 |
| Une compagnie d'infanterie légère française dans les bois.² Victor Huen (Source) |
Seems that Beans doesn't agree with the way I have depicted the troops operating in the field over the past cuppla episodes. So to clarify how my thought process works, some background material.
On the battlefield in the time of the Emperor Napoléon, there were three main types of troop unit:
- Infantry (which comprised the bulk of most armies),
- Artillery, and
- Cavalry
Within each of those types there were subtypes, sometimes these were more of a traditional role which had gone away but the unit kept the name.
Infantry subtypes:
- Line infantry, the majority of the infantry. Guys trained to fire their muskets, maneuver as a part of a company, within a larger organization, typically the battalion which was typically made up of as few as four companies but could contain as many as ten companies.
- Light infantry, in some armies these troops received specialized training, in many it was simply a title. These guys could be deployed spread out, they tended not to fight in the bulk formations of the line (line, column, and square). They were typically organized the same as line infantry as to the number of companies per battalion.
- Grenadier infantry, these troops traditionally were chosen for their size and their strength, in "olden times" they actually threw grenades at the enemy and were very much used in storming a fortified place.
- To make things even more confusing, line infantry battalions often contained one grenadier company and one light company, the other companies being line infantry.
Artillery subtypes:
- Field artillery, these were cannon which could be maneuvered in battle
- Siege artillery, very heavy cannon which typically once emplaced weren't moved. As the name implies, these cannon were used in sieges, battering down walls and buildings and generally convincing the besieged to surrender rather than endure the pounding.
Cavalry subtypes:
- Light cavalry, men on light horses noted for their mobility and speed. Typically used in scouting and screening, they could be used in battle.
- Dragoons, a hybrid unit, these guys were trained (theoretically) to fight on foot and on horseback. They were used for scouting and screening and on the battlefield.
- Heavy cavalry, big men on big horses. In many armies these guys still wore armor, helmet and cuirass (a back- and breastplate affair, though in the Austrian army they only wore a breastplate, which sucked if you were retreating. Which the Austrians did a lot against the French.) These were considered an army's premier shock troops. When the enemy started to waver, you sent in the heavies to break them.
Now I could go on and on (and believe me, I would, I love this topic) but I have written posts on this before. So rather than blather on, I give you a piece first published in October of 2017.
Scissors, Rock, Paper
 |
| Friedland - Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier (Source) |
Seems I've done more than one post that dealt specifically with cavalry - here, here, and here. (You should go read them, I thought they were pretty good. Of course, YMMV.) So I thought I'd take a different tack with this post, which includes cavalry, naturellement.
You might be wondering about the title of today's post. "Scissors rock paper", a game known to most of us (I presume) and which is popular in other cultures as well. Imagine my surprise when my wife and her friends played this back when we were young. In Korean it's called 가위 바위 보. (Roughly ka-ee, ba-ee, bo.) Imagine my surprise last night when I looked that up to confirm the spelling (in Korean, my Korean is very rusty) and noted that here in the west the game is "rock paper scissors," because of the Korean connection, I've always referred to the game by the Korean order, which is "scissors rock paper." (I don't think the Chuck Norris option is available in Korea.)
 |
| Just in case you didn't get the reference above... |
We know the game, "paper covers rock," which wins, "rock smashes scissors," which wins, and finally, "scissors cut paper," which wins. Three basic elements, each has its strength, each has its weakness.
The three basic combat arms on the Napoleonic battlefield were the infantry, the cavalry, and the artillery. Each had its strengths, each had its weaknesses. Balancing the three arms in battle was the task of the commander.
 |
| The Infantry (Source) |
As the infantry was the most numerous, and was really the key to winning a battle, we'll primarily look at them. The infantry was very powerful. They formed upon the battlefield in three basic formations at the battalion level (think 400 to roughly a thousand men, grouped in four to ten companies, all depending on which army you are talking about).
For moving around the battlefield, battalions would be in column, usually one company across with the other companies stacked behind them, with enough room between companies to enable them to deploy into the other formations.
 |
| Column of companies (French Shown) |
 |
| The Artillery (Source) |
Cannon were classified by the weight of their shot, typically four to twelve pounds. Believe me, you did not want to get hit by one of those things. Solid shot was used at the longer ranges, if the enemy got too close the gunners would switch to canister. The effect of which was a giant shotgun. Though short ranged they could tear an enemy formation to red rags in a hurry.
