"Napoleonic Tactics"

[john duffer]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Thanks Michael. ABEBOOKS has a couple of originals of "Essai general de Tactique" but hey're a bit pricey at about $1,000. Luckily they had a reprint for $39 so I went that route.

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

One of the things the French did (from Nappy I through WWI) was emphasize elan/morale and shock over infantry firepower.

And they loved artillery.

With the American Military enamoured with the French it is kind of logical that our manuals reflected their thinking.

So the Artillery/Cavalry were considered the arms of choice for up and coming smart officiers. The reliance of frontal assault was also a French concept.

What is interesting is that during the War with Mexico, Scott used the frontal assault as only a last resort. His flanking attacks, which allowed the Americans to take Mexico City with a small army and small losses, were the model that the successful commanders in the Civil War used. Lee tried at the Seven Days time and again to flank the Union forces and of course succeeded at Chancelorsville. Grant used it successfully during the Vicksburg campaign and later tried it in the Wilderness (where it didn't work because he was up against Lee) and of course Sherman used it in the Atlanta Campaign.

Now all three men fell into the frontal assault trap from time to time (Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, etal) but generally the eschewed the French method of war.

Commanders that embraced the French method (like Hood and Burnside) were generally unsuccessful.

So I wonder if immediately after the war it was used a derogatory term for incompetent tactics and down through the mists of time we've accidentally applied it as an overall method?

[john duffer]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Mr. Nichols

I believe I've found the Holy Grail of Le Ordre Mixte - George Nafziger's "Imperial Bayonets, Tactics of the Napoleonic Battery, Battalion and Brigade as Found in Contemporary Regulations" gives examples and diagrams of it's use in several battles. It states the first combat use was by Napoleon in 1796 at Tagliamento.

[neocelt]

Re: Doin' my homework...

Michael and John,

Thanks for your thoughtful and most helpful input! My own library is currently packed up for a move, so I hit the local university library last night and was able to pick up a number of books that have excellent discussions of Guibert and his contributions to tactical evolution. I managed to find Rothenberg's treatise, but Chandler, Nosworthy and Nafziger eluded me. I did, however, locate the following titles that I'll add to the list:

Wm. B. Skelton, American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784-1861

Azar Gat, The Origins of Military Thought from the Enlightenment to Clausewitz

B.H. Liddell Hart, The Ghost of Napoleon (Liddell Hart calls Guibert "The Prophet of Mobility")

And for some insight into how Guibert is viewed by the modern military community, check out this joint publication of the Training & Doctrine Command, the Command & General Staff College, and the Combat Studies Institute:

John J. McGrath, ed., An Army at War: Change in the Midst of Conflict (Proceedings of the Combat Studies Institute 2005 Military History Symposium)

Pardon me while I hit the books!

Cheers,

[sauguszouave]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

There is more terminology confusion going on here than just the fact that there were two French emperors named Napoleon. There is the confusion resulting from the American use of the word tactics to mean infantry drill. Hardee's Tactics is not a tactics manual to anybody except an American; in every other country on the planet it is a drill manual.

1. Hardee's Tactics were translated from the French ordonnace du roi of 1845. Napoleon III did not become President of the French Republic until 1848 and Emperor until 1851. He had nothing to do with infantry drill as practiced in the US. (He was responsible for the 12-pdr light gun howitzer, however.)

2. As Brent Nosworthy explains in his book, the French army was constantly reviewing and revising its tactics. The French were very scientific in their approach, which was one of the things that appealed to the Corps of Engineers officers who dominated the US Army. (It is an interesting aside that in the 19th-century the stereotype was that the French were engineers and the Germans were the romantics.) The light infantry tactics that drove the chasseur drill that shows up in Hardee's are the result of innovations developed in colonial wars in Algeria in the 1830s. But they didn't stop there. They made changes based on experiences in the Crimea in 1854-1855 and the Franco-Austrian War of 1859. It is a mistake to talk as if French tactics were static during the 19th century.

3. As has already been pointed out, the campaigns of Napoleon I were the subject of intense study by professional soldiers in the US. However, Dennis Hart Mahan specifically warns against tactical dogmatism in his books. Mahan also expresses concern that Napoleon was wasteful of his soldier's lives. Professionals also knew that Napoleon I changed tactics over the course of his career as the quality and composition of his troops changed.

