Napoleon, therefore, determined to adopt it for his active masses, employing the system of magazines and regular requisitions so far as practicable.

In favorable parts of the country, Soult and Souchet, with smaller armies, succeeded in obtaining in this way regular supplies for a considerable length of time, but the others lived mainly by forced requisitions levied as necessity required.
This sometimes gave place to great excesses, but these were principally the faults of subordinate officers who tolerated them, rather than of Napoleon, who punished such breaches of discipline, when they were known to him, with great severity.

He afterwards declared that, "had he succeeded he would have indemnified the great mass of the Spanish people for their losses, by the sale of the hoarded wealth of the clergy, which would have rendered the church less powerful, and caused a more just division of property; thus the evil of the war would have been forgotten in the happy triumph of public and private interest over the interest of an ambitious and exclusive clergy." The following maxims on subsistence have the sanction of the best military writers: 1st.

Regular magazines should be formed, so far as practicable, for the supplies of an army; the levying of requisitions being resorted to only where the nature of the war, and the requisite rapidity of marches, render these absolutely necessary to success.
2d.

Depots should be formed in places strengthened by nature or art, defended by small corps, or garrisons, and situated in positions least liable to attack.
3d.