The economic and logistical aspects of the Napoleonic Wars describe all the economic factors involved in material managementeconomic policies, production, etc.and financial managementfunding war expenditures, etc.of the wars conducted under the Consulate and the First Empire, as well as the economic causes and consequences of these conflicts. They also cover the management and organization of industrial resources for the production of weapons and military equipment, as well as military logistics and attendance for the supply of armies in the field. In any large-scale conflict, managing belligerents' economic and logistical resources for equipping and supplying their armed forces is one of the major aspects of "warfare," just as much as military tactics and strategy in theaters of operations and battlefields, and the Napoleonic wars were no exception.
Napoleon took a personal interest in questions of logistics and "military economics" from the time of the Consulate, and was ably assisted by Pierre Daru, Intendant General of the Grande Armée from 1806 onwards, who later held various key positions in the military administration and stewardship of Napoleon's armies. Both men were responsible for the reform and organization of multiple bodies and services in charge of these logistical and administrative missions, such as the "commissaires-ordonnateurs de guerre", the "inspecteurs aux revues" and the train services.
At the start of the 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution in full swing, France was much less involved in this process than its main adversary, the United Kingdom. It had to rely primarily on crafts and small-scale industry – the factories – to supply its armies with materials and equipment. With the military conquests of the Consulate and Empire added to those of the Revolution (notably Italy and Belgium), almost the whole of Europe found itself involved, willingly or unwillingly, in Napoleon's "war effort" until 1813, including its financing through war indemnities imposed on defeated nations.
On the eve of the Russian campaign of 1812, Napoleon's army numbered some 690,000 French and foreign soldiers. While these numbers were "modest" compared to the millions of men mobilized in the world wars of the 20th century, arming, equipping, and feeding such an armed force represented a considerable economic and logistical effort for the time.
Napoleon and the war economy
Although a follower of "economic dirigisme", which his Treasury Minister Nicolas François Mollien disapproved of, Napoleon interfered very little in military "industrial" production, leaving it to his trusted minister Pierre Daru, whom he praised during his exile on St. Helena. This does not mean, however, that he ignored the economic and logistical aspects of his military campaigns, as well as the problems of quartermastery. With the advent of the Consulate, Bonaparte marked the start of the post-revolutionary era with a general overhaul of the armaments system, as the sometimes more or less improvised production of the 1790s had not always been satisfactory, and firearms offered too many calibers (particularly in the artillery). Many weapons were replaced or modified in Year IX (1800).
In his biography of his father Auguste, Napoleon-Joseph de Colbert emphasizes Napoleon's attention to detail and the "superhuman foresight" (sic) with which he prepared his operations: "At every moment, he had present the situation of each of his army corps, of the regiments that made them up, the state of their armament, their equipment, their clothing, what was in the stores of shoes, capotes, etc [. ...] Eager for all the information that would enlighten him on the real state and strength of his troops, he wrote one day to Prince Eugène, who had given him some fine phrases in a report: 'Send me well-done statements of the situation; know that no reading is more agreeable to me'".
Numerous questions or instructions relating to these aspects of military operations can still be found in his voluminous correspondence, published later in the century by order of Napoleon III, and numerous imperial decrees also attest to this concern for military commissariat issues. In March 1806, for example, an imperial decree was issued on army subsistence (see below) and the organization of their distribution. In April 1815, on the eve of the Belgian campaign, the Emperor gave his Minister of War Louis Nicolas Davout various orders concerning, in particular, the manufacture of weapons and the establishment of armament depots and stores.
The importance of economic and financial factors as part of a global military strategy was not lost on Napoleon either, inspiring him to set up the "continental economic system" in 1806, and in particular the economic blockade against Britain, the main financial backer of the coalitions he had to face from the time of the Consulate within the framework of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). However, unlike his rival, he was unable to rely on a colonial empire to support his war effort, the only profit he was able to make from the "French colonial space" of the time being the fruit of the sale of Louisiana to the United States on April 30, 1803, for the sum of 80 million francs.Prices and figures in this article are given in Germinal Francs. The conversion rate to Euro of a Germinal Franc from the Napoleonic era is 3.40 euros, see Le pouvoir d'achat sous le Consulat et L'Empire
Military industry in the early 19th century
At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the French metallurgical industry "was a low-production, low-yield industry, with very routine processes. With rare exceptions, production was highly fragmented, with a large number of factories specializing in a particular type of manufacture or transformation. In short, industry retains the structure and form of small-scale, home-based industry or scattered factories".