So the infantry needed to get across the field with some quickness, all the while being pounded by cannon fire. You'd think it might be impossible to survive, but most did. The real nastiness didn't start until you got close to the enemy, standing and waiting for you with loaded muskets. Typically deployed in line -
 |
| Standard three deep line. Again, the French are depicted. And yes it's a small drawing, otherwise it would stretch right across the page and beyond! |
Okay, so you've made it across the field, leaving your path strewn with dead and wounded, now the preferred tactic before coming into musket range of your enemy was to deploy from column into line, thus maximizing your firepower. But while doing that, these guys might show up -
 |
| The Cavalry (Source) |
 |
| Square formation, this is far more tidy here than on the field. Often it looked more like a rectangle. Again, it's a French battalion. |
Now if the cavalry fell back to regroup because they couldn't break the square, then the infantry were again exposed to cannon fire. And a square is a nice big juicy target. One ball can kill or maim as many as six men at a time. (Hit one face of the square, taking out three guys, then hit the backside of the square, taking out three more guys. No, hitting a human or two won't stop that metal ball. Might slow it down a bit, after taking out say ten men?)
So what do you do now battalion commander? Your square is getting chopped up by the cannon, if you don't do something, this could happen -
 |
| Cavalry cutting infantry to red ribbons. (Source) |
,_1910-12.jpg){kind=link}
It seldom came to crossing bayonets. One side or the other would say "fire truck" this and retreat. Usually the attacker had to launch multiple assaults in order to find a weakness in the other side's deployment. Sometimes there weren't enough cannon in a sector, sometimes a gap developed which the cavalry could charge through and start sabering the "in the rear with the gear" types.
Armies who let the enemy get behind them always got nervous and usually lost.
A very bloody game of "rock scissors paper" though obviously more complex.
Infantry who were tired or who had suffered under cannon fire might just throw down their muskets and run away. While that might seem like a good idea, cavalrymen liked nothing better than sabering fleeing infantry.
Really good infantry would stand their ground regardless of losses. You almost had to push them over after shooting them. There were infantry units in the Napoleonic Wars who would continue to fight against all odds.
Some would run away at the first shot.
It was all about getting the right troops, in the right formation, at the right time, in the right place which won battles. Sometimes all it took was a single cavalry squadron showing up in the rear and panicking the reserves which could make an entire army flee.
Sometimes the two sides would pound each other all day with no apparent result. One side might slip away in the night to fight another day, sometimes a battle would last into a second or even a third day, though that was very rare.
Once the battle was won, and perhaps even the war, then for the lucky ones it was back to home and hearth.
 |
| (Source) |
Yes, I left out a lot of things, howitzers, rifles, rockets, lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my.
Original post is here.
So that's my frame of reference for the Black Powder Vignette. Troops were never on their own, they were always in close proximity to their company (troop for cavalry). one or two men would NOT, repeat NOT be sent off on their own into the woods. Light troops ALWAYS operated in pairs as a minimum.
In some armies there was a very real possibility that men sent off on their own would never be seen again. Desertion being a problem in armies where men were conscripted or were drawn from the less productive members of society.
Hope that clarifies things a bit.
For more, read Part One and Part Two of another series I wrote in 2022, oddly enough in October, hhmm, what is it about October and Napoleonic tactics?
¹ Tactics in the time of Napoléon.
² A company of French light infantry in a forest.
I know that in the eighteenth century and earlier there were three artillery projectiles, the third one being grape shot. Which were iron balls larger than cannister and still a shotgun like load. It was supported by a wooden spindle and wrapped with a covering, usually cloth. It was a longer range load than cannister and shorted range than solid shot.
ReplyDeleteI know that grapeshot was no longer used in land warfare by the American Civil War, though wooden ships still used it. It wasn't effective against ironclads, of course. So was it considered obsolete in land war by the Napoleonic Wars? I ask because I don't have as much of an interest in those times as both earlier and later era warfare.
Grape was used mostly at sea during the Napoleonic Wars, many authors will use the terms "canister" and "grape shot" interchangeably, which, as you point out, is incorrect. They are very different beasties. Grape was great for tearing up rigging (and crew) but on land canister was more effective against large bodies of formed troops.
