Drafting the Great Army: The political economy of conscription in Napoleonic France

<span>Napoléon
Bonaparte revolutionized the practice of war with his
reliance on a mass national army and large-scale conscription. This system faced one
major obstacle: draft evasion. This article discusses Napoléon’s
response to widespread draft evasion.
First, we show that draft dodging
rates across France varied with geographic characteristics. Second, we provide
evidence that the
regime adopted a strategy of discriminatory conscription enforcement by
setting a lower (higher) conscription rate for those
regions where the enforcement of
conscription was more (less) costly. Finally, we show that
this strategy resulted in a rapid
fall in draft dodging rates across France.</span>