His first reform was to separate the heavy cavalry from that of the line, and both from the light horse. In the past the distinction had often been rather blurred. Now, in the Grande Armée, every type of cavalry was carefully categorized and given specific roles. First in order of precedence was the heavy cavalry. There were two varieties: the backbone of the force were the cuirassiers, heavy men wearing steel helmets and breast and backplates, riding huge horses, wielding long straight swords, and also armed with a pair of pistols apiece and later carbines. Eventually there were 14 regiments of French cuirassiers (besides one of Dutch origin) each holding 1,040 troopers divided into four squadrons of two companies or troops each. The second component force of the “heavies” was formed by the two regiments of carabiniers; their organization and weapons were identical to those of the cuirassiers, and, after 1809, when they first adopted steel helmets and cuirasses, they were barely distinguishable from their colleagues. Napoleon was insistent that heavy cavalry should be formed into autonomous divisions, and both the cuirassiers and the carabiniers figured prominently in the cavalry reserve. Their role was primarily a battle function; using their formidable size and weight, they were expected to ride down their mounted adversaries, and then charge into and exploit the breaches blown through the enemy infantry lines by the artillery. They certainly presented the most awesome and formidable sight in action, but the major administrative difficulty they imposed was that of finding replacements and remounts of sufficient standard.
The cavalry of the line comprised 20 or 30 regiments of dragoons. In the early eighteenth-century these troops had really been mounted infantry, but in the Grande Armée they became increasingly regarded as a true cavalry shock force wielding l’arme blanche. However, the dismounted role was still resorted to (especially in Spain and during the later years of the Empire when horses became harder to procure). There were generally 1,200 dragoons to a regiment—organized in five squadrons—but after 1812 it was customary to find three squadrons à cheval and two à pied. They were armed with a sword, dragoon musket,* bayonet and pistols, and habitually wore a brass helmet. Their functions were many and various; their suitability for both mounted and dismounted action made them particularly adaptable. They were often engaged in the cavalry screen and frequently served as flank guards to the Grande Armée on the march. They guarded lines of communication and executed raids and special missions. Although at one period they almost suffered eclipse owing to the experiment of incorporating large numbers of inexperienced conscripts in their ranks, by 1813 they represented the best surviving cavalry of the French army.
French tactical formations (concluded): successive formations adopted by Morand’s division at Auerstadt
Numerically the largest and reputedly the most dashing part of the French mounted arm was formed by the light cavalry. These adventurous troopers, the darlings of the ladies, wore the brightest and most extravagant uniforms and were expected to maintain the highest standards of bravery and application on active service and the highest degree of swaggering bravado, boasting, swearing, gambling and (less officially) dueling, on all other occasions. There were three main and several subsidiary varieties; the backbone of the light cavalry was formed by 10 to 13 regiments of hussars (who sported the most dazzling uniforms of all) the 30 regiments (by 1811) of rather less showy chasseurs-à-cheval, and the lancers. At first there were only two regiments of lancers—both of Polish origin—and these should properly be termed chevaux legers until 1809, for only in that year was the lance added to their equipment (although its value as a weapon had been appreciated some time before after contact with the Cossacks). Subsequently Napoleon converted six French dragoon regiments and the Hamburg dragoons into lancers (1811), and the Imperial Guard cavalry came to include two famous regiments—the Polish and the Dutch. They were armed with a brace of pistols and a saber in addition to the lance, but the proper use of the latter weapon took a great deal of training and practice to perfect. The hussars and chasseurs-à-cheral shared similar equipment—saber, carbine and pistols. They were frequently brigaded together (their regiments containing anything between 1,200 and 1,800 men, four to eight squadrons), but only the latter were expected to fire from the saddle as mounted skirmishers. In addition to these three main varieties of light horse, there were the éclaireurs-à-cheval (1814) attached to the Young Guard, the gendarmerie d’élite, 300 specially selected troopers (formed in 1801) responsible for the Emperor’s safety and the enforcement of his orders throughout the army; and lastly the Mamelukes, a force of cavalry first raised in 1803, who retained their oriental costume, were armed with a scimitar and blunderbuss besides pistols and daggers, and also formed part of the Guard cavalry (being brigaded with the chasseurs-à-cheval of the Imperial Guard).
The roles of the light cavalry were particularly arduous. Protected by the cavalry of the line, they were charged with many reconnaissance duties and invariably saw service with the advance guard, the rear guard and the flank screens of the army. When contact was made with the main enemy force, they were expected to pin him down, reduce his advance or retreat to a crawl by carrying out continual harassing attacks, and thus delay his occupation of favorable positions for as long as possible; their training was designed to enable them to change from column into line in the twinkling of an eye, and they were also thoroughly practiced in the complicated maneuvers necessary to change front and fall on the enemy’s flank. Once the battle was over, they either covered the retreat or conducted the pursuit à l’outrance, preventing the shattered enemy formations from regrouping and recovering their morale, exploiting the success to the uttermost. “After Jena,” Napoleon remarked, “the light cavalry capitalized the victory all on its own,” driving the Prussians all the way to the Baltic and capturing fortresses and strong cities as well as thousands of stragglers. “Without cavalry, battles are without result”27 was his conclusion at St. Helena.
