Your presentation confirmed what I have long believed, that the successful charge with the bayonet was made possible, most often, by the effective fire of the attacking formation, or that of the supporting infantry formations and artillery. It is in the details, as always, that one gains insight into the mechanics of a successful engagement. The information you provided about the flexibility of the French system was very enlightening, and makes absolute sense when one considers some of the spectacular moves Napoleon could rely on being made efficiently. Pratzen Heights is probably the best example of Napoleon's daring, which would not have been possible without his supreme confidence in the ability of the the French formations to execute the required movements perfectly.
thank you for this video on french infantry tactics because the notion we see in most napoleonic movies is french troops using nothing but columns and walk into enemy fire die in droves and then some how win or get routed
@@crabluvaliterally here after a Sharpe binge 😂 And trying to figure out if that’s possibly what Wellington’s said “pounding” described/how sane men ever carried it out.
Napoleon didn’t necessarily help to dispel this notion that numbers were the French armies greatest advantage. “You cannot stop me, I spend 30,000 men a month” - Napoleon
I have been starting Napoleonic wars for over a year now, and this is the most detailed video on infantry history and tactics I’ve ever seen. Thank you.
Very informative, enjoyable, and easy to listen to! I would _love_ a video like this covering the development of pre-Napoleonic and Napoleonic-era light infantry. Cheers 🙂
Nice, I was hoping for something like this, especially when it comes to the column myth, which I think was popularised widely by Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books.
Amazing video! It made me rethink how I viewed Napoleonic warfare. Particularly about the French, of which I had heard a lot of the myths you debunked. My only comment would be about the little attention that skirmishing received. As far as I know, French were adept is the use of skirmishers in large numbers and it was mentioned sometimes as a tactical advantage over their enemies. Would you probably touch on this subject on a later video?
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! You are right, I didn't give skirmishers or light troops much discussion mainly because of time. Back when I made this I was a little concerned that people might not enjoy long videos, so I cut a few things, but in hindsight, and given the positive reactions I've received, I do wish I had included them now. I am definitely planning to make a video on light troops and skirmishing, but it wont be until next year.
@@ATimeOfEagles Awesome! Honestly, your work is amazing and it is very helpful! I used to read the battles reports and the documentaries and so on, but no one explained what the combat actually entailed at a tactical level. I knew some things but everything was very patchy. Your videos helped me understand it, not only this one but the cavalry one as well! Keep up and kudos always. I'd love to know your take on French light infantry and skirmishing. P.s. About the length I prefer long videos, so the longer the better ;P
Thanks for your kind words. I was in exactly the same shoes as you about wanting to know what the combat was like at a tactical level, and just generally craving more detail that I was finding in documentaries. That was then the main motivator for starting the channel so that I could share what I find, as I was sure that I couldn't be the only one who wanted to know more about this period. I'm pleased that you enjoy longer videos as I imagine that most of my content will be that way....there is just so much to say with every topic xD
Well! It's wonderful to hear someone speak on a subject who really knows what he's talking about! Great talk, nice production. Overall, I guess I need to watch your earlier work. Merci, Mssr Le Merechal!
26:00 When the Swedes used charge and shock tactics during the turn of the 18th Century, they charged as a line, and it worked several times for them, such as during the battle of fraustadt.
Hey, can you talk a bit about how different nations organized their battalions (and infantry in general)? Like for example, french used 6 companies, russians used 4, british used 10...
Good to see a fellow Englishman showing a sense of logic in looking at the French army instead of the commonly and repeatedly stated mistakes of the jingoistic. The same one-eyedness applies to the British view of Waterloo where a French army only slightly larger than the Anglo-Allied attacked without the normally accepted requirement of a 3 to 1 superiority and in the words of Wellington himself came very close to beating him before the Prussians came up and reduced this slight French superiority in numbers to a distinct French inferiority - which still placed him under a massive amount of pressure. Good work! You might also have used Nafziger to give a comparison between the times required by an early Prussian 1790's infantry battalion to deploy and ploy a battalion with those of the same period French. If I remember rightly it could take the Prussians - because of their then use of the fixed pivot and precessional manoeuvring - about 16 minutes compared to the French of about 2 minutes. A huge disadvantage in any rapidly developing battlefield situation which the Prussians to their merit fixed by changing their tactical system after a great deal of neccessary soul searching.
