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Praetorium Honoris

Sunday, October 30, 2022

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.

56 comments:

  1. Infantry being hit with grapeshot.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww5yYZXgZZA&t=2s

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    1. Scott, thanks for sharing (thanks as in "Thanks for the reference - that was quite graphic and accurate, as Sarge said).

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  2. Good? Never. However this sounds like one of the worst times ever, excepting perhaps the contemporary fights against Indians across the ponds where captivity meant even more brutality.
    Not good, but better; when you have air superiority,good logistics and medical care ( Medics or Corpsmen) with you or close by.
    Boat Guy

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    1. There is ancient Egyptian papyrus extolling the benefits of being scribe compared to soldier...
      Come, [let me tell] you the woes of the soldier, and how many are his superiors: the general, the troop-commander, the officer who leads, the standard-bearer, the lieutenant, the scribe, the commander of fifty, and the garrison-captain. They go in and out in the halls of the palace, saying: "Get laborers!" He is awakened at any hour. One is after him as [after] a donkey. He toils until the Aten sets in his darkness of night. He is hungry, his belly hurts; he is dead while yet alive. When he receives the grain-ration, having been released from duty, it is not good for grinding.

      He is called up for Syria. He may not rest. There are no clothes, no sandals. The weapons of war are assembled at the fortress of Sile. His march is uphill through mountains. He drinks water every third day; it is smelly and tastes of salt. His body is ravaged by illness. The enemy comes, surrounds him with missiles, and life recedes from him. He is told: "Quick, forward, valiant soldier! Win for yourself a good name!" He does not know what he is about. His body is weak, his legs fail him.

      When victory is won, the captives are handed over to his majesty, to be taken to Egypt. The foreign woman faints on the march; she hangs herself [on] the soldier's neck. His knapsack drops, another grabs it while he is burdened with the woman. His wife and children are in their village; he dies and does not reach it. If he comes out alive, he is worn out from marching.

      Be he at large, be he detained, the soldier suffers. If he leaps and joins the deserters, all his people are imprisoned. He dies on the edge of the desert, and there is none to perpetuate his name. He suffers in death as in life. A big sack is brought for him; he does not know his resting place.

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    2. so it has been bad since first armies trod the forgotten battlefields of Egypt, Mesopotamia and rest of the first civilizations

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    3. Paweł #1 - The more things change ...

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    4. Paweł #2 - No doubt that will never change.

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  3. I read something last year about a mass grave from a battle that happened well before the time of Christ, I wish I could recall the details. Might have just been the remains of hundreds found in a field, anyway wars and dying have been going on for a long time.

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    1. Much of what we know about 14th Century Man-At-Arms armor and accoutrements is due to the Battle of Wisby, where there were so many dead the victors buried many of the dead with their arms and armor. Get that. So many dead, so few survived, that the expensive arms and armor weren't gleaned after the battle. It's where we get Coat-of-Plates from (literally, a vest-jacket with plates riveted or laced into it. Sounds stupid but works quite well.

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    2. I didn't know that. Now that is a battle I need to read up on!

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    3. Back when I was playing in the SCA I used the Wisby Coat as my pattern. I buckled in the front rather than back so I didn't need help getting it on . I bought a split hide leather jacket at a thrift store for my gambizon. Quite comfortable, but warm.

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    4. I can well imagine how warm that must have been!

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  4. A good synopsis Sarge, maybe for this post to really sink in it needs t be read after an eight K hike, in the rain, with a pebble in one of your boots, in early December. Looking forward to this tale.

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    1. That's where I have to give some reenactors credit; do the above walking in period boots, uniform and carrying their gear. We did the Bastogne perimeter march one year on 16 December. Weather was perfect; wet snow, a little breeze. We were wearing fleece and Goretex and shod in great boots; some reenactors were with us in leather jump boots, steel helmets and field jackets. The reenactors could much better empathize with those men from a generation of two before
      Boat Guy

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    2. It's really the only way to truly experience what it was like.

