The Grass-Roots Challenges with Administration: Conscription Evasion, Contraband, and Resistance in Napoleonic Europe

• Main Author: Lyle, Julia A.
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2013
• Subjects: Napoleonic Era; Conscription; Economic Crimes; Government Resistance; European History
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1233; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2389&context=etd

The French model of the nineteenth century led the way to modernity in establishing centralized administrative governments throughout Continental Europe. Several Napoleonic policies that led to the establishment of a modern centralized state were not positive in their effects on the local communities. Research widely categorizes resistance to the Napoleonic program as either militarily or economically based. This study uses the French court cases from the Court of Cassation dated 1804 to 1820 to provide a different interpretation to the discussion of local resistance to Napoleonic authority on an international level. Conscription fraud, contraband, and resistance to government officials reveal that the local reaction in the French jurisdiction was based on contempt for both economic and military policies. The research exhibits that the grass-roots nature of the resistance against the economic and military policies experienced under the Napoleonic umbrella were comparatively similar in local opposition.