Reply To: No, It Wasn’t All Rosy in la Grande Armée!

[OotKust]

A small, but important issue I’d overlooked myself, had it not been extracted by someone else- that of ‘training’ in Frances’ Artillery arm.

From ‘Alombert and Colin, The 1805 Campaign in Germany, Vol. 1, in 1801 a memorandum about the quality of artillery

“page 188- Artillery regiments were scattered during the time of war, as a result, instruction is lost“.

“p. 189- two-thirds of the pupils leaving, were so badly skilled that today, out of 1408 officers,  only 375 leave the school [qualified] and 1033 as non-commissioned officers”.

“After making the most rigorous calculations about the personnel of the corps, it is shown that, out of 57 brigade chiefs, there are 15 bad ones; that out of 87 battalion leaders, there are 27 bad ones, and that finally out of 948 captains or sous-lieutenants and of non-commissioned officers 208, must be placed elsewhere. “

So we see, despite ecoles growing, the result wasn’t to the degree necessary for the service.

Sometime later, perhaps 1808 and in relative restorative peace, an ‘academics vs tradesmans’ officers corps view of those posts in ‘La Garde’, between the school-trained artillery officers and those risen through the ranks and “learned their trade” the hard way- on campaign.

The senior [read Etat-Major] Guard artillery officers wanted them to be transferred to other Guard units and out of the artillery because they were not ‘school-trained’.

The decision reached Napoleon and he found on the side of the officers to remain in the Guard artillery.

I haven’t found the source Correspondence that confirms this yet. It may be apocryphal.

-d