To the last its kernel was
French, but, as the empire expanded and other peoples were brought into
a dependent or allied position, it came to include regiments or
companies of Poles, Germans, Italians, Dutch, Spaniards, and Danes. In
its newer heterogeneous condition it tended the more to lose its
original character and to assume that of an enormous machine-like
conglomeration of mercenaries who followed the fortunes of a despot
more tyrannical and more dangerous than any of the despots against whom
it had at first been pitted. It is true that many of the Frenchmen who
composed the kernel of the Grand Army still entertained the notion that
they were fighting for liberty, equality, and fraternity, and that
their contact with their fellow-soldiers and likewise with their
enemies was a most effective means of communicating the revolutionary
doctrines to Europe, but it is also true that Napoleon's policy of
quartering his troops upon the lands of his enemies or of his allies,
and thereby conserving the resources of his own country, operated to
develop the utmost hatred for the French, for the Revolution, and for
Napoleon.
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