A Primer - Part Two

The Flag, Albuhera, 16 May 1811
William Barnes Wollen (PD)¹

You're awake before dawn. You've slept out in the open with only your greatcoat and perhaps a blanket for your bedding. If it had rained the night before (as it did at Waterloo), odds are you slept in the mud. The lucky might have straw under them, most were not lucky.

If it was cold then you were probably stiff, with muscles sore from the march the day before, you moved around, pumping your arms and legs to get the blood moving. The smell of wood smoke would be in the air, perhaps the smell of rations being prepared. Maybe a rough stew, maybe some bread. You might have "iron rations" in your pack.

Those, however, were meant for emergency use only, when a hard march had to be performed and there was no time for foraging or drawing rations from the train.² God help you if you touched them without orders. Especially in Maréchal Davout's corps, that man was a big believer in proper logistics.

If this was your first battle you were perhaps nervous, not really knowing what to expect. The old hands would have told you stories, some of them very hard to believe. You noticed the quiet ones, the ones who had done it before and survived. You wondered at their quiet. What was the day going to be like? The youngest ones didn't think of death, they, like the young everywhere, felt immortal. Death happened to others, not to them.

If you were in the infantry, and were smart, you looked to your musket. You made sure you had dry cartridges and that your lock was secure and the flint in good shape. A flint which wouldn't spark was useless.

If you were in the cavalry, you saw to your mount first. Your horse would keep you alive and had to be healthy. The French were somewhat notorious for not taking proper care of their horses. They were often more interested in seeking out something to eat or drink for themselves, perhaps take some time to seek out a bit of loot. The horse could crop grass, right?

The artillerymen would be with their guns. Then, as now, crew-served weapons were manned by men who relied on each other and on their equipment. They tended to fight better than the run-of-the-mill conscripts in the infantry and cavalry. A gunner might find himself too busy to worry about what was to come.

Eventually the drums or the trumpets would signal the men to fall in. Across the way the men might catch a glimpse of their opponents also preparing to fall in and go into battle. More than likely they were too busy listening to their sergeants and corporals as they fell in with their companies, battalions, and regiments.

Now the men are in ranks, they are as ready as they will ever be. They stand on the edge of eternity, many do not know this, but before the night falls, many of them will be dead. Or worse, badly wounded out on the field as night falls with no succor perhaps until morning. If they manage to survive the night, and the scavengers.

It wasn't unusual for scavengers, other soldiers and simple peasants looking for something useful to enrich their lives, to be out at night, searching the fallen. They would search the dead and the not-quite-dead for coins and other valuables. It was not unknown for a wounded soldier to be helped along into the afterlife by the scavengers. It was a harsh time.

But all that lay in an uncertain future, the day had to faced first. The guns would begin to bark and roar, the sound dependent on the size of the gun. The smoke would hang in front of the batteries, gradually thickening to create a miasma of powder smoke. (It's thick, white, and smells of rotten eggs.)

Iron balls would occasionally pass through the waiting ranks, killing and maiming as they went. Good gunners would attempt to bounce their shot before reaching the target, this would spray rock and dirt over the men who weren't hit by the shot itself.

Most of the incoming fire was in the form of solid shot, there would be explosive shell as well, but not as much. Each battery normally consisted of perhaps six guns (firing along a flat trajectory) and one or two howitzers (firing along an arching trajectory). The howitzers fired the shells, if the gunners knew their trade they would cut their fuses so that the shell would explode overhead, showering those underneath with lead balls.

Eventually the drums would sound the advance.

Shoulder to shoulder, you and your fellow infantrymen would step forward, in step, eyes to the front, musket at the carry. If you were in the front rank you might be able to see the enemy, or you might not, it depended a great deal on the weather. If there was enough wind, some of the powder smoke would be carried away, allowing glimpses of the enemy.

You rather hoped that the enemy was already shaken somewhat by the artillery working them over. Some armies in the early period were almost "half defeated³" before you could come to grips with them. You could see them wavering, when the officers called the battalion to halt, to prepare to give fire, those enemy might turn and run at that point.

But many times you would see the enemy present their firelocks and as you marched forward, they would fire.

Lead balls would sing through the ranks, dropping men in their tracks, spraying blood, flesh, and bone fragments over the men nearby. If you were in the front two ranks you would struggle to close the gaps in the ranks while continuing to advance. Men from the third rank would move forward to fill the holes.

