of the army,” Napoleon once said, “four types of cavalry are required: scouts, light cavalry, dragoons and cuirassiers.” The scouts were the cavalry chasseurs of the imperial guard and one of the foreign detachments, namely the Polish light cavalry regiment. The light cavalry were predominantly hussars; it was the most popular part of the cavalry in the army due to the variegation of their form, dapper appearance and dashing manners. From 1803 to 1810 there were ten regiments of them, which differed from each other in the color of the dolman, breeches and waistcoat, or at least cuffs and lapels, but still possessed hussar bearing, i.e., they were bold, brave and brave in appearance. 26 regiments mounted hunters shared intelligence service with the hussars and, if necessary, went along with them to attack with a saber unsheathed. They were commanded by the best commanders of the great army - Curelli, Marbo, Segur, Montbrin, Lassalle, Murat: all - cavlerists by vocation, madcaps and hammered heads, sometimes, however, empty, who, sparing neither people nor horses, did miracles and could to serve as a confirmation of the old motto of Jacques Carre: "A coeurs vaillants rien impossible" (for the brave there is nothing impossible). Dragoons were line cavalry. From the very beginning of the empire there were 21 regiments; some of these regiments were later converted into hussars, others into Lancers; the latter were armed and trained on the same principles as the Polish Light Horse Regiment. Like Montecuculli and Moritz of Saxony, Napoleon considered the pike to be the special weapon of the cavalry of the line. The heavy cavalry were cuirassiers and carabinieri. The cuirassiers wore a double cuirass that protected the chest and back; under a double breastplate, which replaced a simple cuirass, the rider felt more secure, and this was a strong psychological support. The Carabinieri - the only part of the former royal guard that survived the maelstrom of the revolution - wore a red chenille helmet, an orange cuirass, as in the time of Louis XIV, and Marie Louise's white and blue uniform. Of their commanders, Kellerman and Milgo were the most famous. Caulaincourt left the Carabinieri. Napoleon did not accept this corps as part of his guard and appointed his brother Louis, constable, as its commander, remembering, perhaps, that under Louis XIV the Count of Provence was the chief of the carabinieri. In the newest armies the cavalry usually makes up one-fifth of the total mass; Napoleon believed that the cavalry should be a quarter of the infantry in Flanders and Germany, a twentieth in the Alps and Pyrenees, and a sixth in Italy and Spain.

Artillery and engineering units have undergone only minor changes. From the time of Count Saint-Germain and Gribeauval, French artillery was the first in Europe, and from the time of Frederick II, French engineering officers were in great demand in all foreign armies. Napoleon gave both of these corps a lot of work. His largest battles - at Eylau and Friedland, at Esling, Wagram and Moscow - were accompanied by terrible cannonades. The sieges of Gaeta, Danzig, Koenigsberg, Saragossa, Innsbruck and the fortification of Lobau Island gave the Corps of Engineers the opportunity to distinguish themselves many times over. The names of Marmont, Sonji, Drouot and Lauriston among the artillerymen, Maresco, Chasselou-Loba and Ebla among the engineers deservedly gained honorable fame. Under Napoleon, a convoy detachment was formed. Teams of bakers, blacksmiths and farriers were assigned to separate corps. Larrey, who invented the system of field hospitals in 1792, was in charge of the surgical department, Degenette was in charge of the medical department. The army was supposed to become a single organism capable of living an independent life and its own means. Napoleon thought of everything, introduced his initiative everywhere and, with his amazing organizational talent, aroused in all branches of the military department a revival that had never been seen before.

