"You Have Your Chance, Take It Or Leave It" Topic

So you were born in 1788 and are currently 17. You are stationed in Boulogne in 1805. You have been selected to have the opportunity to fight with La Grande Armée as your unit prepares to march to the Rhine.

Would you stay, defect to another army, request to change to cavalry or infantry.. or break the 4th wall and say "No I'm just a wargamer.. I don't want to be there" :)

I would have to consider..

I'd take the wargaming option. My psyche is frail as it is. Getting shot at and seeing men and horses being disenbowled by cannon balls would not be my thing.

Emigrate legally to America as my ancestors did to avoid the Franco Prussian war…..

Those who do not understand this hobby sometimes say that we glorify warfare. I say that we recognize the pageantry of some conflicts but that more than the average person we better understand the savagery of the conflict, the sacrifice of the participants and the sheer terror of certain circumstances. Embarrassed to say it but I think I would have been a bureaucrat sitting in Paris trying to keep my head on my body. So option 5 -- do everything that I could to avoid those choices!

I think, except maybe for an enfant de troupe taken on the rolls of the regiment as a musician, I could show the conseil d'administration du régiment a copie of my birth registration and they would tell me to go home and come back in 2+ years.

Generally, the intended age for entré en service was 20 years old. This could stretch a little to 19 and 6+ months, but not to 17 as far as I know.

If I were a clever boy, I could ask for endorsement for entry into the Polytechnique, maybe followed a posting to the génie maritime or as an employé of the forges et poudres or ponts et chaussées.

I would opt for the cavalry. I would be in a heavy unit because I am rather large in my frame.

If I had the same eyesight then as I do now, they wouldn't let me near a weapon of any type.

Ran. Flee to the UK. Pick a nice militia regiment and stay safe in England. Avoid being shot, blown up or killed by infections, fevers, weather, malaria or go knows what else.

Knowing what we know who would ever volunteer to join up? 1805…. so as a French soldier you get the same risks as above with the possibility of being tortured to death in Spain or freezing to death in sub zero temperatures eventually.

Hobbes said, "Life is nasty, brutish, and short." So, volunteer for a forlorn hope and get it over with quickly.

At 17? I wouldn't have hesitated for a second. Where do I sign? Give me a musket! Can I be a Voltiguer? To the Rhine! Vive l'Empereur!

Amusing, most of you are forgetting what is was like to be a 17 year old – think back. Scott's right!

Yes, at 17 I was an idiot! Some say I haven't changed much….

Persuade someone to accept your bet that all this "gloire" will have come to naught in ten years' time, say mid-June.

As a seventeen year old French lad in 1805:

1st) Enlist me in a prestigious regiment of hussars, the 5th or the 7th perhaps.

2nd) Deck me out in the most gorgeous, gaudy, military, uniform imaginable and supply me with splendid French arms, (sabre a la hussar, of course), and accoutrements.

3rd) Bring on the girls!

John Miller +1!!

Signed up for the US Air Force at 18 … hand me the pen for a Hussar regiment :)