ABSTRACT
As Alfred Vagts implies, the reforms that affected Europe in the Napoleonic period were not confined to the French empire. Confronted by the reality of French military power, the continental powers were sooner or later themselves forced to embark upon a process of change. The extent of this process remains a matter for debate, however. In the perception of contemporaries, reform was dramatic, one French observer going so far as to remark that what occurred was an 'exchange of standards, so to speak, which placed the flag of authority and the monarchical principle on Napoleon's side, and on that of the legitimist monarchs the liberal flag on which was written "the liberation of all the nations·".2 Nor have historians been unwilling to echo this judgement, Blanning, for example, claiming, 'As Napoleonic France slipped into military dictatorship, it was the old-regime states which introduced programmes of modernisation, mobilised citizen militias, declared total war and used the rhetoric of liberation.'3 Yet perhaps the key word here is 'rhetoric', for change was limited. In Prussia - seat of by far the most radical
task should be to elaborate a comprehensive programme of reform. Far-reaching though its purview was, however, even those of its members who were genuinely committed to the cause of change soon showed that they had little interest in a fundamental renovation. Whilst they displayed some hostility to such privileged formations as the overblown royal guard, and desired to end the exemptions that had saved many provinces and cities from conscription, in line with conventional eighteenth-century thinking they argued that citizen armies were militarily ineffective, and, further, that conscription should not be allowed to affect those who could contribute more effectively to the state by other means. Far from looking to the French model, they therefore suggested that Spain should retain the old selective ballot with all its exemptions, whilst adopting the Prussian system whereby conscripts spent the bulk of each year in their own homes, the hope being that this would render military service less obnoxious. However, modest though these proposals were, they were still sufficiently radical to demonstrate the obstacles faced by reform. Not only was Godoy regarded as an upstart by large parts of the court and military establishment, but his plans also offended numerous vested interests, and thus it was that they were for the most part blocked and Godoy himself forced to resign as secretary of state in 1798. As for results, these were at this stage minimal, all that had really been achieved being to extend recruitment of the provincial militia to the hitherto-exempt province of Valencia.
