become so large that they could no longer function as single units but had to be broken down into permanent sub-units. Known as divisions, these had first appeared in the French Revolutionary Wars, but it had soon become apparent that there were serious flaws with the initial steps that were taken in this direction. The divisions created in the Armies of the North, the Sambre and Meuse, the Eastern Pyrenees, Italy and the rest were often too small to sustain themselves for very long, while the decision that they should be self-supporting led to the cavalry and artillery being split up into ‘penny-packets’ that were of little use to anyone. What was needed was something rather different, and in 1804 this was found in the form of Napoleon’s new corps system. Henceforward the basic formation in the emperor’s forces was the corps, each of which was usually made up of three or four divisions of infantry and a division of cavalry, each division being made up of two brigades of infantry or cavalry and a battery of artillery. In addition, a corps commander might enjoy the services of a couple of extra batteries of artillery, but the bulk of the guns, and especially the heavy twelve-pounders that delivered the main punch, were held back at army level as a special reserve that could be deployed wherever the general in command of the army - in the case of the main French forces Napoleon himself - saw fit. Also held back at army level might be one or more corps made up of nothing but heavy cavalry and horse artillery, the role of these troops generally being to exploit a breakthrough in the enemy line and turn defeat into complete rout. With various differences in detail and nomenclature, by 1812 this model of organization had become standard in all the armies of Europe, and with it battle had been transformed. Although it still happened - Waterloo is the obvious example–a decisive victory was no longer likely to be obtained in a single day. Instead, battles were now fought out over several days by commanders attempting to control operations from some farmstead a mile or more to the rear (again Waterloo is an exception here). In short, we see the passing of an era, and the first dim stirrings of a new age of war.
One might here, too, touch on the participation of the civilian populace in the struggle. As is well known, the Napoleonic Wars gave the world the word ‘guerrilla’, and the fact is that in Italy, the Tyrol, the Iberian Peninsula and Russia the civilian populations were drawn into the struggle in considerable numbers as irregular combatants. This development should not be exaggerated: the famous Spanish guerrillas, for example, have in recent years been shown to have had strong links with the regular forces, just as the real basis of irregular resistance in Russia was not the peasantry but the Cossacks. Furthermore it was not entirely new: in the War of the Spanish Succession, for example, bands of desperate peasants had regularly taken arms in an attempt to save their homes and crops from destruction or requisition. Yet sufficient was the reality that it is possible to argue that it was the Napoleonic Wars that formalized the concept of asymmetrical warfare. At the same time, such was the effort that they were calling forth from their unfortunate inhabitants that none of the powers of Europe found themselves able to avoid at least a measure of engagement with public opinion. For the first time, we enter an era in which propaganda and news management became an integral part of the war effort, as well as one in which the populace on all sides was urged to hate the enemy. In addition, if the people were expected to fight, then they had to be given something to fight for, the result being that in various parts of the Continent, most notably Prussia and Spain, the example set by France in September 1793 was copied via the introduction of various measures of political and social reform. And, last but not least, the development of the modern state was given a sharp boost: with the huge demands now involved in making war, many administrations