4. The Prussians also changed their tactics significantly during this period. They got their clocks cleaned by the French when they fought as allies of Austria in 1859. They reviewed their mistakes and made changes for the Danish War in 1864 and then they did it again for the war with Austria in 1866. Then they did it again for the war with France in 1870. None of this went unnoticed by the French. They got really nervous after Prussia defeated Austria and scrambled to get metalic cartridge breach-loaders that were superior to the Dreyse gun and field artillery to compete with the Krupp breach-loaders.

In short, I think different people use the term "Napoleonic tactics" to mean so many different things that it is almost useless.

Best Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Hallo!


"They got really nervous after Prussia defeated Austria and scrambled to get metalic cartridge breach-loaders that were superior to the Dreyse gun and field artillery to compete with the Krupp breach-loaders."

Und... and with "tactics,"
How did that work for the French in 1870?
;)

Just a-funnin'....

Curt

[sauguszouave]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Hallo!


"They got really nervous after Prussia defeated Austria and scrambled to get metalic cartridge breach-loaders that were superior to the Dreyse gun and field artillery to compete with the Krupp breach-loaders."

Und... and with "tactics,"
How did that work for the French in 1870?
;)

Just a-funnin'....

Curt

I know you're funning, but this is a question that lots of people ask. A lot of people look at the Franco-Prussian War as the complete and total vindication of everything the Prusssians did and a complete repudiation of everything the French did. Needless to say, the Prussian General Staff after the war did not think that way. I happen to agree with Col Dupuy's argument in "A Genius For War" that the single biggest factor was the poor performance of the French General Staff compared to the Prussian. Or as the French themselves put it, "Lions led by donkees." Paddy Griffith advances the argument, based on the research for his PhD thesis, that:

"The trouble with the engineers of the mid-nineteenth-century French service -- hence by imitation also those of the American -- was that although they represented only one specialized branch in the art of war they were permitted to posture and parade as experts in the whole. They knew too well that they were the most highly educated members of the officer corps, and they jealously guarded their status as spokesmen on any issue of strategy or military organization. In France this meant that they worked against any moves to set up a true general staff, since such a body would have relegated them to the backwaters in which they rightly belonged. It also meant that they did nothing to meet demands for systematic war planning against Prussia: instead they merely repaired some parts of Vauban's ageing fortress chain and added a few new works to it." ("Battle Tactics of the Civil War." New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989. p. 124.)

Now we all know that truly great field commanders come from the artillery, not the engineers.:)

Best Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[sauguszouave]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Mr. Comer

Like you I initially thought weapons were the reason we don't see the massed cavalry charges of European wars but then realized in the Franco Prussian War several deadlocked battles were decided by massed cavalry charges. Young Pat Craddock has done a great deal of study in this area and says it takes several generations of training and tradition for cav to ride down infantry in line facing them.

All

A few misc items - Napoleon I didn't create "tactics" at the manual level, the 1831 manual was a rewrite and modernization of the 1796. He created much in the field of "grand tactics" such as the corps system of a body of men large enough to act independently and defend itself until help arrived - the army moving dispersed and concentrating suddenly at an unexpected point. The ordre mixte Mr Comer mentions wasn't invented by Napoleon but he was a proponent of it's use. The decision between mass and firepower was an ongoing argument at this time and the ordre mixte a compromise. A major reason for the use by the French of attack columns was the since of security it gave to the conscript. French post Revolutionary armies were truly citizen armies as opposed to say the smaller but professional English army which could maintain discipline in a two rank liner formation and use their famous platoon firing to smash attack columns. Sorry for the long paragraph Kevin. :)

And I would reiterate that tactics and drill are not the same thing:

"Drilling maneuvers are generally designated by the name of 'School of Battalion,' 'Field Evolutions,' 'Regulations of Drill Practice,' etc.; but nowhere by the name of 'Tactics' as is the case in the United States. In European philosophy these maneuvres are no more tactics that the conjugation of verbs is rhetoric. A man may, for example, know by heart the tactics of Scott and Hardee, and other similar manuals of drilling practice, without at all approaching a tactician. Tactics is the Science and Art of which the drilling manuevres are the means." (Szabad, Emeric, Captain, U.S.A. "Modern War: Its Theory and Practice." New York: Harper & Brothers, 1863. pp. 20-21.)