@@heofnorenown No I can't agree that you are correct, and also I doubt that the battle of Waterloo could be considered an open combat. The theory (unattributed) is that an attacker needs a 3 to 1 advantage to guarantee a win. Having a 3 to 1 superiority in a siege is quite normal but does not guarantee a favourable result, otherwise there would not be so many situations where sieges lasted for years. There is no absolute agreement on this ratio and there is still quite a bit of disagreement and discussion occuring in military circles. However, if you consider that if an attacker is of the same numerical strength as the defender, the defender gets to inflict casualties on the attacker while they advance to the assault and by the time they arrive on the ground being defended they will have suffered casualties that would reduce their strength and effectiveness to less than that of the defender. Historically it is unusual (but not impossible) for a weaker force to be a stronger force but that usually requires that the weaker force is superior in some way other than numbers, e.g. morale or expertise. The 3 to 1 superiority quoted does not guarantee victory but it is implied that the best chance of success would require that the attacker has this to have the minimum best chance of success. There are lots of historical examples where less than this ratio has still been successful. If you look at a contour map of Waterloo you will see that the French were attacking up a muddy slope and then over a somewhat sunken track/road and hedges and the defenders were then also to launch ambush style counter-attacks by hidden forces. If this isn't considered to be an advantage to the defender and a disadvantage to the attacker I would be surprised to find any military theorist of note that would think so, hence generally the need to have a superiority in numbers of 3 to 1. But a 3 to 1 superiority doesn'y guarantee success as on a restricted front that superiority cannot be used. Anyone that considers that Napoleon was not at a disadvantage attacking Wellington on the ridge at Waterloo would have to rate Wellington and the army under him as substandard and I doubt many would consider that to be the case. Anyone that thinks that despite these advantages that Wellington was not severely tested by the French at Waterloo has not read much about Waterloo and the 100 days campaign, even Wellington himself said something like "bring me nightfall or the Prussians" in his desperation.
@ 9:22 In de Saxe's case, it makes sense, considering his experiences fighting the Turks. He recounts an incident in his reveries, where a couple of battalions were sabered by the Turks. They'd waited until the Turks were within 20 paces and loosed a volley. De Saxe would later count the bodies left and note that only 50 Turks had fallen in that sector of the battlefield (which the Imperials won--hence how he could count). The rest were able to make it and wreak a massacre on the soldiers. A good part of that, though, might be that musket aiming techniques were...fascinating before c. 1750--at least for soldiers. People at the time distinguished between aiming as a soldier did and aiming "as hunters do," to quote the Bavarian infantry manual of 1754 (which instructed their infantry to use the latter method). The latter method had been the norm before the wars of Louis XIV, so there was a period of less than a century where soldiers decided that aiming normally was for the birds. De Saxe would serve his entire military career in armies that only ever aimed that way, as would Folard IIRC, though the latter must have seen what British firepower could do. Armies only started teaching their men to aim in a more modern style after the War of Austrian Succession. As for those curious: you were to hold the musket so that the barrel was at breast level; it is impossible to have a cheek weld if you do it right--not unless you stoop hard. You can still use the sight and aim with this method. However, holding the musket in the manner of the day was somewhat awkward--to put it mildly.
11:25 What made the prussian line infantry more effective was the fact that Austria opted for more quantity over quality. The Austrians believed in conscripts rather than elite guard/line infantry.
You’re right that Prussian infantry was better during the 7 years war, but not in the way you say. The Prussians used superior tactics, but the Austrians copied this so the advantage disappeared. The reason the Austrians didn’t have guard regiments is because they’re often part of palace coups and they wanted to avoid this risk. Also it may seem like nitpicking, but the Austrians didn’t have a conscript army so much as they had a feudal army.