Auxiliary and foreign corps. The recruitment set extended to all adult inhabitants of France up to the Alps and the Rhine. But the Grand Army also included auxiliary troops recruited in vassal lands: Italians, Swiss, Germans from the Rhine federation, Poles, etc., and foreign corps put up by the allied states. So, in the ranks of the French army there were: 16,000 Swiss, placed at the disposal of France on the basis of the treaty of 1803, the Hanoverian legion, formed in the same year by General Mortier, the northern and Vistula legions, six Croat infantry regiments, six Illyrian rifle regiments, then the Saxon Renier's detachment, the Bavarian - Deroy, the Spanish - the Marquis of La Romana, the Italian - Prince Eugene, the Mameluke detachment and the Polish light cavalry of Poniatowski. The latter deserves to be said about it a few words separately. When Napoleon entered Poland, Polish cavalrymen voluntarily began to come to him, offering their services. On March 2, 1807, he issued a decree on the formation of one regiment of light cavalry in four squadrons. Here, side by side, without distinction of rank, privates and officers served as volunteers - all of gentry origin. No trace of discipline, no training - but extraordinary zeal and courage that knows no bounds - such was the nature of this legion. In the famous assault at Somo Sierra, the Poles, including 248 sabers, under the command of Montbrun, withstood the fire of 13,000 Spaniards and 16 guns and captured the position. Under Wagram, they took possession of the peaks of the Austrian dragoons, in order to thereby quickly lead them into disorder and defeat. After that, Napoleon provided them with a pike, which was also their national weapon. In the last campaigns of the Napoleonic period, they became famous for a number of heroic deeds. The ever-increasing need for people forced Napoleon to constantly increase the number of foreign corps in the Grand Army. Napoleon formed even seven-island a battalion recruited in the Ionian Islands, a battalion of Greek riflemen, an Albanian regiment and a Tatar squadron. In 1809, he demanded from Russia an auxiliary army against the Austrians, in 1812 - the Prussian and Austrian contingents to fight Russia.

Since 1809, the French army was, as it were, denationalized: all kinds of languages ​​were spoken in it. Foreign corps remained loyal to France until 1812. The failure of the Russian campaign prompted almost all of them to delay.

Thus, the Napoleonic army was an unusually motley crowd, in which all kinds of costumes flashed. What an incredible mixture of shakos, helmets and papaches, camisoles, tunics, dolmans, saddlecloths, cloaks and epanches: a mixture of aiguillettes, stripes, sultans and pompons, galloons and vitishkets, starting with the "Bonaparte hussars", nicknamed canaries, because in the brilliant uniforms in which Berthier dressed them, his favorite color, yellow, prevailed, and ending with the carabinieri in bearskin hats that hung down on their blue national uniforms with high collars and red epaulettes trimmed with silver lace. The tambour-major Seno, a giant 1 meter 90 centimeters tall, reached 2.5 meters in a sultan towering above his bear's hat. Grand Duke Konstantin in Tilsit begged one of these giants from Napoleon to be an instructor for Russian drummers. All these bright forms were cramped, heavy and uncomfortable. Huge boots, cuirasses and helmets of terrifying weight, tightened uniforms designed to petrify the body in the pose that a soldier has on parade, the debilitating weight of a knapsack, camping supplies, guns, bayonets, sabers and broadsword - should, it seemed, absolutely paralyze the movements of this precisely iron-clad warrior. Having bypassed the Invalid Museum or some rich private collection, even just examining the full set of armor of those times, you begin to better understand the epic of the empire. This generation was stronger and better equipped for the struggles and struggles of life than any of those that followed. However, the weak quickly perished: the selection quickly took place by itself.

Preparations. Preparing the campaign, the emperor took care with the greatest care not only about the training of soldiers, but especially about the preparation of everything that is required for battle and camp life. Weapons, ammunition, clothing and camp supplies were procured in huge quantities. Napoleon, down to the smallest detail, was aware of the location of each part of the land and sea military forces, their condition, the resources of arsenals and military stores. He paid less attention to the food of the troops. “I made eight campaigns under the empire,” said Braque, “invariably in outposts, and never once in all this time did I see a single military commissar and did not receive a single ration from military stores.” “From the moment of going on a campaign, the army only occasionally received food, and everyone fed on the spot as best they could” (Segur). Marbo also tells of a deal he made in 1812 with the Jesuits of a monastery near Vilna: he delivered to them in abundance for their distilleries the grain looted by his rangers, and the Jesuits in return supplied him with bread and vodka. So, despite the amazing organizational talent of Napoleon, the Great Army all the time had to live either by requisitions or by robbery. He even seemed to believe in principle that the war should feed the war: “Throw stocks of bulls,” he wrote from Spain to Dejan, “I don’t need provisions, I have everything in abundance. The only thing missing is wagons, military transports, overcoats and boots; I have never seen a country where the army could feed so well. Requisitions were even calculated in advance in case of later needs. The vanquished were taxed with huge indemnities. They were collected with inexorable severity by the chief treasurer of the Great Army, Daru, who honestly and prudently managed these amounts. After the Tilsit meeting, there were 350 million francs in the military cash register. Napoleon tried to arrange things in such a way as to be able to fight for five years without resorting to either loans or the establishment of new taxes.

