(2) Twenty-six battalions of infantry of the line and light infantry, being all first, second, or third battalions, and not newly raised fourth battalions 25,800
(3) Three old regiments of cavalry of the line 1,250
(4) Three newly raised fourth battalions of infantry regiments of the line 1,800
This gives a total of regularly organized ----------------- French troops of the standing army of 31,200 3,000 ----------------- (5) Five legions of reserve, and two ‘supplementary legions of reserve’ 16,000
(6) Fifteen ‘provisional regiments’ from the dépôts of Southern France [the remaining five had not crossed the frontier on May 31] 31,000
(7) Six _régiments de marche_ of conscripts 3,200
(8) Eighteen battalions of Italian, Swiss, German, and other auxiliaries 14,000
(9) Sixteen ‘provisional regiments’ of cavalry, and a few detached ‘provisional squadrons,’ and _escadrons de marche_ 9,500
(10) Three regiments of foreign cavalry 1,000
This makes a total of troops in temporary ----------------- organization, or of foreign origin, of 64,200 10,500
Napoleon, then, intended to conquer Spain with a force of about 110,000 men, of which no more than 34,000 sabres and bayonets belonged to his regular army; the rest were conscripts or foreign auxiliaries. But we must also note that the small body of veteran troops was not distributed equally in each of the corps, so as to stiffen the preponderating mass of conscripts. If we put aside the division of Imperial Guards, we find that of the remaining 25,000 infantry of old organization no less than 17,500 belonged to Junot’s army of Portugal, which was the only one of the corps that had a solid organization. Junot had indeed a very fine force, seventeen old line battalions to two battalions of conscripts and three of foreigners. The rest of the veteran troops were mainly with Duhesme in Catalonia, who had a good division of 5,000 veterans. In the three corps of Dupont, Moncey, and Bessières on the other hand old troops were conspicuous by their absence: among the 19,000 infantry of Dupont’s corps, on which (as it chanced) the first stress of the Spanish war was destined to fall, there was actually only two battalions (1,700 men) of old troops. In Moncey’s there was not a single veteran unit; in Bessières’, only four battalions. This simple fact goes far to explain why Dupont’s expedition to Andalusia led to the capitulation of Baylen, and why Moncey’s march on Valencia ended in an ignominious retreat. Countries cannot be conquered with hordes of undrilled conscripts--not even countries in an advanced stage of political decomposition, such as the Spain of 1808.