During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars which swept Europe between 1792 and 1815, the small professional armies of the Eighteenth Century quickly gave way to large national armies composed of draftees. This same period saw artillery transformed from a specialized profession overseen by "mechanics,...
His heroic performance in Germany at the battles of Mainz and Mannheim (1795) won him promotion to the rank of general, and he subsequently served in Egypt and Italy. In 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte appointed him ambassador to Spain, where he played an important role in Napoleon’s extended but ...