Forward into Battle Read online

  … but the Russians fought back, and quite a lively fusillade started. I then decided that I should support them with two other battalions, and I marched at their head. At last, seeing the affair was getting serious, I advanced the last two [battalions] and the position was carried.33

  The defeat of an infantry attack was therefore seen as a temporary rather than a serious reverse, and no one bothered to analyse in detail precisely what had produced it. When defeated rather more conclusively by the British, the French apparently fell back on the same familiar line of reasoning, and shrugged it off. They failed to realise that in this case the defeat tended to strengthen rather than weaken the moral balance in favour of the enemy, or that the habitual support of massed cavalry and artillery was in all probability lacking. French accounts of Peninsular battles against the British are remarkable for their complacency.

  In the light of all the above factors it is hardly surprising that French Peninsular tactics were neither intrinsically strong nor well reported in the documents. They did not seem important to very many French generals, and they were certainly not glorious. Extremely heavy columns appear to have been thrown into battle rather carelessly, and deployments attempted as an afterthought if they were attempted at all. Thus far we must agree with Oman’s version rather than Colin’s, although we must attach a number of caveats to this finding.

  In the first place we must be very careful when we use British accounts of what they were up against. There seems to have been a natural tendency for British observers to overestimate the size of columns which were attacking them. Where we can compare actual numbers with British reports we often find only half or a quarter as many French troops as were claimed. At Vimeiro, for example, both Landmann and Walker claimed that the 50th was attacked by 5,000 men, although the true figure seems to have been nearer 1,200. At Waterloo, again, many British reports speak of many battalions in each Guard column, whereas we know from the French side that each one can have contained no more than two battalions. There seems to be a consistency in these overestimates which suggests that the French columns were really a good deal lighter than often assumed. It is true that they were rarely composed of single battalions as their best tacticians would have liked; but at least they were seldom as monstrous as British propaganda would have us believe.

  We must also beware of the British accounts when they speak of attempted French deployments, since it is seldom made very clear exactly what was involved. Few British reports specify whether these deployments were ordered by officers or occurred spontaneously; a point of cardinal importance if we would fathom French intentions. In fact both types are mentioned in different circumstances; but once again there is an annoying reticence over the precise timing of the deployments concerned. We cannot often judge whether the French started to form a line before or after they had run into trouble. This might have told us whether the deployments had been planned from the start or were simply an emergency response to an unexpected development. It is true that a number of British accounts speak of the French standing still as if dazed or shocked before attempting to form line, so our impression tends to be that deployments were in fact improvised and hasty. This is confirmed by the apparent rarity of deployments which were fully completed before their rout. We have, nevertheless, very little conclusive evidence to work from.

  There is the further possibility that many deployments may have consisted, in effect, of an instinctive flight to the flanks. Men in the centre of a column which has suddenly stopped will be prevented from advancing by the immobilised front ranks, and prevented from retreating by the continuing advance of the men behind. They will have nowhere to go, assuming that they still wish to move, except to the flanks. It seems likely that this mechanism would create the impression of attempted deployment in the eyes of someone watching from the front.

  This question of French deployment for the attack also sounds another warning bell in connection with Oman’s work, since he based a good part of this theory upon the Battle of Maida, in Calabria. Although this was not strictly a Peninsular battle it seemed to fit perfectly into his explanation for the combat of the column against the line. When he first drew up his position in 1908, he used Maida as an example and counted the muskets which could bear from the British line as compared with those of the French column. Unfortunately, however, by 1910 he had discovered that at Maida the French were in fact deployed in line, so his original mathematics were shown to be spurious. Worse; the fact that the French had been in line also gave support to Colin’s claim that the line attack was their normal drill. It seemed that the very foundation of Oman’s argument had been removed. Apparently untroubled by this finding, however, he stuck to his original calculations of firepower, and in 1929 he even reprinted the first article as it stood.34

  This episode confirms our distrust of Oman’s confident musket-counting; but on the other hand it does little to help Colin. By chance Maida is one of the few battles for which we have a clear report of what the French had intended, and it transpires that although they certainly deployed, they were also under orders to attack without firing. The French were in line not to develop their firepower at all; but to make a bayonet attack. They might well have succeeded, had not the British forestalled them by one of their timely counter-charges. It was this which over-awed the French, who ‘saw that they had exchanged roles with the English, and that they were no longer the assailants’.35

  Colin’s argument that the French intended to deploy and attack by fire is based upon very shaky evidence. He makes the good point that line attacks were made in several French battles outside the Peninsula,36 but even he admits that few cases can be found from the Peninsula itself. A number of after-action reports by French generals, however, can be seen as supporting Colin’s position. Thus we hear that at Vimeiro Solignac’s grenadier regiment was defeated because, ‘… led with too much ardour, [it] … did not have time to deploy, and was overthrown’ while in the same battle Kellerman’s grenadiers ‘didn’t even have time to complete their development’. After Albuera Soult complained that his men would have carried the day if their front line ‘had deployed and presented the enemy with an equal frontage; but, there was hesitation …’37

  These reports prove that at least some senior French commanders recognised with hindsight that their columns ought to have deployed; but they gloss over the question of why the attempted deployments failed. The explanations offered seem rather inadequate. ‘Excessive ardour’, ‘insufficient time’, and ‘hesitation’ form rather feeble, not to mention contradictory, excuses. We are left wondering whether or not the tactical controllers of these defeated units had seriously wished to deploy at all. The impression is that they wanted to do so only after their original attacks in column had been halted. Against an opponent who did not make counter-charges their deployments might then have succeeded; but against British mobility and opportunism they were already too late.

