French Culture and Society (The Essentials Series) Book

This remarkable book is quite different from most books I read about the Napoleonic age. As the title implies, it looks at who made up the soldiers of the French Revolutionary Army, what motivated them to fight, how were they organized, and how did they fight.

Lynn opens with a brief discussion of the campaigns and battles of this 3 year period, and then dives into his study. His work is based on the work of French historians who have looked at the composition of the French army in this period and on his own research of after action reports by French officers. All of this was new to me.

A main point he makes is that the French royal army was not representative of the country-its soldiers were mostly failed town dwellers who could not find a place in life, even though most Frenchmen in this period were peasant farmers. The officers were almost all noblemen, and the middle class was largely absent from the army. By the end of this period, the soldiers reflected to population, with many more peasant and middle class soldiers, and the officers mostly came form the middle class.

Tactically, Lynn forges a middle ground between the 2 dominate theories of this era---one that stated that the highly motivated and poorly trained French fought in clouds of skirmishers and the other theory that says they fought in columns (also do to lack of training). Lynn shows how, as the armies were trained, they fought more and more in the traditional line formation and that by the end of the period the Army of the North was a well trained, battle tested army with flexible tactics and leadership.

highly recommended if you are a reader of the Napoleonic Era or interested in military history. It may be a bit dry to a general history reader.