Apart from the dragoons (who had an additional fire function), the French cavalry tactics were all based on the shock action of massed mounted charges. These were carefully graduated. The squadrons would move off at a trot until they had covered a third of the distance separating them from their objective; the pace would then quicken to a canter, which would develop into a gallop about 150 yards from the enemy; only for the last 50 yards would the horses be allowed their head and a full-speed charge develop. The delivery of a cavalry charge required careful calculation, enlightened leadership and strict discipline. If the charge à l’outrance was launched too early, the horses would reach the foe blown-out; if the infectious excitement got out of hand, the troopers might charge beyond their target and fail to rally and reform, and it was in the minutes immediately after the completion of a charge that the attacking force was most vulnerable to counterattack. Moreover, it was extremely important to ensure whenever possible that a cavalry attack was well supported by both infantry and guns. Cavalry on their own were at a decided disadvantage against steady infantry, providing the latter kept their heads and formed square in time, and consequently interarm cooperation and coordination was a vital tactical consideration. What could happen when these requirements were ignored was amply shown at Waterloo, where the repeated but inadequately supported massed charges of Kellermann’s and Milhaud’s cavalry were beaten off with heavy loss and relative ease by the fire-fringed and bayonet-bristling Allied squares.
The popular image—disseminated by many a romantic battle painting of the mid-nineteenth-century—of the gallant French “beau sabreur” cavalry general charging into action several hundred yards ahead of his spurring squadrons presents an appealing if militarily inaccurate picture of what actually took place on such exciting occasions. No doubt the Murats, Grouchys and Lasalles did take up such exposed positions at the very beginning of a mounted attack, for the reasons of demonstrating the right direction for the mass to follow and of inspiring the individual troopers to deeds of gallantry. However, it is equally certain that the generals did not retain their i
mpressive leads for long. As their thundering squadrons slowly worked up from walk to trot, from canter to charge, the brilliantly bedecked commanders would begin to rein in—albeit almost unnoticeably—and the nearer the attack came to the enemy, the smaller the gap would become between the leader and the led. It was rarely the business of a general to engage the entire enemy army at sword point—and never his duty to do so in foolhardy if splendid isolation—and it is this author’s contention that by the time the point of impact or even effective musketry range was reached, the beplumed marshals and generals would be found several hundred yards behind their lines of cheering and spurring cavalry. Otherwise the senior officer casualties of “l’arme blanche” would inevitably have been prohibitive, and promotion prospects for more junior officers seeking “one crowded hour of glorious life” would have proved equally unrealistic!
However, Napoleon and his cavalry leaders, most especially Murat, Lasalle and Grouchy, transformed the French mounted arm from a laughing-stock into a very redoubtable weapon. As a screening force the light cavalry never surpassed its achievement in concealing the Grande Armée’s rapid march from the Rhine to the Danube in 1805; its battle quality steadily improved from 1806 onward as large numbers of superior Allied horses fell into French hands alongside the other trophies of war. The heavy cavalry probably saw its greatest hour at Eylau in 1807; in pursuit, the follow-up after Jena forms an accepted historical masterpiece.
As might be expected, the French artillery service under Napoleon’s inspiration formed one of the most impressive arms of the Grande Armée. “Great battles are won by artillery,” wrote the Emperor to Prince Eugene,28 and he spared no pains to see that his armies possessed a sufficiency of cannon. One of his early tasks as First Consul had been to “militarize” the civilian drivers, and from that time on the efficiency as well as the size of the arm increased by leaps and bounds. “This militarization of the services,” wrote Marmont,* “had the happiest of influence on the mobility of batteries and their rates of fire.”29 In the Consulate period there were eight regiments of “foot”† artillery, six of “horse,” two battalions of pontonniers and eight battalions of the new artillery train troops—totaling 28,000 men. In 1813 there were nine artillery regiments à pied, each containing 27 companies of guns (batteries in modern parlance, usually consisting of six cannon and two howitzers each); there were still six regiments à cheval, consisting of either six or seven companies apiece. The pontonniers had received an additional battalion to bring their strength up to three (84 companies in all). The train troops were also serving on their old establishment of eight battalions—but with 14 companies in each; additional to these formations were the three artillery regiments of the Imperial Guard (two “foot,” one “horse”), and two battalions of the Guard trains. By this date, the “first-line” strength of the artillery had risen to 80,000 gunners, and if the considerable numbers of coastal and garrison artillerymen are added to this figure, the total personnel serving in the arm reaches the figure of 103,000 men.30 To explain the greatly enlarged numbers of gunners, but the relative stability in the number of their major formations, it would seem that the general practice was to add new companies to existing regiments rather than to create entirely new units.*
Of course, the French artillery was the arm least affected by the purges and emigrations of the Revolution; by 1800, moreover, it had accumulated no less than eight years’ unbroken experience of active campaigning, and the élite section of the horse artillery had been on a basis of six regiments since 1794. The old system of unharnessing the horses on the edge of the battlefield and thereafter dragging the guns into position by hand (a laborious procedure made necessary by the unreliable quality of the original civilian drivers) had given place to their being drawn right into action by their horse teams. The most expert guncrews could loose off as many as five rounds in a minute, but the average rate of fire appears to have been in the region of two and a half rounds; thus a battery of six cannon could loose off a total of 15 shots in the space of 60 seconds. The universal use of prepacked rounds (containing charge, wad and ball) helped shorten the time needed to reload, and so did the practice of immediately reloading the cannon after discharge without first running them back. The second and later shots were usually let off quicker than the first, for the gun barrels had two positions—one for movement and one for firing—and it took a short additional time to change from one to the other at the commencement of action.