DeleteAs an army could only take so much with them into the field, the artillery tended to stick with round shot and canister, howitzers would use common shell (shrapnel for the Brits) as they lobbed their projectiles over the enemy, rather than through them.
Fire truck?! MON DIEU! Someone has played as Bonaparte, Blucher and Wellington on the battlefield, eh? Very nice synopsis of that era's tactics Sarge.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Delete"the British preferred two-deep, some sources say because it made all of the muskets effective in the battalion, some sources say it was so the usually smaller British armies could cover more ground. (I prefer the former theory.)"
ReplyDeleteFrom my in depth study on the subject (HEY! One inch is a depth!) I think it was a bit of both - to use as much of the available firepower as you could and to create a larger front to match the (usually French) Line (Heck of a fun movie).
Good general overview of Horse, Foot, and Gun.
Here is an interesting little piece about the Square: https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/86050072294/the-infantry-square-the-infantry-square-became#google_vignette
Equally interesting, from one of the images in the above: https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/52008733740/riot-control-this-unusual-photograph-shows-us
"The men in the photograph are members of the 11th Coastal Artillery Corps, they’ve deployed in a New York Street to meet an attacking force, on one side of the square they have arrayed 4 Lewis Gun teams while the rest of the square remains 2 ranks deep. These machine gun teams would be able to concentrate their fire on any attackers being funneled towards them by the narrow street. Supported by rifle fire the machine gunners would be able to quickly fall back into the square if the rioters/enemy got too close.
Note the second rank of the square’s flanks, they’re facing inwards covering the windows of the tenements either side of the square. Here their overlapping fire would be able to engage any enfilading fire from the buildings windows if the troops were ambushed. Inside the square officers and NCOs direct fire and regulate the square’s movement as while the square is a defensive formation it is one which can be maneuvered especially if the troops forming it are disciplined. "
At one point Napoléon had the thought to have the French army use the two-deep line, but in the press of actually fighting wars he never had the time to implement that. Increased firepower was the goal.
DeleteGreat article on the square, love that picture of the guys in NYC.
Today being put to useful "housekeeping" information, thought it an opportunity to pass along updated information (?) on Napoleonic battlefields.
ReplyDelete…gone to sugar beets most every one?
2 APR 2024
‘Now we know where the dead went.’ Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?
Bones went to fertilizer and sugar processing, book argues
BY ANDREW CURRY
There have been researchers excavating at Waterloo since 2012, and they have found just two bodies. But at least 10,000 men were killed there. That leaves 9998 still missing. That got us wondering….
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a succession of wars ravaged Europe. Massive armies squared off and massacred each other using cannon and rifle fire and mass cavalry charges that claimed tens of thousands of casualties in hours. At the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final battle, more than 10,000 men and as many horses were killed in a single day. Yet today, archaeologists often struggle to find physical evidence of the dead from that bloody time period. Plowing and construction are usually the culprits behind missing historical remains, but they can’t explain the loss here. How did so many bones up and vanish?
In a new book, an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocketing prices prompted raids on mass graves across Europe—and beyond.
https://www.science.org/content/article/now-we-know-where-dead-went-did-grave-robbers-plunder-battlefields
December 29, 2023
THE BONES OF WATERLOO
What happened to the bones of Waterloo? Namely, the remains of the thousands of soldiers and horses who died at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815? This is a question that has puzzled historians and archaeologists for decades, as the exact location of the mass graves remains unknown. I was stunned to read that ONLY TWO human skeletons have been found on the battlefield: one in 2012 and another in 2022. Where are the rest of the bones of Waterloo?
A fascinating article in the Journal of Belgian History (JBH), the most important scholarly journal for Belgian contemporary history, unearths some amazing discoveries. The article is entitled “The real fate of the Waterloo fallen. The exploitation of bones in 19th century Belgium.” It is authored by Bernard Wilkin, Robin Schäfer and Tony Pollard. It’s available to download free of charge from the JBH website here. It’s well worth a read. As it’s quite a long read I will try to summarize it below in the hope that it will inspire you to read the whole article.
https://www.discoveringbelgium.com/the-bones-of-waterloo/
Two VERY good articles. Sugar beets were one of the main crops in the area of Germany I lived.
DeleteI think I vaguely understood most of that, going i. It helps to be reminded, getting the ideas in order and marched about. I did always wonder about the square, why not circle or triangle?