Captain Szabad was a Hungarian who served in the Austrian army and the Italian army before emigrating to the US in 1861. He served as an adc in the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War.

The different composition of the British and French armies of the 19th-century was also understood by American professionals and the subject of debate when trying to determine what was a more appropriate model for the US Army:

"72. The system of tactics in use in our service are those of the French; not that opinion is settled among our officers on this point; some prefering the English. In favor of the French, it may be said, that there is really more affinity between the military aptitude of the American and French soldier, than between that of the former and the English; and that the French systems are the result of a broader platform of experience, submitted to tthe careful analysis of a body of officers, who, for science and skill combined, stand unrivalled; whereas the English owes more to individal than to general talent; and therefore is more liable to the defects of individual pride of opinion, than where this can only be felt in discussion at the council board, at which its morgue is liable to be checked, and its fallacies exposed, by rival talent." (Mahan, Dennis Hart, " Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops, with the Essential Principles of Strategy, and Grand Tactics for the Use of Officers of the Militia and Volunteers." New York: John Wiley, 1864. p. 33.)

As I mentioned in another post about how the Franco-Prussian War discredited all things French, the British came out of the Crimea with their reputation tarnished as well. And just like the blanket condemnation of the French was in large part unfair, so was the blanket condemnation of the British. Everyone has heard of the botched staff work that resulted in the "Charge of the Light Brigade" but Tennyson's poem about the "Charge of the Heavy Brigade" simply wasn't as good artistically. Therefore many people are unaware of the tactical success of the use of curassiers against infantry at Balaclava.

Another thing that comes out of the Crimea is that the officer sent by the US Army as the cavalry expert to observe that war happens to have never spent a day in his life in a cavalry regiment. George B. McClellan is commissioned into the Corps of Engineers on graduation from West Point. Because promotion is by seniority within your corps, when they decide to send this brilliant, up-and-coming officer to Europe with the Delafield Commission there are no open billets for captains in the Engineers, so they transfer him to the cavalry so they can promote him. He never actually serves with his cavalry regiment. Moreover, he arrives at the front too late to see curassiers in action. Instead he falls in love with Russian light cavalry and proceeds to write a cavalry manual based on their tactics.

As far as tactics go, one of Napoleon's favorite was to start an assault with a massed artillery charge, then follow up with the infantry in attack columns, and finish off with a heavy cavalry charge. As in all other tactics, the success of this approach depends on the circumstance of who you use it on, when and where. The steadyness of British infantry that allows them to habitually deploy in two-rank lines is the result of the same confidence in their discipline that allows them to quickly form square and stand against heavy cavalry charges.

Best Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[sauguszouave]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

And we even went to Pickelhauben! ;) :) :)

Curt

Hi Curt,

It is actually a myth that we adopted spiked helmets because of the Prussian successes in the Franco_Prussian War.

1. Only the cavalry got a helmet in the 1872 uniform regulations. The infantry and artillery got French-style shakos.

2. The pattern of helmet the cavalry got was most likely copied from the British heavy cavalry helmets of the time. See McChristian, Douglas C, "The U.S. Army in the West, 1870-1880." (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. p. 42. and note 11, p. 275.) The British adopt German-style plumed helmets in their uniform regulation of 1846 for heavy cavalry. One of the members of the uniform board wrote in 1875 that the helmet was copied from the British and a comparison of the US helmet to German, Russian, and British helmets of the 1870 seems to bear him out. See Rowe, David JJ, "Head Dress of the British Heavy Cavalry: Dragoon Guards, Household and Yeoman Cavalry 1842-1934." (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 1999.) Queen Victoria's husband was German and he is credited with first proposing German-style plumed helmets for the British army in 1842.

Best Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[sauguszouave]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

While Napoleon wrote tracts on his tactics, it was a fellow named Jominy who really codified in writing what Napoleon had developed. Unfortunately, Jominy didn't live long enough to promote his writings, so it was left to another of his contemporaries, Clausewitz, who did live long enough to engage in lots of self promotion. By the way....Clausewitz borrowed heavily from Jominy's writings.