During the years of the Amiens peace, the First Consul carried through a thorough overhaul of the equipment, and what was known as the “System of the Year XIII” emerged. The numbers of guns were considerably increased, and the overall administration simplified, but the most important reforms related to the types and calibers of guns themselves. Originally, the Republican artillery (patterned on the Gribeauval system) had consisted of 12-, 8- and 4-pounders, and 6-inch howitzers. The First Consul changed this equipment in three important respects. In the first place he decided to replace the 4-pounder (originally the “regimental” guns attached to each battalion) with the larger 6-pounder. The basic reason for this change was the large number of Austrian and Prussian 6-pounders captured by the French army between 1794 and 1800; it seemed logical to adapt the French artillery to its foes’ counterparts in order to cannibalize captured equipment and ammunition. This change also led to the eventual abandonment of regimental artillery—the new pieces were excessively heavy to accompany the battalions into action without imposing a serious drag on the mobility and versatility of the infantry. Napoleon’s second change was to replace many of the 8-pounders with a greater allocation of 12-pounders in order to achieve greater hitting-power and range on the battlefield; and thirdly, he substituted a proportion of 24-inch howitzers for some of the less effective 6-inch version. It is interesting to note the various formations to which the different types of guns were usually attached. The 8- and 6-pounders formed the greater part of the artillery attached to advanced guards and placed in divisional reserves, though probably as much as 50 per cent of the army’s allocation of these calibers were held in the artillery reserve (mostly in the horse artillery batteries). Similarly, the greater proportion of the large 12-pounders were placed in the corps and army artillery reserves, while the 6-or 24-inch howitzer provided one third of the divisional artillery. Napoleon could never have too many guns, but he rarely reached the numbers he required.
Artillery of la. Grande Armée: ranges, gun crews, ammunition, etc.
From 1809 onward, the French reverted substantially to the use of 4-pounders in the role of regimental artillery, but this was, generally speaking, a retrograde step, adopted to counteract the declining quality of the infantry rank and file. By 1813, the waning of the Empire and the quality of its troops was becoming patently evident, and Napoleon optimistically set himself the target of providing five guns for every thousand men, including cavalry, gunners and train servers. This target he never attained, however; perhaps the greatest concentration of fire achieved was at Leipzig, where the French deployed 600 guns—approximately one cannon per 300 men, or three per thousand; but on the same occasion the Allies fielded some 900 pieces.
The French used four types of artillery ammunition. First, the normal round shot, which fitted the bore of the cannon. Secondly, canister shot, sometimes called case shot, which was basically a tin container filled with musket balls. There were three varieties of this: for long-range work (up to 600 yards) a smaller number of larger balls were contained in the tin (sometimes referred to as grapeshot); for closer ranges, more numerous but smaller projectiles were packed into the container (sometimes termed langridge); and a third type, called “bar shot,” consisted of a solid iron bar running down the center of the tin with musket balls packed around it. Thirdly, there were explosive shells, hollow roundshot filled with explosives and detonated by a burning fuse, used by the howitzers. Fourthly, there was redhot shot, heated on special grids in ovens; as this required special equipment for it
s preparation, it was commonly employed only by coastal batteries and other permanent gun positions. One type of ammunition never employed by the French at this period (but used by the British army with devastating effect) was shrapnel—a hollow roundshot filled with a mixture of explosive and musket balls, detonated by an adjustable fuse. The English also experimented with rudimentary rockets (the invention of Captain Congreve), but these were at best very unreliable; however, they proved of use for setting fire to towns and stampeding horses on the battlefield.
French 6″ Howitzer, two of which were habitually attached to each artillery battery of the Grande Armée
French 8-pounder field gun—captured at Waterloo
Hard shot was generally employed against fortifications and formed bodies of troops; canister for antipersonnel work; shells for destroying buildings. Undoubtedly more rounds of hard shot were fired than of any other variety of ammunition. This could be employed in two ways: first, as direct fire; second, as ricochet fire (usually the more effective of the two, except after heavy rain or snow). The advantages of ricochet fire were the following: it considerably extended the range of effective fire; and every time the shot hit the ground (each bounce incidentally traveled exactly half the distance of its predecessor) it sent up fragments of rock, stone or earth which inflicted a higher proportion of casualties.*
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 46
