The Disbandment of the Seventh Corps

There were only a few thousand of Seventh Corps infantry remaining unwounded and fit for duty, down from a paper strength of nearly twenty thousand. The decision was made to disband Seventh Corps and redistribute the survivors to other events. All over the Empire, garrison commanders scoured their units for trained, experienced French soldiers so they could be reassigned to the Emperor's field army. These men were replaced by fresh recruits, mostly drawn from non-French parts of the Empire,. Poles, Germans, and Italians, and young conscripts from France. Once again, future conscripts would be called up early, this time the class of 1808, a full 18 months before they were scheduled to