This is not the best-known episode in the Napoleonic saga. Let's refresh our memories by recalling that between September 1803 and August 1805, Bonaparte (who became Napoleon I during this period) drew up a grand plan to invade England. Along the Channel coast, from Brittany to the Netherlands, he assembled a considerable army of nearly 200,000 men and a landing fleet of over 2,000 ships. It was a veritable Operation Overlord in reverse. But it was not to be, as the Royal Navy held the Channel with an iron fist.
"From postponement to postponement, the troops would be stationed on these coasts for two years," summarized Frédéric Lemaire of the National Research Institute of Preventive Archaeology (INRAP), who has been working on the Napoleonic Wars and their soldiers for some 15 years. Prior to the construction of a housing development in Etaples-sur-Mer (northern France), he directed the impressive excavation of almost the entire camp of the 69th Line Infantry Regiment. "This represented 200 barracks that were semi-buried to protect them from the elements and save on building materials," the archaeologist explained. Thanks to this distinctive feature, everything the men left or lost in these dwellings ended up below ground level and was preserved.
A study of the camp showed that "soldiers camped, bivouacked and barracked as they fought: in line, in three rows that were the same width and length as on the battlefield," Lemaire pointed out. We're far from Napoleon's gilded legend when we realize that the rank-and-file soldiers "lived 16 to a side in barracks measuring less than 18 square meters." The result was total overcrowding and harsh living conditions.
The material found reflects the everyday life of the soldier. There are, of course, many uniform buttons and buckles, small copper coins, clay pipes, small tools for rifle maintenance and penknives. There are bone dominoes, too, because they had to kill time – playing cards were not preserved. But Lemaire highlighted another object: the copper hairpin, with a rounded part stamped with the number of the regiment. Because in 1804-1805, there was "a turning point in military history: the end of long hair. This was linked both to the problem of soldiers' hygiene and to a desire for social control. It was complicated to impose, and there were sessions where soldiers would line up and cut the hair of the one in front."
The abandoned pin therefore symbolizes the professionalization of an army that was to become the Grande Armée, setting up camp in 1805 for the German campaign and the Battle of Austerlitz. Lemaire also pointed out that with these immense bases on the Channel coast, which were closed to civilians, the era of enclosed camps began: first for soldiers, then for prisoners, deportees and refugees.