Part 3 — War Conduct (1792–1815): Phases, Strategy, Military Systems, Logistics/Finance, Civilian Impacts
Last updated: January 17, 2026.
1) Operational conduct by major phases (FACTS)
Phase A — Revolutionary mass war and coalition warfare (1792–1802)
France’s early war conduct combined rapid force expansion with shifting coalition fronts. A pivotal institutional shift was the levée en masse (1793), which required unmarried men aged roughly 18–25 to enlist, accelerating the creation of large field armies. The Revolutionary wars are commonly periodized into the First Coalition (1792–1797) and Second Coalition (1798–1802), followed by the Peace of Amiens (1802–1803) as a short interruption in the longer cycle of wars that continued into the Napoleonic period.
Phase B — Decisive continental campaigns and the “corps” operational system (1803–1807)
From May 18, 1803, Britain and France returned to war. Britannica describes the breakdown as tied to unresolved issues around the implementation of Amiens and related disputes, and it notes British declaration of war on May 18, 1803.
On land, France’s operational conduct in 1805–1807 is often described as emphasizing fast concentration and battlefield decision. Britannica specifically highlights that in 1805 Napoleon coordinated roughly 200,000 men in divisions and corps “to a single purpose under one leader,” with the army corps becoming the definitive basis of organization.
Phase C — Economic warfare, peripheral theaters, and protracted insurgency (1807–1811)
War conduct broadened beyond set-piece battles into economic warfare and multi-theater coercion. Britannica describes Napoleon’s Berlin Decree (November 21, 1806) declaring the British Isles under blockade and the later interaction with British countermeasures (Orders in Council).
In Iberia, war conduct shifted toward prolonged operations against regular forces and widespread irregular resistance. The Peninsular War (1808–1814) pitted French forces against British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces; Britannica notes the conflict’s high cost and its importance to the eventual strategic outcome (even while emphasizing that until 1813 its effect on central/eastern Europe was more indirect).
Phase D — The Russia campaign and catastrophic attrition (1812)
The French invasion of Russia (June 24–December 5, 1812) is a major hinge in war conduct: Russia adopted a prolonged withdrawal (often summarized as a “Fabian” approach), and the campaign culminated in retreat under severe logistical and environmental stress. Britannica reports ~500,000 French casualties (including ~300,000 killed) during the invasion and retreat, with most losses attributed to disease or weather rather than combat.
Phase E — Coalition convergence and the large-scale 1813–1814 campaigns (1813–1814)
Coalition war conduct evolved toward sustained, coordinated pressure. The Battle of Leipzig (October 16–19, 1813) is widely treated as a decisive battlefield event; Britannica calls it a decisive defeat that destroyed much of French power in Germany and Poland.
By March 1814, the coalition formalized long-term coordination through the Treaty of Chaumont (signed March 9, 1814), which is commonly summarized as binding major powers to continue the war and avoid separate peace (the full treaty text is publicly available).
Phase F — The Hundred Days and Waterloo (1815)
The final military phase culminated at Waterloo (June 1815), ending the short renewed campaign and consolidating coalition victory (the termination mechanics are treated in more detail in Part 4).
2) Land warfare: force generation, organization, and command (FACTS)
Conscription and manpower extraction
France’s ability to regenerate field forces depended heavily on conscription administration and enforcement. Britannica notes that under Napoleon, conscription quotas increased substantially (e.g., from ~60,000 annually early on to ~120,000 by 1810) and that draft evasion was a persistent administrative problem managed through intensified policing and coercion.
Britannica also provides a high-level aggregate: ~2.5 million Frenchmen drafted under Napoleon (including foreigners from annexed/satellite territories), and at least ~1,000,000 “never returned,” with losses including casualties, missing, and prisoners.
A key methodological caution is that “never returned” is not identical to “killed,” and record categories (killed, died of wounds, died of disease, missing, deserters, prisoners) are often inconsistently captured across archives—one driver of divergent totals.