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  5. All done in heavy, wet -either from rain or sweat, hot (even in winter when your hands, feet, and face are freezing) wool.

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  6. What a meat grinder. I read that there are few traces left of the Waterloo dead. They allowed the bones to be dug up and used for some use or other. Until they were all gone. I read last week that they recently found a huge amount of dead from another battle of the Napoleonic era somewhere in Youre-Up, maybe Brno??

    There is another part of the puzzle that I had a little first hand knowledge of. We were butchering a goat, and I thought using a black powder derringer I had would be interesting. Just to see how far it would penetrate. I didn't count on the black powder smell mixing with the metallic smell of the blood. Or of the cloud of head juice that went everywhere. A bit more impressive that a .22. First time I was a bit nauseous during that task... solely from the smell. A mixture of the smoke, blood and offal.... A major Napoleonic battlefield would be an odious place, for sure and for certain.

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  7. Speaking of the top picture: Perhaps the most dangerous of the cavalry were the lancers. God forbid they caught infantry in the rain, having muskets and gunpowder gone wet., while the lancers having the reach to outmatch the bayonnets of the infantry could methodically spear away target after target. They also had quite advantage in cavalry encounters where they could spear opponents from outside saber reach.
    Of course if cavalry could catch cannons not protected by the infantry, they had great time slaughtering the few canoneers present, and either spiking the guns making them unusable or even in some cases turning them on erstwhile owners...
    But all in all it was infantry that was most numerous, and most used go-anywhere do-anything unit. Rest of the army was there for support.

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    1. Kinda figured you'd notice the lancers. 😁

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    2. Lancers can screw up everyone's day. Especially if you turn and try to run away.

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  8. Crusty Old TV Tech here. Good stuff you wrote, provoked a thought (and yes, it hurt). It strikes me how little warfare really changed between Thermopylae and Waterloo. Yeah, Napoelon and company had arty, and the Greeks and Persians did not. But, cavalry was there, and for the infantry, it was much the same slog. Rifles replacing archers. In some ways, it was worse for the later infantry, black powder and the smoke that came from it making closing with the enemy harder. It's not until smokeless powder and repeating rifles, etc. that warfare really started changing for the infantry.

    As I write this, I can hear the roar of radial engines overhead from the Wings over Houston airshow. Lovely sound, BTW. The distance from Thermopylae to Waterloo was (IMHO) much less than between Waterloo and Bastogne.

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    1. I agree with your "distance" observation. Pretty good observation IMHO.

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  9. Rules of the Horse (if you were/are a good equestrian): Last to be 'dressed,' first to be 'undressed.' Ride an hour, walk an hour, ride an hour, walk an hour, this keeps your horse relatively fresh for skirmishes and chases. Make sure the shoes are tight, as a good shod hoof is worth at least 2 men (all those pretty equestrian moves that the Lipizzaner stallions do are combat moves, meant to make and break openings, kill all around them and suck up shots that would kill the rider (that's that 'make the horse stand up on it's rear hooves only' move.)

    But the French... Pre-Revolution the equestrians weren't particularly great towards their horses, as they had stable boys and squires to do all that dirty work. Post-Revolution, nothing really changed.

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    1. Shack!

      (Where hae ye been, laddie? We've missed ye.)

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    2. Almost got pneumonia thanks to allergies filling my lungs up with snot. Bleh. Not been feeling like communicating, which sucks.

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    3. Ouch! Hope you're feeling better.

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  10. If I remember correctly, there were 17th Century artillery pieces at Yorktown.

    It's amazing how much things started to change in fifty years. Rifled artillery brought about long-range indirect fires. Aerial spotting. The use of rifled muskets and then repeaters. The first practical machineguns. The beginnings of rapid mechanized transport of troops and supplies. The beginning of near-real time communications between army commanders and their national leadership.

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    1. Warfare accelerated with the Industrial Revolution which helped bring about those very things. Warfare became industrialized to an extent which made casualty rates soar.