I was looking for an overview of Napoleonic warfare and was glad I found this. no reflection on your presentation but the scholarship on the pike and shot period has a lot of fallacies about tactics and effectiveness of matchlocks, mostly because it looks at Sweden in the 30 Years War and then the Dutch Revolt to the detriment of everywhere else, although this is slowly changing. In central and eastern Europe the pike was never really used in great numbers, the Ottoman Empire, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Moscovy/Russia for example mobilized mass line infantry using volley fire and just didn’t bother with pikes beginning in the later 16th century. There were probably people in Western Europe thinking about those formations too but the context there tended to favor the pike and musket formation. Not trying to make an aggressive correction just wanted to share
Don't worry, I'm not offended at all, I want to learn more as much as anyone. The pike and shot period is outside of my knowledge and beyond the scope of this study. I merely wanted to touch on it briefly to offer some context, so I didn't give it as much research time as I would have wanted to, simply out of time constraints. Clearly I missed a few things, so thanks for sharing :)
@@ATimeOfEagles its a problem with a lot of the secondary books on that period in general, its hard to get to grips with compared to the eighteenth century or Napoleonic period where the documents and sources have survived better so the picture is clearer
I have added a list of sources that I cited to the description, rather than list them all here. I really should keep a full list of all my sources from now on I think, even ones I don't quote from, so thanks for asking and reminding me! If you're looking for further reading on the topic, then Quimby's book follows the narrative of the tactical discussions really well and I leaned on it heavily for the first part of the video. 'Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies' by Nosworthy, and 'From Flintlock to Rifle' by Ross are also both great at giving a good outlook on the nature of combat during the era. If you're looking for in-depth analysis, unit spacings, manoeuvre timings, etc. then 'Imperial Bayonets' by Nafziger is the go to for that. I don't find it as easy to read narratively as the other three, it feels more like a reference book, but it has some excellent research behind it.
Thank you for showing that the French in the Napoleonic Wars knew how to form ranks and line and not just column like most books and bias historians like to demonstrate.
Mesnil-Durand came back to haunt again in the latter days of the US Civil War at Gettysburg and Franklin or the early days of WWI as the French attacked the invading Germans in Alsace-Lorraine.
Very thorough, quite impressive. Looking forward to more! One small note, though, from a francophone. Guibert: Gi-behr(t). Like the kimono one wears for jiu jitsu.
Great video, but I have to comment on the pronunciation of Maurice de Saxe. It's pronounced "Sax" - as in Sax-ophone. You don't pronounce the E at all.
Nice video. One minor quibble. If you're going to pronounce French names, please try to rehearse the pronunciation of the names beforehand. For example, you pronounced Mesnil quite literally. In French, it should sound something more like Meh-kneel.
Thanks! Whilst I do understand where you're coming from, the pronunciation is something that it just going to hopefully improve as I go along. Not being a native French speaker, the pronunciation is not always clear to me and most history books don't come with a guide of how to pronounce words unfortunately. My options are to either butcher the names completely in English, or attempt the French and accept that I will get stuff wrong and have to improve. Personally I'm going with the later :)
Your presentation confirmed what I have long believed, that the successful charge with the bayonet was made possible, most often, by the effective fire of the attacking formation, or that of the supporting infantry formations and artillery. It is in the details, as always, that one gains insight into the mechanics of a successful engagement. The information you provided about the flexibility of the French system was very enlightening, and makes absolute sense when one considers some of the spectacular moves Napoleon could rely on being made efficiently. Pratzen Heights is probably the best example of Napoleon's daring, which would not have been possible without his supreme confidence in the ability of the the French formations to execute the required movements perfectly.
Really interesting, thanks for putting it together
Wow everything about this was great. Fascinating subject. Excellent presentation. Nice voice. Glad I happened to stumble across this.
10/10
The visualizations attached to these descriptions are extremely helpful.
thank you for this video on french infantry tactics because the notion we see in most napoleonic movies is french troops using nothing but columns and walk into enemy fire die in droves and then some how win or get routed
Can you name a few scenes where this happens
@@frauleinhohenzollern All of Sharpe's Rifles season
@@crabluvaliterally here after a Sharpe binge 😂
And trying to figure out if that’s possibly what Wellington’s said “pounding” described/how sane men ever carried it out.
