08-23-2004, 11:42 AM
Napoleon and his Marshalls
A few edited excerpts from this remarkable book:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->When General Bonaparte introduced his new whirlwind methods into the art of warfare in 1796, the only real changes he made at first were the furious marching and the imposition of the <i>will of genius </i>upon his men. The reorganizing, the corps system, the standardization of the artillery, the lozenge formation, the giant batteries, the pivotal battle, the cavalry screen, all these came later.
But in 1796 Bonaparte won his startling victories with an army that was a legacy from the past. <b>He did not create the fierce spirit of attack; he inherited it from the Sambre-et-Meuse</b>. He did not invent the infantry attack in column with a cloud of skirmishers in front, for it was forced on the rag-tag civilian army of the infant Republic by a lack of training. The close column was easier to handle than the long perfectly dressed line, and the cloud of skirmishers gave full scope for the natural individualism and élan of the Frenchman.
When the first creation of Marshals was made, six out of the eighteen were men who could not remotely be described as brilliant soldiers. They were not young, they were not dashing, and they were not talented. Their elevation to the rank of Marshal of the Empire was due solely to Napoleonâs intense desire to weld three regimes into one and call it France. He wished to preserve the balance between past (Royalist France), present (Republican France), and future (Imperial France), and so he took six old Republican Generals and gave them the disused Royalist title (Marshal) and set them to serve his Empire.
One of these six was sixty-nine year old Kellerman. He was made a Marshal because he commanded the French line at the most trivial and yet the most important battle that changed the destiny of the world. As a battle the cannonade of Valmy was a joke; <b>as an event it was portentous</b>.
It was 1792 and General Dumouriez was Commander-in-Chief of a rabble. The disciplined troops of Prussia, the legacy of the terrible Frederick, were rolling into France like a steady and ponderous iron machine, along with their Austrian allies. Dumouriez had only one chance, to hold the passes through the densely wooded hills of Argonne. âI will hold them like Thermopylae,â were almost his last words before he evacuated them in a hurry and took post beside the mill of Valmy, with his back to Argonne and Germany and his face to Paris.
The iron machine rolled through the mud of the evacuated passes, swung around the doomed army, and came to the assault on Valmy. Kellerman commanded the line on the hill, Dumouriez the reserve behind the hill. For hours the Prussian artillery thundered at the French; for hours the Republican artillery thundered back, and, to the astonishment of everyone on both sides, the rag-tag amateurs held firm! Kellerman himself was unmovable.
At last the Prussian General estimated that his time had come, and he launched Frederickâs irresistible engineâ¦the line attack of Prussian infantryâ¦down into the valley to climb the low ridge to the Valmy hill. Steadily and slowly the infantry went down, and then something went wrong with the engine. Whether the mud got too deep, or whether the Prussian General lost his nerve, at any rate the line-attack wavered, halted, and then with complete precision and dignity turned itself into a line-retreat, and the battle was over. The next day the enemy was gone.
Valmy was the first link in a chain of incredible victories that ended forever 23 years later at Waterloo.   Â
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This book was a great read and I must thank Airavat Singh for recommending it on his list at amazon.co.uk
A few edited excerpts from this remarkable book:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->When General Bonaparte introduced his new whirlwind methods into the art of warfare in 1796, the only real changes he made at first were the furious marching and the imposition of the <i>will of genius </i>upon his men. The reorganizing, the corps system, the standardization of the artillery, the lozenge formation, the giant batteries, the pivotal battle, the cavalry screen, all these came later.
But in 1796 Bonaparte won his startling victories with an army that was a legacy from the past. <b>He did not create the fierce spirit of attack; he inherited it from the Sambre-et-Meuse</b>. He did not invent the infantry attack in column with a cloud of skirmishers in front, for it was forced on the rag-tag civilian army of the infant Republic by a lack of training. The close column was easier to handle than the long perfectly dressed line, and the cloud of skirmishers gave full scope for the natural individualism and élan of the Frenchman.
When the first creation of Marshals was made, six out of the eighteen were men who could not remotely be described as brilliant soldiers. They were not young, they were not dashing, and they were not talented. Their elevation to the rank of Marshal of the Empire was due solely to Napoleonâs intense desire to weld three regimes into one and call it France. He wished to preserve the balance between past (Royalist France), present (Republican France), and future (Imperial France), and so he took six old Republican Generals and gave them the disused Royalist title (Marshal) and set them to serve his Empire.
One of these six was sixty-nine year old Kellerman. He was made a Marshal because he commanded the French line at the most trivial and yet the most important battle that changed the destiny of the world. As a battle the cannonade of Valmy was a joke; <b>as an event it was portentous</b>.
It was 1792 and General Dumouriez was Commander-in-Chief of a rabble. The disciplined troops of Prussia, the legacy of the terrible Frederick, were rolling into France like a steady and ponderous iron machine, along with their Austrian allies. Dumouriez had only one chance, to hold the passes through the densely wooded hills of Argonne. âI will hold them like Thermopylae,â were almost his last words before he evacuated them in a hurry and took post beside the mill of Valmy, with his back to Argonne and Germany and his face to Paris.
The iron machine rolled through the mud of the evacuated passes, swung around the doomed army, and came to the assault on Valmy. Kellerman commanded the line on the hill, Dumouriez the reserve behind the hill. For hours the Prussian artillery thundered at the French; for hours the Republican artillery thundered back, and, to the astonishment of everyone on both sides, the rag-tag amateurs held firm! Kellerman himself was unmovable.
At last the Prussian General estimated that his time had come, and he launched Frederickâs irresistible engineâ¦the line attack of Prussian infantryâ¦down into the valley to climb the low ridge to the Valmy hill. Steadily and slowly the infantry went down, and then something went wrong with the engine. Whether the mud got too deep, or whether the Prussian General lost his nerve, at any rate the line-attack wavered, halted, and then with complete precision and dignity turned itself into a line-retreat, and the battle was over. The next day the enemy was gone.
Valmy was the first link in a chain of incredible victories that ended forever 23 years later at Waterloo.   Â
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This book was a great read and I must thank Airavat Singh for recommending it on his list at amazon.co.uk