  There was thus a theoretical acceptance of deployment in the French army, originating no doubt from the 1791 drill book. There seems, however, to have been little practical effort to do anything about it in time to be useful. One reason for this was that column attacks had a theoretical justification of their own in the drill book, in that instructions for forming a battalion ‘attack column’ had been added as an afterthought to the complex manoeuvres of the line. A number of theorists had also advocated column attacks while some who had not, such as Ney, seem to have used them, nevertheless, in battle. The argument that column attacks had often worked well against other enemies remained seductive, not least in the Peninsula itself where it had achieved notable success against the Spanish. It would therefore have been surprising if the French had not tried to march on in column when they came against Wellington’s infantry.

  All French authorities were agreed that the column was the best formation for movement, especially over difficult terrain. In the Peninsula the terrain was often broken and hilly, and on some battlefields such as Busac
o or the Pyrenean passes it was well-nigh impossible. To bring their men into musket range, therefore, French generals would naturally have employed the column, and it was only on arrival at this range that they would have been faced with the choice of whether or not to deploy. If they had deployed they might have gained certain theoretical advantages; but would have had to sacrifice their forward movement. It must have seemed only too tempting to continue their impetus in the formation in which they found themselves, and only too obviously dangerous to halt for manoeuvres. From first principles it is therefore easy to see why they usually continued forward in column.

  The need to continue the forward impetus also dictated their attitude towards firing in the attack. The main rationale behind deployment was that it brought the maximum number of muskets to bear; but as we have already seen on the British side, opening a fusillade brought with it a high risk of losing control, cohesion, and especially forward movement. In an important way, therefore, an attack with fire was a contradiction in terms. Reynier had seen this at Maida when he ordered the attack to be made without fire, and there is evidence from other French battles that the same reasoning applied elsewhere.

  Jomini, for example, said that ‘During the recent wars Russian, French and Prussian columns have frequently been seen to carry positions with shouldered arms, and without firing a shot; this represents the triumph of the impetus and morale effect which is produced.’38 At Montmirail, 1814, Marshal Ney ordered the guard to charge the enemy after shaking the priming powder out of their muskets so they could not fire; while in a skirmish after the Battle of the Katzbach in 1813 a junior officer, Martin, noted that conscripts who had been ordered to attack without firing disobeyed instructions and came to a halt short of their objective.39

  40Perhaps the most often quoted description of a French attack was written by Marshal Bugeaud and first used by General Trochu in his work on the French Army of 1867. Bugeaud, however, probably caught sight of the British only at the Battle of Castalla in 1813, and even there his unit was not involved in the fighting. For his apparently ‘eyewitness’ description of the typical Peninsular combat he relied heavily upon an account of Talavera by General Chambray which appeared in 1824, and it is this which we reproduce here:

  The French charged with shouldered arms as was their custom. When they arrived at short range, and the English line remained motionless, some hesitation was seen in the march. The officers and NCOs shouted at the soldiers, ‘Forward; March; don’t fire’. Some even cried, ‘They’re surrendering’. The forward movement was therefore resumed; but it was not until extremely close range of the English line that the latter started a two rank fire which carried destruction into the heart of the French line, stopped its movement, and produced some disorder. While the officers shouted to the soldiers ‘Forward; Don’t open fire’ (although firing set in nevertheless), the English suddenly stopped their own fire and charged with the bayonet. Everything was favourable to them; orderliness, impetus, and the resolution to fight with the bayonet. Among the French, on the other hand, there was no longer any impetus, but disorder and the surprise caused by the enemy’s unexpected resolve: flight was inevitable.

  This account is probably the best surviving summary of what must have happened in most actions between the French and Wellington’s infantry. It shows that the French aim, whatever their formation, was not to open fire but to press on with the bayonet. The fact that muskets were ‘shouldered’ is even noted as customary practice in such attacks. Nor is the British fire singled out as particularly decisive. Admittedly it managed to halt the attack for a time; but so had the initial sight of the British steadiness. The fire is said to have caused nothing worse than ‘some disorder’, whereas the really decisive shock which routed the French was unquestionably the bayonet charge and the unexpected British resolve.

  Colin’s school can derive very little satisfaction from this passage, since it is clear that the use of fire was very far from the minds of French tacticians. The suggestion of a British ambush is also lacking, at least in the physical sense. The British did not pop up from behind a fold in the ground at the last moment, but were obviously visible for most of the time. It may be true that a physical ambush had genuinely been achieved by both Walker at Vimeiro and Maitland at Waterloo; but in Chambray’s description it seems clear that the only ambush was a purely psychological one. The French were astonished by the remarkable coolness and aggressive intention of the enemy they were attacking.