Napoleon didn’t necessarily help to dispel this notion that numbers were the French armies greatest advantage.
“You cannot stop me, I spend 30,000 men a month” - Napoleon
I have been starting Napoleonic wars for over a year now, and this is the most detailed video on infantry history and tactics I’ve ever seen. Thank you.
Very informative, enjoyable, and easy to listen to! I would _love_ a video like this covering the development of pre-Napoleonic and Napoleonic-era light infantry.
Cheers 🙂
Don't expect it anytime soon, but it is in the pipeline :)
@@ATimeOfEagles noooooiiiiice
I've always wanted a video like this ever since I first began to study this period. great job!
A little late to the party here, but this was the intro to linear warfare I was looking for.
Thank you
Thanks for all your work on this series... very much enjoyed.
I love this channel. Cited sources, clearly presented information, excellent graphics to illustrate it. I wish more of history TH-cam was like this.
Nice, I was hoping for something like this, especially when it comes to the column myth, which I think was popularised widely by Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books.
Amazing video! It made me rethink how I viewed Napoleonic warfare. Particularly about the French, of which I had heard a lot of the myths you debunked. My only comment would be about the little attention that skirmishing received. As far as I know, French were adept is the use of skirmishers in large numbers and it was mentioned sometimes as a tactical advantage over their enemies. Would you probably touch on this subject on a later video?
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
You are right, I didn't give skirmishers or light troops much discussion mainly because of time. Back when I made this I was a little concerned that people might not enjoy long videos, so I cut a few things, but in hindsight, and given the positive reactions I've received, I do wish I had included them now.
I am definitely planning to make a video on light troops and skirmishing, but it wont be until next year.
@@ATimeOfEagles Awesome! Honestly, your work is amazing and it is very helpful! I used to read the battles reports and the documentaries and so on, but no one explained what the combat actually entailed at a tactical level. I knew some things but everything was very patchy. Your videos helped me understand it, not only this one but the cavalry one as well!
Keep up and kudos always. I'd love to know your take on French light infantry and skirmishing.
P.s. About the length I prefer long videos, so the longer the better ;P
Thanks for your kind words. I was in exactly the same shoes as you about wanting to know what the combat was like at a tactical level, and just generally craving more detail that I was finding in documentaries. That was then the main motivator for starting the channel so that I could share what I find, as I was sure that I couldn't be the only one who wanted to know more about this period.
I'm pleased that you enjoy longer videos as I imagine that most of my content will be that way....there is just so much to say with every topic xD
Well! It's wonderful to hear someone speak on a subject who really knows what he's talking about! Great talk, nice production. Overall, I guess I need to watch your earlier work.
Merci, Mssr Le Merechal!
Great video, i like that it goes deep into the details of how armies of those days operated
Thanks for exploring this topic! 🇫🇷 This information is Gold 🏅
I’ve been waiting for this video, my whole life. Bravo on the narration!
This is so thorough and concise. I'm subscribing.
Thank you for this most informative and well-researched video! Subscribed!
Very interesting, a topic that's not often talked about.
26:00 When the Swedes used charge and shock tactics during the turn of the 18th Century, they charged as a line, and it worked several times for them, such as during the battle of fraustadt.
Line charge is better on 1 v 1 scale tbh. It allows firepower to be effectively used as part of the charge.
great analysis, you have a voice which is very easy to listen to.
Hey, can you talk a bit about how different nations organized their battalions (and infantry in general)? Like for example, french used 6 companies, russians used 4, british used 10...
I don't have any current plans to do that sort of video in the short term, but I might do at some point if there is interest for such a thing.
Excellent job! Great presentation.
Great vid keep up the good work.
