Napoleon’s Conscripts

Over the course of the Napoleonic wars, the French emperor mobilised over two million fighting men – most of them conscripts. Napoleon’s Conscripts tells their story. Exploring the system of conscription and soldiers’ experiences of service, it sheds light on the lives of ordinary men who marched beneath the emperor’s eagles.

From its introduction in 1798 until the fall of the empire in 1815, conscription provided Napoleon with the manpower for the almost incessant military campaigns that saw French troops fight across Europe from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the Russian steppes, the deserts of North Africa, and the islands of the West Indies. Conscription influenced not only who was in the French army and how they experienced military life but, ultimately, how the army operated both on and off the battlefield.

Napoleon’s Conscripts looks into this vital but often overlooked issue, peeling back the curtain to explain how conscription worked, how conscripts moved from farm to front line, and how conscription influenced the French army and its soldiers.

Based on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including offering unique insights from the original service records of tens of thousands of soldiers from across the French empire, Napoleon’s Conscripts will appeal to anyone with an interest in Napoleon’s campaigns, the French army, or French society of the early nineteenth century.