Why was Napoleon's army a New Type of army?

Answer 1

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Napoleon's influence over France led to several significant modernizations of the French Army. First, he grouped small units into "divisions" that could fight independently of any supporting units. Second, he placed artillery at the center of his tactics. Third, he enforced general conscription and training on French males, thereby increasing the size of his armies as well as their quality.

Answer 2

Napoleon was able to develop a new type of army exploiting the experiences made by the revolutionary armies on the battlefield during the previous years and praising the military skill showed by low rank officers or non commissioned officers, promoting them to higher ranks and even appointing them generals and giving them titles of nobility. Also the simple private could hope that, thanks to his valour, spirit of enterprise and cleverness he could aim to the highest ranks.

The majority of Napoleon's field-Marshals came up from the files and lower ranks of the former, poor equipped and worse commanded, but spirited revolutionary armies.

The aforesaid experiences and the Napoleon's innovations led the "new army"

to acquire a great superiority towards those of the other powers, which opposed him.

In a nutshell this basic superiority was based upon:

The Napoleonic Armies had to operate without being hindered by the obsolete system of supplying convoys, but they had to live from the earth, acquiring a superior speed of movements.

The French infantry formations adopted more flexible systems of deployment and fighting, like the column, the units of "tirailleurs" (a kind of marksmen), who approached in scattered order exploiting the terrain the enemies standing deployed in line, harassing them with an annoying fire, before an attack.

The cavalry was reorganized and whilst the "heavy units" maintained their traditional duties of impact, breakthrough and contrast, the "light units" carried on the duties related to long range exploration and screening but also developing the same actions of the "tiralleurs" harassing the enemy army by means of swarms of "voltigeurs", rapidly approaching its line, firing and retreating.

The artillery was deployed on the field with more accuracy than in the past and, thanks to the adoption of the "Army and/or Corps Reserves", its employ on the battlefield was often pivotal in determining the outcome of a battle.

The various coalitions which fought against Napoleon attempted to adopt the same systems of the French armies but they was able to reach this goal only in the late years of Napoleonic era.

Answer 3

law codes, warfare, France, Europe's political boundaries began to change