Good to see a fellow Englishman showing a sense of logic in looking at the French army instead of the commonly and repeatedly stated mistakes of the jingoistic. The same one-eyedness applies to the British view of Waterloo where a French army only slightly larger than the Anglo-Allied attacked without the normally accepted requirement of a 3 to 1 superiority and in the words of Wellington himself came very close to beating him before the Prussians came up and reduced this slight French superiority in numbers to a distinct French inferiority - which still placed him under a massive amount of pressure. Good work! You might also have used Nafziger to give a comparison between the times required by an early Prussian 1790's infantry battalion to deploy and ploy a battalion with those of the same period French. If I remember rightly it could take the Prussians - because of their then use of the fixed pivot and precessional manoeuvring - about 16 minutes compared to the French of about 2 minutes. A huge disadvantage in any rapidly developing battlefield situation which the Prussians to their merit fixed by changing their tactical system after a great deal of neccessary soul searching.
I’m pretty sure the 1 to 3 ratio is for siege warfare not open combat
@@heofnorenown No I can't agree that you are correct, and also I doubt that the battle of Waterloo could be considered an open combat. The theory (unattributed) is that an attacker needs a 3 to 1 advantage to guarantee a win. Having a 3 to 1 superiority in a siege is quite normal but does not guarantee a favourable result, otherwise there would not be so many situations where sieges lasted for years.
There is no absolute agreement on this ratio and there is still quite a bit of disagreement and discussion occuring in military circles. However, if you consider that if an attacker is of the same numerical strength as the defender, the defender gets to inflict casualties on the attacker while they advance to the assault and by the time they arrive on the ground being defended they will have suffered casualties that would reduce their strength and effectiveness to less than that of the defender. Historically it is unusual (but not impossible) for a weaker force to be a stronger force but that usually requires that the weaker force is superior in some way other than numbers, e.g. morale or expertise.
The 3 to 1 superiority quoted does not guarantee victory but it is implied that the best chance of success would require that the attacker has this to have the minimum best chance of success. There are lots of historical examples where less than this ratio has still been successful.
If you look at a contour map of Waterloo you will see that the French were attacking up a muddy slope and then over a somewhat sunken track/road and hedges and the defenders were then also to launch ambush style counter-attacks by hidden forces. If this isn't considered to be an advantage to the defender and a disadvantage to the attacker I would be surprised to find any military theorist of note that would think so, hence generally the need to have a superiority in numbers of 3 to 1. But a 3 to 1 superiority doesn'y guarantee success as on a restricted front that superiority cannot be used.
Anyone that considers that Napoleon was not at a disadvantage attacking Wellington on the ridge at Waterloo would have to rate Wellington and the army under him as substandard and I doubt many would consider that to be the case. Anyone that thinks that despite these advantages that Wellington was not severely tested by the French at Waterloo has not read much about Waterloo and the 100 days campaign, even Wellington himself said something like "bring me nightfall or the Prussians" in his desperation.
Excellent Presentation 👍👍👍
great video!
Good stuff sir!
Great presentation!
@ 9:22
In de Saxe's case, it makes sense, considering his experiences fighting the Turks. He recounts an incident in his reveries, where a couple of battalions were sabered by the Turks. They'd waited until the Turks were within 20 paces and loosed a volley. De Saxe would later count the bodies left and note that only 50 Turks had fallen in that sector of the battlefield (which the Imperials won--hence how he could count). The rest were able to make it and wreak a massacre on the soldiers.
A good part of that, though, might be that musket aiming techniques were...fascinating before c. 1750--at least for soldiers. People at the time distinguished between aiming as a soldier did and aiming "as hunters do," to quote the Bavarian infantry manual of 1754 (which instructed their infantry to use the latter method). The latter method had been the norm before the wars of Louis XIV, so there was a period of less than a century where soldiers decided that aiming normally was for the birds.
De Saxe would serve his entire military career in armies that only ever aimed that way, as would Folard IIRC, though the latter must have seen what British firepower could do. Armies only started teaching their men to aim in a more modern style after the War of Austrian Succession.
As for those curious: you were to hold the musket so that the barrel was at breast level; it is impossible to have a cheek weld if you do it right--not unless you stoop hard. You can still use the sight and aim with this method. However, holding the musket in the manner of the day was somewhat awkward--to put it mildly.
11:25 What made the prussian line infantry more effective was the fact that Austria opted for more quantity over quality. The Austrians believed in conscripts rather than elite guard/line infantry.
