Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon

355 Pages·2000·12.78 MB·English

by  Dr. Rory Muir

Tactics and the
Experience of Battle in the
Age of Napoleon
Rory Muir
Tactics and the Experience of Battle
in the Age of Napoleon
Rofy Muif
'A stunning evocation of campaigning and battle, presented largely in the words of the
participants, and enhanced bj Muir's huge, if lightly worn, knowledge of his
subject.. ..This is far more than a book about soldiers; it is a glittering, and intensely
interesting, social history of armies at war, and of what befell their constituents.'
Toby Buchan, Literary Review
'A major work.'
David Seymour, Military Illustrated
An important and useful study.'
Jeremy Black, Archives
'Muir has filled a significant gap in the study of the [Napoleonic era] with this engaging
study of the mechanics of a Napoleonic battle.'
Library Journal
Drawing on memoirs, diaries and letters of the time, this powerful boolc
explores what it was like to be a soldier on a Napoleonic batdefield. It
considers the role of the artillery, infantry and cavalry; the plight of the
wounded; the way victories were decided; the mechanics of musketry,
artillery and cavalry charges; and much more.
Rory Muir is a visiting research feUow at the University of Adelaide. He is
the author of Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815, also published
by Yale University Press, which won the First Prize of the International
Napoleonic Society' in 1997.
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
yalebooks.com \\'w\v.5ra!ebaoks.co.uk

Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon

Tactics
and the
Experience of Battle
in the
Age of Napoleon
Rory Muir
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Copyright © 1998 by Rory Muir
First published in paperback 2000
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.
Set in Ehrhardt by Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong
Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd., Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Muir, Rory, 1962-
Tactics and the experience of battle in the age of Napoleon/Rory
Muir.
Includes bibliographical references
ISBN 0-300-077385-2 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-300-08270-8 (pbk)
I. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815-Campaigns. 2. Military art and
science - France - History - 19th century. 3. Tactics. I. Title.
DC151.M9 1998
94o.2'7 - dc2i 97-44386
CIP
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
Illustration acknowledgements:
Part One: Daily life with Wellington's army, from J.H. Pyne's Camp Scenes, 1803.
Part Two: Infantry in Italy, 1796, artist and source unknown. Part Three: Officer and
Privates of the 52nd Light Infantry by Charles Hamilton Smith (National Army
Museum). Part Four: Charge of Le Marchant's brigade at Salamanca, artist and source
unknown.
Contents
Preface vti
Parti Introduction
Chapter One The Eve of Battle 3
Chapter Two Battles and Battlefields 12
Part II The Elements of Combat
Chapter Three Artillery 29
Chapter Four Light Infantry 51
Chapter Five Infantry Combat 68
ORGANIZATION, FORMATIONS, DRILL AND TRAINING •
MUSKETRY • BAYONETS AND HAND-TO-HAND FIGHTING •
INFANTRY IN ACTION
Chapter Six Cavalry Combat /05
ORGANIZATION, EQUIPMENT AND TRAINING • CAVALRY IN
ACTION • CAVALRY VS CAVALRY • CAVALRY VS ARTILLERY
AND INFANTRY
Part III Command and Control
Chapter Seven The Role of the General 141
Chapter Eight Subordinate Commanders, Staff Officers and ADCs
157
Chapter Nine Regimental Officers 175
Chapter Ten Morale and Cohesion 193
Chapter Eleven Attitudes and Feelings 217
vi Contents
Part IV The End of the Day
Chapter Twelve Victory or Defeat? 235
Chapter Thirteen After the Fighting 248
Epilogue 266
Notes 275
Bibliographical Essay Jo/
Bibliography J/J
Index 329
Preface
Battles played a large and important part in the Napoleonic Wars and have
figured prominently in subsequent accounts. Innumerable books have been
written about individual battles and campaigns, with Waterloo and the
Hundred Days being easily the favourite subject. But these works are primarily
narratives and are designed to explain what happened in a particular battle,
rather than to draw conclusions about the nature of battles in general; so that
despite all that has been written about Napoleonic warfare, there has been little
serious analysis of what actually happened on the battlefield. Some of the
leading historians in the field, including Sir Charles Oman and David Chandler,
paused in their main work to devote a chapter or two, or an essay, to the tactics
employed in the battles they were describing. Drawing on their vast knowledge
of the subject, these discussions were far superior to the generally arid accounts
to be found in earlier specialist works on tactics, but they were limited in both
space and scope, and told only part of the story.
In 1976 John Keegan, in The Face of Battle, pioneered an original approach
to the subject by concentrating on the experience of individual soldiers in battle,
while in 1981 Paddy Griffith analysed infantry combat with a new and con-
vincing emphasis on psychological factors. These studies marked the final stage
of a shift in approach from a late nineteenth-century view of tactics, which often
took the blind obedience of soldiers for granted and attributed any failure to a
lack of'gallantry', to an approach which acknowledges the humanity of soldiers,.
and places more emphasis on the intangible bonds of morale and cohesion
which held units together under the immense stresses and strains of battle.
However neither Keegan nor Griffith pretended to give a full account of the
subject: both wrote only single chapters on the Napoleonic period as part
of larger works; Keegan's limited to the British experience at Waterloo, and
Griffith's to Wellington's infantry.
The Anglocentrism of their approach was not simply the product of national
bias - Griffith's research expertise is in the French, not the British, archives.
Rather it reflects the fact that for the period of the Napoleonic Wars there is an