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"Grande Armée 1812" Topic


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424 hits since 25 Feb 2026
©1994-2026 Bill Armintrout
Comments or corrections?

Hrvoje25 Feb 2026 1:26 a.m. PST

I am looking for the French historian Alain Pigeard's assessment of the composition of the Grande Armée at the start of the Russian campaign in 1812.

I believe there is an article, "Situation de la grande armée française avant son entrée en campagne", starting on page 46 – and, perhaps most useful, a schedule or table on pages 50-52 here :

Tradition magazine
Hors série Nº 3 – La campagne de Russie (1812)
Alain Pigeard, éditeur
Paris : LCV Services, 1997

Can anyone help me ?
Thank you in advance,
- Hrvoje

Personal logo Old Contemptible Supporting Member of TMP26 Feb 2026 5:08 p.m. PST

link

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"At the opening of the 1812 campaign, the Grande Armée was no longer chiefly a "French" army in the old sense, but a vast multinational force. In the larger paper-strength reckoning used in French scholarship, it totaled about 670,000–680,000 men, yet only about 350,000 were counted as belonging to the French Empire, and only about half of those were men from "old France." That is the core of the Pigeard-style interpretation: Napoleon invaded Russia with what was effectively a European coalition army under French command, not a purely French national army.

A more detailed breakdown reproduced in French summaries of Pigeard's work gives roughly: 350,000 French (counting Belgians and Dutch), 98,000 Belarusians, Poles, and Lithuanians, 35,000 Austrians, 25,000 Italians, 24,000 Bavarians, 20,000 Saxons, 20,000 Prussians, 17,000 Westphalians, 15,000 Swiss, plus smaller Spanish, Portuguese, and Croatian contingents"

Prince of Essling27 Feb 2026 1:41 a.m. PST

Copies of "Tradition magazine Hors série Nº 3 – La campagne de Russie (1812)" can be purchased via ebay:

auction Euros10 approx USD11.80

auction Euros11.37

Hrvoje27 Feb 2026 2:22 p.m. PST

Thank you both !

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