  This appears to be the key to the whole matter. It was the relative balance of morale and steadiness which decided the victor in an infantry fight, and not the balance of firepower. In their short sharp countercharge the British were able to retain most of their orderly bearing; whereas the French were caught at the end of a long and discouraging approach march, suffering from too many cheer-leaders at too early a stage. Because the British had refused to be intimidated by this display, the burden of doubt was inexorably transferred to the French. Their confidence seeped away to the point where it disappeared completely in face of the smallest threatening gesture.

  It is highly significant that Chambray makes no mention at all of the French attack formation in his account of Talavera. He describes the important moral factors in some detail; but he seems to dismiss the question of column or line as devoid of relevance. This finally puts the bickering between Oman and Colin in its place, since we can now see not only that both were quite wrong to stress the role of musketry, but also that neither column nor line offered any particular advantage to an attacker. Because musketry was less than decisive, the line had no secret gifts to bestow. The column in turn was considerably less dangerous to its members than is often claimed. At Maida we have seen that a French attack in line suffered from precisely the same moral defeat which Was later to beset column attacks in the Peninsula. As a footnote we might add that at Maya in 1813 a French column apparently defeated a British line by its fire. From this it is possible to see that the French problem was not therefore one of formation at all; it was rather a matter of the steadiness of their men at the decisive range. Beside this overwhelmingly important factor the mathematics of musketry appear to have been very trivial indeed.

  When we contemplate the struggles for no-man’s-land in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns we are forced to conclude that it was the relative quality of the opposed infantry which decided the outcome, rather than any technical considerations of formation or firepower. When French officers simply admitted that the British troops were better soldiers they actually came nearer to the heart of the matter than those who would count muskets, measure bullet sizes, or calculate deployments. One of the French officers captured at Vittoria in 1813 really summed it up when he remarked to Wellington that ‘Le fait est, monseigneur, que vous avez une armée, mais nous sommes un bordel ambulant.’41

  Some Spurious Qualities Claimed for Rifles and Fieldworks

  If we say that a column formation was just as good or bad as a line, and a British musket just as good or bad as a French one, then we are undermining a considerable portion of received wisdom about Napoleonic tactics. We have not gone the whole way to total iconoclasm, however, since many commentators believe that Napoleonic troops could still win decisive advantages by exploiting two other items of ‘hardware’, namely the rifle and the spade. Let us now investigate these claims a little more fully, with particular reference to the ranges at which combat might be decided.

  It has often been alleged that the Napoleonic smoothbore flintlock musket was a dreadfully short-ranged weapon, and that a person standing more than 150 yards from a marksman would have to be desperately unlucky to be hit, provided that he had been selected as the target.42 It therefore seems to have been something of a rule of thumb that ‘effective’ combat range for troops in close order was about 50 yards, almost regardless of the type of ammunition they were firing. Whether this ammunition was the ballistically relatively efficient single bullets, Bugeaud’s preferred doubled bullets (‘buck
‘n’ ball’), or small buckshot, the general result seems to have been much the same. Numerous cases have also been cited of whole battalions firing at a hundred yards, yet inflicting only two or three casualties upon the enemy.43 Napoleonic authorities certainly seem to have believed that a formed unit was safe enough from musketry at any ranges further than about 150–200 yards.

  In Jac Weller’s extensive 1954 tests this effect was explained by the wild inaccuracy of the weapon, which produced hit groupings over three feet in diameter at 100 yards, and no accuracy whatsoever beyond 200 yards.44 Figures for ammunition consumption in battle tell a similar story. At Vittoria it was estimated that only one musket shot in 800 hit an enemy soldier, after the effect of artillery had been taken into account, while during one patrol at the Cape in 1851 some 3,200 shots were needed for each hit.45

  Against all this, however, there is an opposite body of evidence to suggest that the smoothbore musket was somewhat better than its many critics have maintained. The French 1791 manual intended no satire when it gave a ballistic maximum range for the 1777 musket of 900 metres,46 while in range tests, far from the emotions and stresses of combat, some very impressive scores are recorded from the Napoleonic period itself. Frequently 20% of shots hit an (admittedly large) target at 300 metres and 40% at 150 metres.47 In routine regimental shoots during the July Monarchy the average was rather lower, standing at 14.3% hits for ranges between 100 and 300 metres; but this still indicates one hit out of every seven shots fired.48 Actually the best recorded Napoleonic battle result does approach this level of accuracy quite closely, since a couple of British battalions at Maida used only 8.7 rounds to score each hit on the French, albeit at ranges of between 115 and 30 yards.49 The secret here, however, seems to lie in the closeness of the range and the discipline of the firing troops – rather than in the inherent qualities of the weapons. Normally the combat results of Napoleonic musketry fell much nearer to the Vittoria score than to that of Maida.