Historical figures for French conscriptions (1800-1813)

[Iñaki Harrizabalagatar]

Hi
I have available the figures for French conscriptions for all those years if you think they could be useful for your game. They were remarcably consistent around 120.00 men each year, from 1803 to 1806 the figure was reduced to around 100.000 because about 20.000 men were sent home because they were too short, but in following years that exemption was eliminated.

[ericbabe]

Thanks for the data! I'd say considering our draft training numbers, new units produced a player can produce, and the automatic levee, that 100,000 is probably near our simulated number. I'll pay attention to the number of men mobilized and see how it compares the next time I play-test France.

Eric

[Iñaki Harrizabalagatar]

Eric
Sorry, I messed up the figures! I didn´t notice that the numbers for 1800 included also those for 1801 and 1802, I list now the real numbers, that show in fact a steady increase over years.
1800-1802: 126.728
1802-1804: 124.407
1804-1805: 101.216
1805-1806: 100.862
Aug 1806: 128.794 (15 montths period)
1807 : 80.000
1811: 80.000 (+30.218 for reserves)
1812: 120.000
1813: 136.043

The population conscriptible was also increasing over time, as new territories were included in the empire. Numerous exemptions were granted for marriage, sickness, jobs of interest to the State, and corruption. There was also the practice of buying a substitute, so that in the end most of the soldiers were from lower class extraction

[Iñaki Harrizabalagatar]

Hi Eric
I have an excel file with the recruitment and strength for the Britsh army 1804-1813, I can´t upload it here but I can send it to you if you are interested. Overall 250.000 men were recruited for the whole period, raising the strength of the army from 150.00 in 1804 to 260.00 in 1813, while the militia decreased from 85.000 to 70.000 as many men were transfered to the regular army

[Iñaki Harrizabalagatar]

Some comments on the French figures
1) They are conscriptions from the territories directly administrated by the French government, vassal states not counting
2) Those figures are not a maximum possible of course. In 1813, besides the 137.000 conscripted for that year were added 100.000 from the 1809-1812 draft not movilized before, 150.00 from the draft of 1814 called up in advance (march 1813). Another 80.000 were called up from the drafts of 1807-1812 in may, together with aditional 90.000 from the draft of 1814 and 10.000 from the Honour Guard (upper class cavalry reserve), so that in all by mid 1813 567.000 new recruits filled the army (about 20% however will desert or be declared not fit for service)

[ericbabe]

Yes, please do email me the spreadsheet files. The player has a lot of control over troop recruitment, so it won't be possible to ensure the numbers match the tables, but I do like to check our average numbers versus the historical numbers whenever possible.

If you please, send it to my email at: ericbabe@west-civ.com.

In general, I found that it was easy to find the military data when we were doing the research for the game, but much harder to find useful compilations of the economic data -- I could find data for, say, a particular port over a few scattered years, but what I *really* wanted were aggregate import/export tables for entire nations over the whole period.

Thank you,
Eric