Forging Napoleon's Grande Armée: Motivation, Military Culture, and Masculinity in the French Army, 1800-1808 by Michael J. Hughes (review)

Employing social, cultural, and gender methodologies, and grounding his work solidly in archival and published primary sources, Hughes examines troop motivation in the early days of imperial France during the reign of Napoleon I. Although he largely ignores issues relevant to combat motivation, he uncovers the factors that motivated Napoleon's soldiers during the course of a campaign to stand and fight. By examining three French armies (the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean, the Army of Hanover, and the Grande Armée) between the years 1806 and 1807, Hughes integrates traditional military history with modern gender theory to provide a nuanced understanding of Napoleon's soldiers. Consequently, Hughes touts his construction of a French identity based on martial masculinity as the work's major contribution.

Thematically organized, the book contains chapters that deal with historiography, honor, virtue, sex and martial masculinity, the cult of Napoleon, the officers' response to the cult of Napoleon, and the soldiers' response to the cult of Napoleon. In his conclusion, Hughes proposes a theory of sustaining motivation in Napoleon's armies based on the normative means of compliance.

Hughes details Napoleon's development of a new French military culture that secured for him the devotion and commitment of his soldiers. He contends that Napoleon rejected the political indoctrination techniques favored by the leaders of the Revolution, preferring instead to communicate directly with his soldiers through orders of the day as well as his famous (or infamous) bulletins and proclamations. By impressing cultural values on his troops through these forms of communication, Napoleon sought to sustain morale. In addition to the words of their master, Hughes identifies song as an important source for Napoleon's efforts to construct a sense of masculine identity. He also expands our understanding of Napoleon's use of rewards, status, and symbols to bind his soldiers to him.

Hughes argues that Napoleon encouraged his soldiers to model themselves after an ideal masculine image based on physical and sexual prowess combined with aggression and courage. Sex, especially the conquest of foreign women through consent or violent rape, was purposely portrayed as one of the fruits of war. Although the most damning of Hughes's arguments, it is the most theoretical and anecdotal, being based on the lyrics of one song popular among French soldiers. With only one song in hand and unable to identify the theme of violent rape in any other aspect of the Napoleonic military culture, Hughes fails to make his argument persuasive.

Despite this shortcoming, Hughes provides an important contribution to the literature concerning Napoleon's ability to motivate followers, combining cutting-edge genres such as gender studies with the sociocultural elements of the "new military history" to answer basic questions about soldiering. Hopefully, his future works will shed light on the motivational tactics that Napoleon employed after 1807, when his army became much less French and much more international, incorporating tens of thousands of Italian, German, and Polish soldiers.