The corps system and operational flexibility
Britannica describes the Napoleonic corps as a standing operational formation with its own staff and administrative services, ordinarily comprising three infantry divisions plus a division of light cavalry, with separate reserves (including heavy cavalry and horse artillery batteries).
This is relevant to war conduct because it enabled dispersed movement on multiple roads, faster concentration for battle, and semi-independent execution by corps commanders within a broader operational design.
Staff work and centralized direction
Britannica emphasizes that Napoleon’s staff system under Berthier focused on communications and transmission between Napoleon and corps commanders rather than an independent planning institution in the later “general staff” sense.
As a matter of conduct, this implies high centralization of campaign design, with variable performance when subordinates were required to operate independently at theater scale.
3) Naval power and economic warfare (FACTS)
British maritime supremacy and its strategic consequences
The Battle of Trafalgar (October 1805) is commonly treated as a decisive point in naval conduct: Britannica states it established British naval supremacy for more than a century and shattered plans for a French invasion of England.
Maritime supremacy enabled Britain to sustain global trade and apply blockade pressure. Britannica’s discussion of the post-Amiens setting describes Britain’s growth in merchant shipping tonnage and attributes strategic advantage to maritime supremacy and dominance in re-export trade.
Britannica also characterizes Britain’s war as global in scope “over all of the five continents” (from the British perspective).
The Continental System and counter-blockade
Britannica defines the Continental System as Napoleon’s blockade designed to paralyze Britain through the destruction of British commerce, grounded in the Berlin (1806) and Milan (1807) decrees.
Britannica further notes (a) that enforcement was porous and difficult, (b) that Britain responded with Orders in Council implementing counter-blockade measures, and (c) that efforts to halt evasion stretched French forces and contributed to the strategic chain leading into the 1812 campaign.
4) Logistics and finance as determinants of conduct (FACTS)
Logistical limits in long-distance campaigning
The Russian campaign illustrates a recurring structural problem: operational systems designed for relatively short campaigns in dense European theaters proved fragile when distance, supply, and attrition interacted. Britannica reports that Napoleon assembled unprecedented forces for 1812 but that preparations for supply and transport were “quite insufficient” for such depth, and it notes Napoleon’s (incorrect) assumption that the campaign would end quickly.
This is consistent with the broader empirical pattern that non-combat losses (disease, exposure, hunger) dominated many campaign outcomes—explicitly stated by Britannica for 1812.
French war finance: contributions, satellite resources, and constrained credit
Britannica contrasts Britain’s ability to borrow at scale with French constraints in government credit formation and emphasizes that Napoleon relied in part on war contributions and “hidden” funds (including the trésor de l’armée, described as derived from Austrian and Prussian war contributions, and the domaine extraordinaire).
Britannica also notes the use of dependent territories’ revenues and subsidies early in the renewed war (e.g., garrisons supported by territories; revenues from northern Italy; subsidies from Spain/Portugal; and proceeds from the Louisiana sale).
British war finance: taxation, borrowing, and subsidies
Britannica provides an aggregate estimate that Britain’s wars from 1793 to June 1815 cost more than £1.65 billion, with a substantial share raised via taxation (including the income tax introduced in 1798).
A Cambridge Core chapter summary highlights how naval superiority protected trade and enabled specie flows that supported both the Peninsula armies and subsidies to continental powers, with financial networks (including Rothschild) used to move funds.
As war conduct, this mattered because coalition field armies could be maintained and reconstituted, reducing France’s ability to win quickly by single-campaign knockouts.
5) Civilian impacts and irregular war (FACTS, with uncertainty explicitly flagged)
Scale of death and why estimates diverge
A Cambridge journal article (reviewing the period’s memoir culture) states that estimates of military and civilian casualties for the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars range from ~3.5 million to more than 6 million, and it emphasizes that (proportionate to population size) the death toll was comparable to World War I.
For France specifically, the Fondation Napoléon summarizes scholarly work arguing that precise totals are difficult due to missing categories and incomplete record-keeping, but it reports a consensus range on French killed/“lost” in the order of ~900,000–1,000,000 over roughly 15 years (with substantial uncertainty about “uncertain losses” such as missing, prisoners, and deserters).
