On campaign Napoleon demonstrated an approachability that endeared him to his men. They were permitted to put their cases forward for being awarded medals, promotions and even pensions, after which, once he had checked the veracity of their claims with their commanding officer, the matter was quickly settled. He personally read petitions from the ranks, and granted as many as he could. Baron Louis de Bausset-Roquefort, who served him on many campaigns, recalled that Napoleon ‘heard, interrogated, and decided at once; if it was a refusal, the reasons were explained in a manner which softened the disappointment’. Such accessibility to the commander-in-chief is impossible to conceive in the British army of the Duke of Wellington of in the Austrian army of Archduke Charles, but in republican France it was an invaluable means of keeping in touch with the needs and concerns of his men.
Soldiers who shouted good-naturedly from the ranks would often be rewarded with a quip: when, during the Italian campaign, one called out a request for a new uniform, pointing to his ragged coat, Napoleon replied: ‘Oh no, that would never do. It will hinder your wounds from being seen.’ As Napoleon told Brune in March 1800: ‘You know what words can do to soldiers.’
He would later on occasion take off his own cross of the Légion d’Honneur to give to a soldier whose bravery he’d witnessed. (When Roustam, his Mamluk bodyguard, attempted to sew Napoleon’s cross onto his uniform, Napoleon stopped him – ‘Leave it; I do it on purpose.’)
Source:
Roberts, Andrew. "Victory." Napoleon: A Life. New York: Penguin, 2014. 134-35. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Bausset, Private Memoirs p. 67.
Bourne, History of Napoleon p. 376.
CG3 no. 5087 p. 138.
Cottin, Souvenirs de Roustam p. 154.
Further Reading:
Napoleone di Buonaparte / Napoléon Bonaparte / Napoleon I
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS
Guillaume Marie-Anne Brune, 1st Comte Brune
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honour)
Men will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon- Napoleon Bonaparte.