A Primer - Part One

French Light Infantry in Line
Martin Lancaster Photo
(Source)

Yesterday's post was a taste of what's coming in terms of the Fiction of The Chant. It's not that I don't have anything written just yet, but it struck me (at some time in the wee hours of the morning) that most of you probably know very little about the mechanics of Napoleonic warfare. So I thought that a wee primer might be in order. This is it, well the first part anyway.

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The Napoleonic Wars took place from 1805 to 1815. The major powers in Europe at the time were France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain (sort of), and Great Britain. The latter nation essentially financed the entire series of wars, all having started from the heinous act of regicide. All of the powers, save France, were governed by monarchs. Those monarchs had taken a dim view of the French having the audacity to send their sovereign, Louis XVI, and his wife, an Austrian princess by birth, to the guillotine.

They also objected to the French wishing to export their ideas of liberté, égalité, et fraternité¹to their own benighted subjects. Understandably.

The armies of the period were all built up of the same basic unit types: infantry, artillery, and cavalry. The infantry being the most numerous as they were the easiest to raise, equip, and train. As has been true throughout most of recorded history, it was also the infantry who did the bulk of the fighting. As well as the dying.

The main tactical unit for the infantry was the battalion, which was formed by a number of companies, the company being the smallest tactical unit on the battlefield. The size of a company varied a great deal across nations, some being as small as fifty men, the largest composed of approximately one hundred and thirty men.

The number of companies within a battalion varied from country to country as well. The French began the period with nine companies to the battalion which they lowered to six eventually. The size of the battalion in French service was consistent but the number of men per company was increased. The British Army had ten companies per battalion, the strengths of those companies varying from fifty to a hundred men depending on many factors.

Infantry battalions had three basic tactical formations: line, column, and square. The line was for firing, the column was for movement, and the square provided an all-around defense against cavalry. It's worth noting that the infantry companies were always (more or less) in line formation, three ranks of men lined up shoulder to shoulder. If the companies were lined up abreast, the battalion was in line, if they were aligned one behind the other, they were in column, in square they were aligned as the name implies, the actual alignment of the companies depended on the nation. Each country had their own method for forming a square, by the book (the French book) it should take a battalion no more that a hundred seconds to form square. Which may give you the idea that forming square was not exactly simple. It was not. (Do it under fire with charging horsemen bearing down upon you, the commander's timing had to be very good indeed.)

Infantry was the main combat arm, maneuvering as necessary to bring fire upon the enemy with the idea of eventually pressing home an attack with the bayonet. (Which was actually a very rare event, one side or the other would usually break and run before they actually came to blows).

Cavalry was very expensive to equip and maintain (as anyone who has ever owned a horse can probably attest to). They were used for two missions, between battles they scouted ahead of the army and prevented any enemy from scouting their own army, on the battlefield they were employed as a shock force.

The basic tactical unit of the cavalry was the squadron, in theory having 150 to 180 men but in practice more like 100 to 120 men. Squadrons were grouped into regiments of four to even eight squadrons depending on the type of cavalry and the country.

Men with swords on horseback are quite formidable to behold. (There is a reason why police forces employ mounted cops for crowd control.) They are best used against shaken infantry, men who have been bombarded, shot at, and harassed for hours will usually break when a body of formed horsemen come at them with speed and determination. Unless those infantry are very well trained and very well led.

Cavalry were also used on the battlefield to drive off the enemy cavalry and, when luck and circumstance allowed, charge into an enemy artillery battery and saber the gunners who've been shooting at you and yours all the damned day long.

French Foot Artillery
(Source)

Napoléon began his military career as an artillery officer. He once said, "It is with artillery that war is made." Artillery has long been the biggest killer in warfare (it still is) and there is nothing like it to reduce an enemy's morale (as well as his numbers).

Though artillery is formidable, it is relatively slow to maneuver, at least the bulk of an army's pieces fall into that category, what they called foot artillery. Though the guns, caissons, and support equipment were pulled by horses, the gunners walked. As those guns (caissons, etc.) were heavy and fairly cumbersome, they tended to move slower than the infantry.

There was a species of artillery where all of the gunners were mounted and rode from place to place, their guns were also smaller than those which accompanied the infantry, so they were much more mobile.

They were also much more expensive as you might surmise. It's all those horses, dontcha know?

Artillery then, as now, was used to "soften up" the opposition. Bombard them, kill them, rattle them, make them want to run away. The main targets of the guns were the infantry and the cavalry, counter-battery fire was discouraged as it took a lot of ammunition to knock out an enemy piece. Generals wanted the enemy infantry driven off in fairly short order so that they could advance. The gunners popping off at each other took longer and used lots and lots of ammunition. (Which was hard to haul around, expensive, etc., etc.)

1805, Les Cuirassiers avant la charge
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier
(Source)

A Napoleonic battle could be viewed in simplistic terms as a giant game of scissors-rock-paper. Though sometimes the scissors can be the rock, the paper becomes the scissors, etc. You aligned your army with the infantry to the front, supported by artillery in the intervals between units, light cavalry on the flanks, with the heavier cavalry held behind the line to exploit opportunities.

Normally one side was on the defensive, protecting some city or terrain feature, while the other was attacking (wanting to take some city or terrain feature). One side would begin the contest by commencing an artillery bombardment, to soften up the opposition. Napoléon was a big proponent of creating a "Grand Battery" composed of multiple batteries advanced slightly forward of his line to concentrate the fire of his guns on a portion of the enemy's line.

Rattle the enemy, punch holes in his lines, then advance the infantry - supported by cavalry, to attack that line and exploit those holes.

It was noisy, smoke from the cannon and the muskets could quickly obscure the field, if there was no wind then visibility would be measured in mere feet. Units would stumble into each other, often friendly units would fire upon each other.

It was chaos. There were no command decisions transmitted to the troops in seconds, messages were scribbled out, sometimes under fire, then an aide would carry that message to its intended recipient. Sometimes the messenger would lose his way, sometimes he would be injured or killed on the way, many times his horse would be injured or killed. Wise commanders would send multiple messengers in the hopes that at least one would get through.

What was a battle like for the individual soldiers? We'll explore that tomorrow.

¹ Liberty, equality, and fraternity.