The Project that never Happened: Napoleon’s Military Code, 1805

Abstract

Covering the period from the Old Regime through the turmoil of the Revolution, Consulate, and early Napoleonic Empire, this article aims to examine and analyse the historical evolution of the government’s relationship with the armed forces, which culminated in the establishment of the Commission on the Military Code. In the early spring of 1805, following the initiative of Emperor Napoleon and under the experienced military administrator Pierre Daru they established a Commission meant to work on examining the laws inherited by the Napoleonic military administration and compile them in a new code based on the Civil Code (1804). The result of these labours was a draft produced and reflected in seven voluminous books, which were supposed to regulate all aspects of the armed forces, i.e. recruitment, discipline and police, accounting and subsistence, military uniform, aspects of military justice, etc. Although, in theory, the start of the war with the Third Coalition prevented Daru and his collaborators from fully completing this project, it is questionable as to how far Napoleon really wished to proceed in implementing the Military Code having been proclaimed king of Italy in May, 1805 in addition to being an emperor, and whether he suspected that a Code as a system could provide his army with certain flexibility and legal rights to challenge some aspects of his still non-hereditary monarchy. On the other hand, the work of the Commission on the Military Code led to many useful administrative reforms, which helped create a professionally organised military force — Napoleon’s Grande Armee.