Hi Brian,

It was actually the other way around. Clausewitz published -- and died -- before Jomini. Jomini actually has two references to Clausewitz in his Art of War. I especially like the reference in the index "Clausewitz, erroneous assertions of, 178."

Regarding the impact of Jomini's writing on the tactics of the American Civil War, the first translation in English doesn't appear in the US until 1862. Prior to that you had to read it in French. That pretty much limits it to the USMA graduates and European-trained officers.

Secondly, it is a book mainly on policy, strategy, operations and logistics. The material on tactics is pretty short and is mixed in with operation.

Best Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

I get the feeling that this thread has moved from it's original question (and it has moved from its original folder), that being, "Why are Civil War tactics often referred to as 'Napoleonic'?? to a general discussion of later-Nineteenth Century Military philosophy. Frankly, I don't see how discussion of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 does a darn thing on a forum devoted to American Civil War reenacting.

[BrianHicks]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Hi Brian,

It was actually the other way around. Clausewitz published -- and died -- before Jomini. Jomini actually has two references to Clausewitz in his Art of War. I especially like the reference in the index "Clausewitz, erroneous assertions of, 178."

Thank you. I stand corrected.

While it was Clauswitz who died, his work is the more well known. Jomini seems to have had a problem with picking a side and staying on it, which may be why he had problems with his works not becoming popular liek Clauswitz's after the conflict.

Regarding the impact of Jomini's writing on the tactics of the American Civil War, the first translation in English doesn't appear in the US until 1862. Prior to that you had to read it in French. That pretty much limits it to the USMA graduates and European-trained officers.

Secondly, it is a book mainly on policy, strategy, operations and logistics. The material on tactics is pretty short and is mixed in with operation.

Best Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

No argument here. My comments in my original post pertaining to Jomini were meant to stand alone, and not imply that Jomini's writing had any influence on Civil War Tactics.

[neocelt]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Regarding the impact of Jomini's writing on the tactics of the American Civil War, the first translation in English doesn't appear in the US until 1862. Prior to that you had to read it in French. That pretty much limits it to the USMA graduates and European-trained officers.

If memory serves, Clausewitz' watershed treatise, Vom Kriege (On War), didn't appear in an English translation until after the Civil War. Also, as French was the ubiquitous language of diplomacy and culture, familiarity with Jomini's Précis de l'art de la Guerre would not have been beyond the ken of a reasonably well-educated American gent of the period (further, it was quite fashionable to take an interest in all things martial, coupled with membership in a tony militia company). In point of fact, an English translation of Jomini's Summary of the Art of War appeared at least as early as 1854, in which year a translation by Maj. O.F. Winship, A.A.G. and Lt. E.E. MacLean, 1st Inf. was published by G.P. Putnam & Co. of New York.

Cheers,

[sauguszouave]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

If memory serves, Clausewitz' watershed treatise, Vom Kriege (On War), didn't appear in an English translation until after the Civil War. Also, as French was the ubiquitous language of diplomacy and culture, familiarity with Jomini's Précis de l'art de la Guerre would not have been beyond the ken of a reasonably well-educated American gent of the period (further, it was quite fashionable to take an interest in all things martial, coupled with membership in a tony militia company). In point of fact, an English translation of Jomini's Summary of the Art of War appeared at least as early as 1854, in which year a translation by Maj. O.F. Winship, A.A.G. and Lt. E.E. MacLean, 1st Inf. was published by G.P. Putnam & Co. of New York.

Cheers,

Nick,

You're right, I was thinking of the Mendell & Craighill translation, and forgot about the Winship & McLean translation.

Regards,

Paul

[sustudent]

Re: "Napoleonic Tactics"

Going back to Mr. O'Beirne's comment, I know that Gen. Dan Butterfield used Napoleon when writing his Manual for Outpost Duty. Toward the end, he uses excerpts from Napoleon's "Maxims of War". I don't know if those generally qualify as a tactical contribution.

Yours,
Alex Stowe
Humble Syracuse Student