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Grand Army

The Grand Army (la Grande Armée) is the name Napoleon I attached to the French army numbering some 200,000 men slated for the invasion of Britain during the period from 1803 to August 1805.

The army was assembling at Boulogne on the French coast of the English Channel to this end but was hurriedly ordered across the Rhine into southern Germany by Napoleon upon his discovery the Prussian and Austrian armies were preparing to invade France.

La Grande Armée originally consisted of six corps under the command of Napoleon's marshals.

See also: Napoleonic Wars