Bret Devereaux

...so you have a new fiber to think about. The cotton is coming from India and the Americas, through Britain's trade network, being processed largely in Britain and then sold domestically or exported. You can see why Napoleon's continental system might matter here a lot...

...honestly, that weak summary is mostly the best I can do. This is a period where a lot of what I know about textile production from the pre-modern is changing very rapidly, so I can't speak in much detail...

...but I think the other part of answering this question is to simply quote the French Nat. Convention decree 23 Aug. 1793 (the Levee en Masse), "Henceforth, until the enemies have been driven from the territory of the republic, the French people are in permanent requisition...

...for army service. The young men shall go to battle; the married men shall forge arms and transport provision; the women shall make tents and clothes, and shall serve in the hospitals" (it continues). Ironically, that sort of near-total mobilization was possible...

...because of the more efficient administration system constructed by the ancien regime in the proceeding century and a half. But it meant that the revolutionary government - and later Napoleon - by tapping into nationalist sentiment, might command a huge slice of...

...of all of that small-scale background textile production. And remember: all those men in the army would have needed to wear clothes if they were in the army or not, so the background production was there if the state could harness it...

So in that sense, the really decisive thing about clothing Napoleon's armies was the same as arming them, or manning them: the combination of the more efficient administration system of the old regime with the unlimited demands a *national* government could make. /thread