Reasons for joining

[Didz]

@Bopa
Press-gangs were only used in Britain by the Royal Navy and then only as a last resort and by unpopular ships and captains who could not attract enough volunteers. The Army only ever took volunteers, although many of these volunteers were acquired under the duress of poverty, drink or misrepresentation. The idea that large numbers of men volunteered to avoid prison is not true according to regimental records, the number of such men in British regiments was actually quite insignificant, and again it seems to have occurred mainly where regiments were unpopular and finding it hard to acquire volunteers from the rest of the population. Regiments desitined for service in tropical climtes found it particularly hard to recruit due to the rumours of desease and so tended to take on more criminals that those destined for war service in Europe.

As far as I know, neither the French nor any other European nation press-ganged men into their army. The French merely issued a another draft if they needed more men, though by the end of the war they were drafting 14 year olds because of the shortage of manpower.

Not sure how Prussian, Austria and Russia dealt with recruiting. I suspect Prussia would have relied upon volunteers as at the time there seemed to be a high level of national pride in Germany and a lot of veteran soldiers to draw upon.

However, some states obviously used other methods. The Dutch-Belgian Army of 1815 consisted of several regiments which were made up of mostly ex-soldiers from Napoleon's Imperial Guard and still wore their French uniforms, whilst at the same time they had several regiments of Germans from the State of Nassau in their army.

Mercers tells us that at least one regiment the Brunswick Corps consisted of nothing but young boys, who were so pertrified by battle that their NCO's were having to thump them to get them to close the gaps in their ranks caused by enemy cannon fire.

Wellington complained to the War Office prior to Waterloo that many of their German allies were fielding regiments full of children and old men just to maximize the bounty they received from the British government for troops supplied and that in many cases these regiments were appearing in Belgium missing most of their officers, who either didn't exist or preferred to remain at home.