With the advent of the Empire, the "Manufactures nationales d'armes" – for the most part former "Manufactures royales" – became the "Manufactures d'armes impériales" with, for edged weapons, the famous Manufacture de Klingenthal, which reached its apogee under the Empire, employing over 600 workers, and for firearms, the Imperial Manufactory of Versailles, which also produced ceremonial bladed weapons, the Saint-Étienne Arms Manufactory, and the manufactories of Charleville, Tulle, Maubeuge, Mutzig, Roanne, Culemborg, Liège and later Châtellerault. Artillery pieces were cast at the Douai cannon foundry, at Le Creusot, at the Indret foundry, and at the Liège cannon foundry established by the First Consul in 1803.
Individual firearms
At the beginning of the 19th century, France had not yet fully embraced the industrial revolution that had already begun in Britain, and "the industrial landscape was still marked more by small workshops than by factories": for example, the Manufacture d'armes de Charleville was made up of various workshops scattered across the Charleville region, various villages in the Meuse valley and at the bottom of the Goutelle valley. In the Liège armory, one of the most renowned and important of its time, which became part of the French war effort following the second French annexation of the States of Belgium, "there were practically no gunsmiths as such, but rather workers who carried out repetitive tasks at home in small workshops, often a single room equipped with a bay window, each producing a specific part from dawn to dusk". Weapons manufacture was organized in a cascade of subcontractors who "began with the manufacturer (who made nothing) but took an order from a prince or a country. He entrusted the manufacture of the barrels to the "fèvres" (blacksmiths), who welded the barrels and subcontracted them to the grinders, then to the drillers, to the test bench, and finally to the burnishers, before delivering them to the garnisseurs. Trimmers also subcontracted the production of various components to woodworkers and to platonists for the firing mechanism, who in turn subcontracted each part to file makers... We worked "by eye", i.e. by copying a model entrusted by the "manufacturer", most often following a request from a gunsmith or foreign manufacturer, without caliber or standard. The first (relative) standardization came with the French request to manufacture the 1777 model, which imposed an acceptance standard. This marked a technological threshold for a large part of the gun-making industry".
Artillery
Since the late 1770s, French artillery has been organized according to the system established by Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval. In addition to its strictly military advantages, the "Gribeauval system" also enabled a degree of standardization in the manufacture of artillery pieces, resulting in greater quantity and quality. The system also ensured standardization of calibers, enabling production and supply to be rationalized. "This equipment was available when war broke out in 1792, but it soon proved insufficient, and, notwithstanding the somewhat irregular activity of factories, foundries, and improvised arsenals throughout the country, the French armies depended on the enemy for their supplies". In 1803, following studies carried out by the "Artillery Committee" he had set up on December 29, 1801, chaired by General François Marie d'Aboville, Napoleon decided to simplify the Gribeauval system by further limiting the number of calibers used.
In 1794, Gaspard Monge published a "Description of the art of making cannons: made in execution of the decree of the Committee of Public Safety, of 18 Pluviôse of the year II of the French Republic, one and indivisible". In this technical work, the author describes in great detail the manufacture of artillery pieces during the Napoleonic wars, from the melting of the metals used in their manufacture – iron for naval artillery and the lighter bronze for army cannons – to the proof bench before the pieces are received, via the manufacture of powders, from the washing of saltpeter earth to extract the salt that forms the basis of black powder. As with the individual guns, the parts are made from a brass model supplied to the manufacturer. "The work of the gun foundries consists mainly in 1°. Making the molds; 2°. Operating the furnaces and pouring the parts; 3°. drilling; 4°. piercing the light and repairing imperfections in the casting; 5°. and finally, carrying out inspections and tests to ensure the goodness of the parts.
Two types of molds were used to cast the pieces. The oldest and most time-consuming system is that of the clay mold, which requires the manufacture of a "master" centered on a wooden rod, around which the shape of the tube is fashioned in hay and clay, and which is of one-time use since it must be destroyed before the metal is cast. The other, more modern and productive, is the sand mold, using a removable and reusable assembly of individual parts for the master. Attachments, such as handles for land parts or the breech knob (the ball at the rear of the barrel), are screwed onto barrel molds. The parts are then cast "solid", and the tubes are drilled, the barrel rotating around a fixed drill, a more precise system perfected by Swiss mechanic Jean Maritz, ensuring that the core of the part is perfectly centered and reamed, the bronze filings being immediately reloaded into the furnace, while the iron filings must be remelted. Next comes the drilling of the "lumen", through which the powder charge is ignited. The parts are then inspected and put through the "proof bench" to test their resistance to gunpowder before being delivered.
Edged weapons and ceremonial weapons