Army command; General base; Napoleon's chief military officers. His assistants, the leaders of his armies, were a whole galaxy of young generals who had gone through combat school in the titanic wars of the revolution. During his accession, he immediately appointed 14 marshals of France and 4 honorary marshals, and not one of these chosen ones turned out to be unworthy of this honor. Many of his other associates also deserved and later received this high title. He chose his assistants without distinction from all walks of life. If Davout, Macdonald, Marmont, Pears and Clark belonged to the old nobility, then Moncey, Bernadotte, Soult, Mortier, Gouvion, Suchet, Brun, Junot came from simple bourgeois families, and Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Murat, Bessières, Ney, Lannes, Victor, Oudinot, Lecourbe, Sebastiani and Drouot were commoners by origin. The latter were the most common. However, Napoleon always preferred people of noble origin, considering them more obedient, more graceful and more personable. Some of them he raised very quickly, such as Segur or Flago. For the nobles he founded college of pages and cavalry school in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, who were supposed to train officers in a short time; the first - for the infantry, the second - for the cavalry. He then successively founded two corps: Velites among 800 people, vestige gendarmes of the emperor(September 1806), who enjoyed almost the same privileges as the former Life Guards, and, finally, in 1813 - four regiments honorary guard: they were almost hostages, vouching for the loyalty of the upper classes of society, which was already beginning to waver. Each young man who joined one of these corps, the existence of which, however, was short-lived, had to have a personal income of at least 300 francs and at his own expense acquire equipment and a horse; their chiefs were usually captains, who were already in the rank of colonel, and so on for all other ranks. Along with the desire of Napoleon to see among his officers representatives of the most famous names of the French nobility, it is necessary to note this quite reasonable concern for the possible rapid replenishment of officer cadres. Napoleon exhausted an incredible number of officers, and those who survived were aging rapidly, despite the fact that most of them - even those who were in high ranks - were very young in years. Moreover, it was necessary to encourage the most devoted and the most gifted with the hope of promotion commensurate with their merits. Thus, Napoleon prepared people for himself to replace his generals and marshals. Those of his military staff whom he considered incapable of reaching the rank of marshal of France received the rank of colonel-general, like Junot and Baraguey d'Hillières; others became commandants of fortresses, members of the Senate or Council of State, sometimes even civil officials, such as prefects or general assemblers. Others were resigned. In 1813, the cavalry alone numbered 41 retired generals, and all under 50 years old: Napoleon wanted to have a young army and young leaders at its head. Indeed, the failures of his last years are largely due to his own weariness and the weariness of some of his best generals. But he took care of all his employees to the best of his ability, showered him with awards and distinctions.

Awards; Legion of Honor. He made the most famous of his associates princes, such as Berthier, Massena, Davout, Ney, Bernadotte; Lannes did not receive this title because he died too early. Others became dukes, earls or barons. Each such title was associated with a monetary award, paid partly by the French treasury, partly from a 15% fund from the income of the territory from which the title was borrowed. The increased salary for the rank was joined by a pension assigned to various ranks of the Legion of Honor. Berthier received up to 1,354,945 francs of annual income, Massena - more than a million, Davout - 910,000, Ney - 628,000, Duroc - 270,000, which after his death passed to his daughter, Savary - 162,000, Sebastiani - 120,000, Rapp - 110,000, the rest - in proportion. On the evening of the day of the battle of Eylau, each of those invited to the imperial table found under his napkin a ticket for 1000 francs. He demanded a lot from everyone, but he also knew how to generously pay for devotion to himself. Meanwhile, he reaped nothing but ingratitude, because all these marshals, dukes and earls, so well off financially, showered with all sorts of honors and no longer having any hope of promotion, finally lost the desire to risk their lives: in 1814 they greedily seized on a reason to get rid of the fighting life.