You’re right that Prussian infantry was better during the 7 years war, but not in the way you say. The Prussians used superior tactics, but the Austrians copied this so the advantage disappeared. The reason the Austrians didn’t have guard regiments is because they’re often part of palace coups and they wanted to avoid this risk. Also it may seem like nitpicking, but the Austrians didn’t have a conscript army so much as they had a feudal army.
Great video 👍
Fantastic, great to hear about the tabletop wargaming, primarily unknown to most people that the French used a Wargame rules written in 1698.
I was looking for an overview of Napoleonic warfare and was glad I found this. no reflection on your presentation but the scholarship on the pike and shot period has a lot of fallacies about tactics and effectiveness of matchlocks, mostly because it looks at Sweden in the 30 Years War and then the Dutch Revolt to the detriment of everywhere else, although this is slowly changing. In central and eastern Europe the pike was never really used in great numbers, the Ottoman Empire, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Moscovy/Russia for example mobilized mass line infantry using volley fire and just didn’t bother with pikes beginning in the later 16th century. There were probably people in Western Europe thinking about those formations too but the context there tended to favor the pike and musket formation. Not trying to make an aggressive correction just wanted to share
Don't worry, I'm not offended at all, I want to learn more as much as anyone. The pike and shot period is outside of my knowledge and beyond the scope of this study. I merely wanted to touch on it briefly to offer some context, so I didn't give it as much research time as I would have wanted to, simply out of time constraints. Clearly I missed a few things, so thanks for sharing :)
@@ATimeOfEagles its a problem with a lot of the secondary books on that period in general, its hard to get to grips with compared to the eighteenth century or Napoleonic period where the documents and sources have survived better so the picture is clearer
great content, keep it up!
Really fantastic!!!!
Great channel, super!
Thanks for the great video. Do you have a source list you can share? I wrote down Quimby's book, but would love a list to reference.
I have added a list of sources that I cited to the description, rather than list them all here. I really should keep a full list of all my sources from now on I think, even ones I don't quote from, so thanks for asking and reminding me!
If you're looking for further reading on the topic, then Quimby's book follows the narrative of the tactical discussions really well and I leaned on it heavily for the first part of the video. 'Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies' by Nosworthy, and 'From Flintlock to Rifle' by Ross are also both great at giving a good outlook on the nature of combat during the era. If you're looking for in-depth analysis, unit spacings, manoeuvre timings, etc. then 'Imperial Bayonets' by Nafziger is the go to for that. I don't find it as easy to read narratively as the other three, it feels more like a reference book, but it has some excellent research behind it.
@@ATimeOfEagles Thank you!
I have looked to get Nosworthy and Nafziger's books before, so I'll have to pull the trigger there.
Thank you from the Left Coast of California.
Should have more views.
I would like this twice if I could.
Thank you for showing that the French in the Napoleonic Wars knew how to form ranks and line and not just column like most books and bias historians like to demonstrate.
Also good voice and speed
Mesnil-Durand came back to haunt again in the latter days of the US Civil War at Gettysburg and Franklin or the early days of WWI as the French attacked the invading Germans in Alsace-Lorraine.
Very thorough, quite impressive. Looking forward to more! One small note, though, from a francophone. Guibert: Gi-behr(t). Like the kimono one wears for jiu jitsu.
Thanks!
I love you.
Great video, but I have to comment on the pronunciation of Maurice de Saxe. It's pronounced "Sax" - as in Sax-ophone. You don't pronounce the E at all.
Ahh, of course! Thank you! :)
Loved the video, but just a recommendation, try not to quote a lot, it kinda takes the viewer out, otherwise great stuff
Nice video. One minor quibble. If you're going to pronounce French names, please try to rehearse the pronunciation of the names beforehand. For example, you pronounced Mesnil quite literally. In French, it should sound something more like Meh-kneel.
Thanks! Whilst I do understand where you're coming from, the pronunciation is something that it just going to hopefully improve as I go along. Not being a native French speaker, the pronunciation is not always clear to me and most history books don't come with a guide of how to pronounce words unfortunately. My options are to either butcher the names completely in English, or attempt the French and accept that I will get stuff wrong and have to improve. Personally I'm going with the later :)