Napoleon Industrial Revolution

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“War is a fundamental reality of social and political existence.” Any study of the evolution of a particular society will inevitably include a study of the conflicts it engaged in with other societies. The nature of these conflicts has evolved along with the societies that engaged in them. Accordingly, the evolution of the western way of war is the result of the evolution of Western societies. Technological advances changed the way that antagonists killed each other in war. However, technological change is rarely the driver of revolutionary change in war. “One side invents improvements and first puts them to use, and the other side promptly copies them.” From the rise of the nation state to the advent of the atomic bomb, it has been …show more content…
The demise of the pre-revolution aristocracy left a leadership vacuum in the revolutionary army. Universal conscription and the militarization of French society elevated the status of the soldier to the degree that a minor noble, and soldier, could rise to the position of emperor. The French officer corps would become the new aristocracy. The revolutionary ideal of equality meant that officers were promoted based on talent instead of birth. This led to a vastly more professional and talented officer corps. Napoleon organized this talent into a new headquarters and staff system. Based on the earlier Prussian model, but of unprecedented size and complexity, it was essential to centralized command of his massive armies. These armies were organized into a new divisional system that composed large corps structures, each with their own staffs. This staff system allowed for constant communication and the coordinated movement of widely dispersed formations. The advent of this military framework enabled new operational tactics that rendered the old models of Gustavus Adolphus and Frederick the Great obsolete. French armies employed a mixed order that allowed them to capitalize on the strengths of both the line and column formations. Combined with the ability to sustain itself on the march, the mixed order allowed napoleon to mass overwhelming force where and when it would be most advantageous. In this way, Napoleon was able to concentrate his forces on his enemy’s decisive points. By combining this with envelopment, which prevented enemy armies from withdrawing from the field, Napoleon could destroy the enemy's army. Napoleon’s Grand Army was not just a shift in operational tactics and formations; it was a fundamental change in the nature of armies and waging
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