Personal influence of Napoleon on the army. If most of the highest military ranks left Napoleon in the days of misfortune, then the lower-ranking officers and soldiers remained unshakably loyal to him. He knew how, like no one else, to penetrate the heart of his companions with a word and arouse enthusiasm in them; no one had so many sacrifices to the very end as he did. He was for them, as it were, a living god of war, an infallible and omniscient genius, whose mere presence ensured victory. His proclamations and bulletins of the Grand Army are justly regarded as ideal examples of military eloquence. He knew how to distinguish the most humble for a feat, often rewarding them on the battlefield itself, sometimes removing the cross from himself for this; sometimes he will cover with his cloak the wounded, trembling in a fever, or spend the night next to the young drummer who crouched by the stove before the arrival of the emperor. He learned in advance the names of the soldiers with whom he wanted to speak, so that from the first word he called them by name, as a result of which they were sure that the emperor personally knew each of them. Often, after a victory, he promoted old illiterate sergeants to the officers, who were then soon retired, before they had time to reveal their inability. Constantly caring about maintaining a cheerful mood in his troops, he was no less concerned about their physical well-being. He goes around the bivouacs, tastes the soldiers' stew, pats the soldiers on the cheek in a friendly manner, or jokingly pulls on the ear. His walk through the camp and the illumination of the latter on the eve of Austerlitz have been described many times. It seemed that no fatigue, no wound could break these iron people. Rapp, after returning from Egypt, already had twenty-two wounds. Oudinot had thirty scars, his body was like "a sieve", and he died at the age of eighty. Marbo received a dozen wounds in sixteen years of service, including several serious ones, but they did not cripple him and did not shake his iron health. After the battle of Somo Sierra, Segur, sentenced to death by the emperor's life surgeon, Ivan, no longer thought about anything but how to die in peace. With the exception of a few senior military leaders, the noblest of military virtues, self-denial and the willingness to sacrifice life to duty, reigned inviolably in the Napoleonic army up to Waterloo.

Discipline of the Napoleonic army. However, in this life full of excitement, where carefree fun was replaced by the most terrible hardships, bad passions flared up no less than good ones. Discipline quickly weakened in the Grand Army. “What can be done,” writes Count Segur, “against the current that carries everyone? It is known that a long series of victories spoils everyone, from a soldier to a general, that too frequent forced marches undermine discipline, that in these cases, the irritation caused by hunger and fatigue, as well as the malfunction in the distribution of rations due to haste, encourage all sorts of rampages: each in the evening, the soldiers are forced to scatter to get everything they need for life, and since they never get anything from the treasury, they develop the habit of taking everything themselves. After the miracles of Jena and Friedland, our soldiers had to run 500 miles and fight immediately upon arrival. Their life was, as it were, one supernatural effort to overcome fatigue and danger, after which robbery, as one of the results of victory, seemed to them their legitimate right. To embarrass them too much in this respect would be to discourage and irritate them. And even then to say: demanding everything from a person, you need to forgive him something. However, the example came from above. All the upstarts of the new regime were possessed by an insatiable love of money; in their midst reigned rudeness of morals and that contempt for the law, which is characteristic of people accustomed to seeing the unchanging triumph of force over law. Thiebaud candidly tells how he smuggled under the noses of the customs officials, how he struck the arm of the unfortunate octroy collector who dared to look into his carriage with a saber, and how he was acquitted for a bribe by the military council. At the beginning of the continental blockade, Masséna amassed 6 million francs in a few months by selling permits; True, Napoleon confiscated this dishonestly acquired money, and Massena did not dare to complain. Soult forced a large military contribution from the monks of the rich abbey of Saint-Polten and, in order to disguise this extortion, did not hesitate to ruin an entire division with an exhausting forced transition, where the backward and sick fell by the hundreds along the road. Later, during his proconsulship in Andalusia, he plundered many precious works of art, such as that painting by Murillo, which he, already a minister, sold to the Louvre Museum for a fabulous price. Murat was only harmlessly funny; he dressed up like a beautiful woman: during the Prussian campaign alone, he ordered 27,000 francs worth of feathers from Paris.

Despite these dark spots, the Grand Army possessed in a high degree those qualities that make up the Romance race: courage, loyalty and a sense of honor. Napoleon raised the Frenchman for a moment above the average human level. He sated France with military glory; the poetry of war is the poetry of the underdeveloped strata of society—that is why the Napoleonic epic is still dear to the people. But if Napoleon is drawn to the imagination as a young god of war, then we should not forget that he was a deadly god who destroyed everything he touched. He sacrificed to his ambition a whole generation of people, 6-7 million human lives, of which a quarter of the French, and - more importantly - he inspired foreigners to hate the name of France and brought on the latter those terrible blows of revenge, the traces of which have not been erased to this day.