Waterloo 1815 AP028 Napoleonic Mounted Officers

In the French army from the period before the Great Revolution, i.e. before 1789, officer positions could only be taken by noble births, and any promotions within the NCO and officer corps largely depended on social origin. However, during the Revolution, and especially in the course of the French revolutionary wars (1792-1799), this rule was abolished, which, together with numerous desertions of aristocratic officers, allowed for the promotion of many great officers, who, however, were not lucky to be born into a noble family. From the time of the Jacobin dictatorship (1793-1794) and in the Napoleonic era (1799-1815) it was also used to say that the French soldier wears the marshal's mace in his backpack, which meant that his promotion was determined only by his abilities and merits demonstrated in the field fighting. All this made the French officer corps of the Napoleonic Wars era relatively young - Napoleon himself during his greatest triumph at Austerlitz (1805) was only 36 years old, and many marshals and generals were also around 30-40 years old at the time of promotion. Mostly, the lower officers, thanks to this and no other way of promotion, were more experienced and performed better on the battlefield than their Austrian or Russian counterparts.