ReplyDeleteUnits tended to maneuver and fight as a company, in line. The larger formations would be based on the company. So squares were "easily" formed by having adjacent companies line up to form the square, as they're in line, the formation tends to be square (though technically more of a rectangle in practice).
DeleteYou would get things like a "rally square" where a bunch of men would coalesce, back to back, in order to ward off cavalry. This typically occurred when a unit was forced to retreat and lost their cohesion. The cavalry could then saber people at will with little resistance. If a group formed a rally square (which was really just a clump of men) then the horsemen would look for easier prey.
Ah, so the tactics the Romans and Greeks used were not used by the Armies of the time of Napoleon. Did not know that.
ReplyDeleteIn the ACW, both sides sent skirmisher/scouts around and ahead of troops in order to get info on the lay of the land, civilians still in the area and, of course, where, by chance, the enemy might be, as it was considered bad form to walk all of one's troops into an ambush. Not a tactic used by some commanders, but by many, so that's what I was basing my bloviation on. And I seem to remember the same tactics used during the War of 1812 and the Mex/Ami war of 1848.
I may be wrong, though. But if I am right, well, I guess Europe was much more 'civilized' than us colonials.
You might want to have a look at Gettysburg. Harry Heth's division "stumbled" into Buford's cavalry at Gettysburg on the first day. The entire division went in after the initial brigade encountered cavalry. Granted, JEB Stuart's cavalry were NOT present on the field so the infantry went in blind. They thought they had encountered militia, not regular US cavalry.
DeleteIt may have been customary after an engagement had begun to send infantry scouts forward to see the lay of the land, but at the operational level the only time you'd do that is if you had no cavalry.
Napoleonic era tactics did rely on skirmishers to probe the enemy, or scout, when the enemy wasn't readily visible but was known to be in the area, i.e. the engagement had begun (or was about to begin). At Waterloo the French sent their skirmishers forward in the direction of Hougoumont ahead of the main body of their infantry as they were unsure of the composition of the Allied force in the woods and orchards around the chateau, not one or two guys but entire companies in open order.
Tactics is the one arena which seems to change over time as weapons systems change. ACW generals tried to use Napoleonic tactics but the rifled musket made that a deadly proposition. But as the communications methods on the battlefield had not changed, the need to keep one's unit in formation so they could respond to commands (voice/drum/bugle) is really what made the ACW such a bloodbath.
I might disagree a bit here, yes the communication limitations caused mass movements to be necessary and IMO were a partial cause of the level of bloodshed. But I still believe the technological improvements had a great deal to do with it. Killing was more usual at longer distances, leading to higher casualty rates. While cannister was deadly against groups of men, the rifled cannon firing explosive shells more accurately at longer distances also increased the death rate. Especially with the Union cavalry, the repeating carbine was a real force multiplier too.
DeleteAfter all WWi, where none of the lessons taught by the ACW were remembered and there was fearful slaughter with improved communications. There were plenty of times in WWII and subsequent wars where large groups of men fought each other and died in droves. It comes back down to me that it takes infantry to hold/take the ground and that requires large numbers of men on both sides facing each other. Unless one side has a clear technological advantage, the two Iraq adventures come to mind, this will lead to large groups of men being killed.
Oh yes, I didn't mean to dismiss the technology of the ACW, the rifled musket was a deadly killer of men. Artillery couldn't hit the infantry with impunity as the longer range of the rifle was devastating. As for WWI, communications had improved but it was the machine gun which drove everyone to ground. Then the killing machine of the artillery would pile the dead up.
DeleteWe get better and better at killing each other, but we don't really seem to learn from those experiences.
The point about the three main types of troop movements, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, made me think of an interesting twist on the movie The Final Countdown. Imagine if a Warthog went back in time to one of these battles. Close air support with absolute air superiority would be devastating, and it would make for a pretty short movie!
ReplyDeleteThe people on the ground would be kinda screwed. Then again, without full logistical support, the A-10 would be a one hit wonder!
DeleteWhat's that old saying about amateurs discuss tactics and professionals discus logistics. I've read some fiction involving modern military equipment being transported back in time to major battles and it all fails to impress because not enough attention is paid to just how much skilled maintenance is require to keep modern weapons useful.
DeleteShort answer, a lot!
Delete