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    2. I enjoy reading Bernard Cornwell novels. A lot of details.

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    3. It is like time accelerated wildly in 1800s. Soldier from 1600s or 1700s would be at home in 1800 army but bewildered by 1900 one...
      200 years of flintlock and smoothbore canons, then suddenly maxims, dreadnoughts and the likes of M1897 75mm field gun...

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    4. Any Mouse - Cornwell is good no matter what period he's writing about, from Agincourt to Waterloo, he's spot on!

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    5. Paweł - Yup, and look at us now, technical innovations are changing things again. But not as rapidly as the early 1900s.

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    6. Yet your high middle-ages man-at-arms would be alright in the trench warfare around Yorktown, in the sieges of the American Civil War, along with the cavalry during the charge of the Light Brigade, during trench warfare in WWI... Gunfire is gunfire, artillery is artillery, once they get used to the sound it's just fighting hand to hand.

      Reverse it. Drop a modern soldier (without his guns and grenades) into a medieval war. How quickly could he adapt to that type of warfare (especially without the support of modern medicine or modern supply?)

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    7. Modern man would take longer to adapt, provided he lived that long.

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    8. I've got to mildly disagree. A modern soldier, once he got the basics of sword and shield, pike, spear, what have you, would do just fine. All the basics are there. Just a little bit of adapt and overcome.

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    9. I think it would take a more than "a little bit of adapt," but we can agree to disagree. Of course, it also depends on what Army you pick the soldier from and what MOS. Spec Ops guys would adapt quickly, your average gravel agitator would take longer, non-combat arms, dude is gonna die, quickly.

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  11. Sarge, thanks for the background. All too grim sounding.

    The only thing I can confidently speak to is after 11 to 15 miles a day carrying a 20-30 pound pack, the last thing in the world you are ready to do is fight. Or really, do anything but set up your tent, eat dinner, and go to bed.

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  12. ...One of my books about the French Foreign Legion has the simple title "March or Die"...

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  13. While today we look upon 18th and 19th century warfare as abysmal meat grinders and marvel at people who willingly went off to war, times were much different then.

    First, the vast majority of wartime deaths were from disease, not combat. Sanitation was little understood and largely ignored. Death from communicable disease was rampant, from smallpox to typhoid to measles and sexually transmitted diseases. Food safety and refrigeration were unknown, and food poisoning commonplace. There was not real treatment for diarrhea, and many died from that. Dental care was virtually unknown, beyond someone pulling out bad teeth with pliers.

    Second, gruesome injuries resulting in death or maiming were commonplace on farms or factories or in travel. Very little could be done beyond whatever a local person might be able to do, with tools and a few herbal remedies, and no anesthesia beyond alcohol. Surgery was very primitive, and the lack of infection control led to frequent deaths, even if an operation was a success. Death was all around, often at very young ages, and fatalists may have decided that it was no worse going off to war, than to risk staying on the farm and dying there.

    Conversely, a great many people DID live to their 80s or 90s, despite never having seen a doctor or dentist in their life, and eating whatever was available, and being exposed to all sorts of diseases. Balanced, of course, by the huge numbers of children who died in birth, infancy or childhood. Few families had all their children live to reach their teens.

    It was indeed a different time.
    John Blackshoe

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    1. It was indeed a very different time, good observations JB. I must remember to cover those sorts of things in the book!

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    2. That is something I never think of when I'm reading about 'back then'.

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    3. I'm guilty of that myself, even though I know better.

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  14. One of great strengths of Napoleons armies was advent of pasteurised food rations, packed in bottles or jars because ton cans yet have to be invented. And the process itself was called appertisation by the name of the inventor. Imagine what James Cook would have given few decades earlier for such reliable food source...

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    1. That was the idea behind it, feed the armies. However. it wasn't fielded until 1810 and problems with transport limited its use by the armies of Napoléon. It never really took off until after those wars had ended. It could have been a strength, had it been developed earlier.

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