Composition
The Guard was composed of three echelons. The Old Guard comprised some of the finest soldiers in Europe, who had served Napoleon since his earliest campaigns. The Middle Guard was composed of his veterans from the 1805 to 1809 campaigns. The Young Guard consisted of the best of the annual intake of conscripts and volunteers, and was never considered to be of quite the same caliber of the senior Guards, although its units were still superior to the normal line regiments.
Read more about this topic: Imperial Guard (Napoleon I)
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“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
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