Methodologically, divergence is driven by: definitions (killed vs died later; missing presumed dead vs returned), uneven archival survival, and the difficulty of counting civilians (especially indirect mortality from famine/epidemic).
Iberia as a central civilian-impact theater
Britannica describes the Peninsular War’s evolution into a conflict marked by large-scale guerrilla warfare and repeated campaigns, with major political upheaval in Spain in 1808 and prolonged fighting through 1814.
The Fondation Napoléon’s summary cites “latest studies” for Spain suggesting ~215,000–375,000 civilian deaths (1808–1814) on a population around 12 million, while also noting that deaths from famine and epidemics (before 1808) may have been higher—an indication that wartime mortality interacts with preexisting public health and subsistence crises.
Russia 1812: civilian suffering and indirect mortality
For Russia, the record is especially uneven for civilian mortality, but Britannica’s treatment of 1812 is explicit that most French losses were non-combat, and the campaign’s “scorched” operational environment (withdrawal, denial of supplies) is presented as central to the campaign’s dynamics. The civilian dimension is therefore best treated as significant but difficult to quantify with precision.
6) What is well-established vs what remains debated about “war conduct” (SYNTHESIS WITH ATTRIBUTION)
Well-established (high confidence)
- The wars can be periodized into coalition phases with clear hinge campaigns: 1805, 1806–07, 1808–14 (Iberia), 1812, 1813 (Leipzig), 1815.
- French land operations relied on corps/divisional organization and centralized direction; Britain relied on naval supremacy, blockade/counter-blockade, and financing coalitions.
- Attrition from disease, exposure, and logistics was often decisive—dramatically so in 1812.
Debated / lower confidence (because evidence is incomplete or definitions vary)
- “Total deaths” across Europe: credible published ranges exist, but the spread remains large due to definitional and archival problems.
- Civilian mortality attribution: separating direct violence from indirect famine/epidemic mortality remains difficult in several theaters, including Iberia and Russia.
Key Sources Used (Part 3)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “French and British armed forces” (corps system; staff; 1805 coordination).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “France: Conscription” (quotas, evasion, aggregate draft/return figures).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Continental System” and Napoleonic Wars: “Continental System and the blockade, 1807–11” (decrees; countermeasures; enforcement dynamics).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Peninsular War” (theater character; guerrilla warfare; chronology).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “French invasion of Russia” (dates; attrition; casualty statement; logistical insufficiency).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of Trafalgar” (naval supremacy significance).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “United Kingdom: The Napoleonic Wars” (aggregate cost estimate; taxation; global scope).
- Fondation Napoléon / napoleon.org, “Bilan humain des guerres napoléoniennes” (French and foreign loss ranges; Spain civilian estimates; methodological notes).
- Thierry Lentz (napoleon.org), “Bullet Point #6” (why totals are uncertain; French loss range framing).
- Cambridge Core (Social Science History), Pahl (2024) (published range for total military+civilian casualties; Britain/RN losses context).
- Treaty text (Wikisource), Treaty of Chaumont (1814) (coalition commitment and no-separate-peace structure in a primary-text form).
Open Questions / Uncertainties (Part 3)
- Total mortality accounting: How should “missing,” “deserters,” and post-war returns be netted out across states to produce comparable totals? (Confidence: Medium)
- Civilian mortality partition: In Iberia and Russia, what share of civilian deaths is attributable to direct violence versus famine/epidemics exacerbated by war? (Confidence: Low–Medium)
- Relative weight of systems vs circumstances: To what extent did early French operational advantages derive from corps organization and centralized direction versus coalition disunity and timing? (Confidence: Medium)
- Economic warfare effectiveness: How much did blockade/counter-blockade materially constrain each side’s war-making capacity versus shifting trade patterns and smuggling? (Confidence: Medium)
- Coalition sustainability mechanisms: What was the measurable marginal impact of British subsidies and financial logistics on coalition field persistence in 1813–1814? (Confidence: Medium)