ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the power of ideas in human society, the French writer and philosopher Georges Sorel came up with a neat encapsulation of an argument that had already become a standard explanation of the dramatic series of victories that between 1805 and 1809 made Napoleon Bonaparte de facto master of Europe. At the risk of stating the obvious, this explanation is social and political rather than military, it being argued that the changes in French society brought about by the Revolution produced a new style of warfare based upon the Nation-in-Arms that overwhelmed France’s more conventional opponents. Thus, between 1803 and 1805 the army that went on to triumph at Austerlitz had encamped in the countryside around Boulogne while waiting for the orders to embark on the invasion that never came. It is quite clear that France did not triumph because, to paraphrase Clausewitz, the strength of the whole French nation marched over Europe.