"The battalion will halt!" would come the order.

"Present!"

The muskets would be leveled at the enemy, there wasn't much in the way of aiming. Good troops would aim low if they were close to the enemy as the ball would rise for a short ways in its initial flight. At longer ranges you aimed at the enemy's head (or above the head depending on range) because at longer ranges the ball would start to sink. Aim at the head, hit the belly.

On a good day the enemy would break after the first volley. On most days they would return your fire. You would reload as quickly as possible, using the drill hammered into you in training, the steps bellowed out by the sergeants. When all was ready, another volley would be fired. Each time more and more smoke would begin to obscure the field.

Cavalry could ride down on you out of the smoke and you stood no chance. But the cavalry would normally stay clear until they had a good target to go after. Infantry that was starting to drift to the rear. Men who were obviously ready to run. Then, and only then, would the cavalry advance.

First at the walk, Hollywood usually gets this wrong, gradually increasing speed until within fifty yard or so before going into a full gallop. Always keeping the lines in order, Hollywood generally shows a mad gallop with every man for himself, bearing down on the enemy. Not so, for cavalry to be effective, they had to all hit at once, practically as one, to have any impact.

Sabers were useful in cavalry melees, but it was the mass of horse and man together which would break shaken infantry. Only when they began to run, breaking formation as they did so, would the swords begin to rise and fall, reaping a bloody harvest.

If the infantry stood their ground and had the time needed to form square only then would the cavalry be stymied. The men would fire at the cavalry on command, but that had to be timed just right. Most of the casualties among the cavalry would be horses, they are big targets. Hit a horse coming at you when it's too close, and the dying animal will crash to the ground and into your ranks, making a hole which would be quickly exploited by the other cavalrymen.

The idea was to keep the square solid, no gaps, use the fire of your muskets to make the horsemen keep their distance. Which could lead to a new danger.

Squares made very nice targets for artillery, solid shot would plunge through one side and then out the other, killing and injuring dozens of men at a time.

It was a finely calculated dance, for the commanding officers, not for the men in the ranks. For them it was a bloody, smoky, noisy nightmare in which chance played more of a role in survival than any competence as a soldier.

You prayed for sunset, armies didn't fight open field battles at night. If you were on the winning side, the enemy would draw off or flee, leaving you to see to your next meal, to discover who did or didn't survive the day.

If you were on the losing side, you tried to get away. The smarter soldiers would stay with their units, the enemy pursuers would avoid formed bodies and go after those men fleeing singly or in small groups of perhaps five or six men.

Eventually exhaustion would set in on both sides, the pursuit would slacken as the victors needed to eat and rest as well.

For those wounded on the field, they might lie out all night. There was little in the way of medical treatment in some armies. Field hospitals would be set up behind the lines in some armies, but you had to make your own way there. If you could.

Collection of the wounded would often wait until the day after the battle. Men had to suffer long hours before being seen. Wounds in the limbs would call for amputation, in the torso or head was a death sentence. Medicine was very primitive in those days, in some armies (like the Russian) it was almost non-existent for the common soldiery.

Napoleonic battles were nasty affairs, the colorful uniforms we see in the paintings were largely just for parades. Men would cover their caps/shakos/bearskins/helmets with oilskin cloth to protect them from the elements. The infantry wore greatcoats and loose trousers with gaiters.

Most everyone was covered in dirt, dust, and/or mud.

Winning a battle usually meant chasing after the defeated enemy until you could force another battle. Capitals would be taken but usually it wasn't until the enemy army had had enough would the war end. It's tough for generals to lead an army that just won't fight anymore.

In the wars of the Emperor of France, it took all of the powers of Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia working together to eventually bring Napoléon down at the Battle of the Nations outside Leipzig.

Then he bounced back and it took the concerted efforts of two allied armies in Belgium to outlast and eventually defeat the French Army , ending the Napoleonic Wars once and for all.

It was a brutal time to be a soldier.

But when is it ever good to be a soldier in wartime?

¹ A good account of this bloody battle can be read here.

² The supply or baggage train. Some armies had extensive trains, the French typically did not, Napoléon wanted his army to travel light, and fast!

³ Something the Duke of Wellington postulated to explain the long run of French military successes.