Between these two forces there were 143 horses, two 7pdr howitzers, four 6pdr cannons, four 7pdr grenade caissons, eight 6pdr caissons, six infantry caissons, one cavalry caisson, four utility wagons, one baggage wagon, and one field forge.
The Army of the Kingdom of Italy
Of all Napoleon's allies, the Kingdom of Italy had the most interesting relationship with France. In 1802 Napoleon had become president of the Republic of Italy (formerly the Cisalpine Republic). In 1805, a year after he crowned himself emperor of France, he declared the republic a kingdom and himself its king, placing the Iron Crown of Lombardy on his head. To rule in his place, he appointed his stepson, Eugene Beauhar-nais (Josephine's son by a previous marriage), as viceroy. As such, Eugene devoted himself to the organization of the Italian army.
In 1809 the Italian army consisted of seven line infantry regiments, four light infantry regiments, the Dalmatian Legion, the Istrian Chasseur Battalion, two dragoon regiments, two chasseur à cheval regiments, twenty-six foot batteries, six horse batteries, one train battalion, two sapper battalions, and three regiments of gendarmes.
The organization of the infantry regiments, set on the French model, had four field battalions with six companies, a depot battalion with four fusilier companies, and a regimental artillery company equipped with two 3pdr cannons. The battalions had six companies: one grenadier, one voltigeur, and four fusilier. The staff had 45 officers and men, the companies had 140 officers and men, and the regimental battery had 70 officers and men.
Italy had two dragoon regiments and four chasseur à cheval regiments. All were organized uniformly with a staff and four squadrons, each with two companies. The staff had twenty-eight officers and men. The companies had ninety-one officers and men.
The Italian artillery establishment consisted of two field battalions with thirteen foot batteries and a depot battalion. The depot battalion provided a combination of services, including the four pontoonier companies and one ouvrier company. In addition, there was a single battalion of horse artillery that had six companies.
The foot companies were equipped with six 6pdrs or 12pdrs and two howitzers each. The horse batteries had either four 6pdrs and two howitzers or five 6pdrs and one howitzer each. The 12pdr companies had 130 officers and men, the 6pdr foot companies had 114 officers and men, and the horse companies had 88 officers and men.
There were two train battalions, each with six companies. These appear to have been organized identically to their French counterpart.
The Italian ouvrier company had 101 officers and men, and the pontoonier companies had a supervising staff of 3 officers and men and a force of 75 officers and men.
There was a single sapper-miner battalion that was raised in 1807. It had five sapper companies and two miner companies. In 1812 there was a single engineering train company to support the sapper-miner battalion. It had three officers, seventeen noncommissioned officers, and fifty-six drivers.
In addition, Italy had a very large guard. It consisted of the Guard Grenadier Regiment, the Guard Chasseur Regiment, the Royal Velite Regiment, the Guard Conscript Regiment, a “Line Velite Regiment,” four companies of Gardes d'Honneur, a foot battery, a horse battery, and two squadrons of Guard Dragoons.
The Army of Naples
Naples was the continental portion of what had been the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which had been seized by the French in 1805. It was initially ruled by Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's eldest brother. He was an exceedingly popular king and instituted many reforms that endeared him to the populace. When Joseph ascended the throne of Spain, he was replaced by Joachim Murat, the Bonapartes' brother-in-law and a marshal in the French army.
The Neapolitan army was one of the weakest links in Napoleon's army of allies. In a letter to Joseph, Napoleon summed up his opinion in no uncertain terms: “You must be aware that … these troops are no better than none at all. “Napoleon's negative opinion is well illustrated by the history of the Pionniers Noirs, a French unit raised from mulattos and negroes in Santo Domingo. Considered the worst unit in the French army, it was transferred to the Neapolitan army in August 1806. Here it became the Royal African Regiment, or the 7th Infantry Regiment. Despite their previous reputation, these troops turned out to be better disciplined and more military in bearing than any other regiment in the Neapolitan army.
The Neapolitan army's biggest problem resulted from the fact that the lines of military authority were crisscrossed by informal lines of authority established by the numerous secret societies to which the soldiers belonged. The second major problem was desertion, combined with the nasty tendency of the Neapolitan deserters to become brigands.
The Neapolitan regiments were organized along the lines of the French regiments. Each regiment had three battalions. Each battalion had one grenadier, one voltigeur, and four fusilier companies. The regimental staff had thirty-five officers and men. Each company had 139 officers and men.
Naples raised two chasseur à cheval regiments that were organized along the French model. Though there were attempts to bring them up to full strength, the combination of poor training and constant desertion made this impossible. The theoretical regimental staff strength was twenty officers and men. Each company theoretically had ninety-five officers and men.
By 1812 the Neapolitan artillery establishment consisted of a full battalion of twelve foot batteries and two horse batteries. The bulk of the guns were captured Austrian guns passed on to them by the French. The batteries were organized on the French model with the foot batteries having six 6pdrs or 12pdrs and two howitzers. A 12pdr foot company had 126 officers and men, and a 6pdr foot company had 110 officers and men. The horse batteries had six 4pdrs or 6pdrs and two howitzers. The horse batteries had sixty-one officers and men. Attached to each battery was a train company organized like the light cavalry companies.
In 1812 the Neapolitan Guard consisted of four infantry regiments, two of Grenatieri a Piedi and two Veliti della Guardia Reale, as well as two cavalry regiments, called the Guardia d'Onore, and a single horse battery. The infantry regiments had two battalions. The cavalry regiments had only two squadrons each. Otherwise, these units were organized like their line counterparts.
The Saxon Army
The Saxon army underwent an extensive reorganization in 1810. It abandoned the old “inspectoriates” and organized three standing divisions, two of infantry and one of cavalry. During this reorganization, four infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and the Royal Household Artillery Company were disbanded.
The infantry divisions were organized into two brigades. Each brigade had two regiments. The cavalry division had three heavy regiments, four light regiments, and the hussar regiment.
The eight Saxon infantry regiments consisted of two battalions, each with four companies, and two grenadier companies. The regiment staff consisted of thirty-eight officers and men. The two grenadier and eight musketeer companies of the regiment had a total of 2,043 officers and men.
The grenadier companies were stripped from their parent regiments and organized into independent battalions that acted as a reserve for the Saxon army.
With the reorganization of the Saxon army in 1810, the two light infantry battalions were expanded into full regiments on 1 May 1810. The 1st Light Infantry Regiment was known as the Le Coq Light Infantry and the 2nd Light Infantry was known as the von Sahr Light Infantry. The regimental staff consisted of seventeen officers and men. The regiment had eight companies with a total of 1,440 officers and men.
In 1812 the Saxon cavalry consisted of three cuirassier regiments, three chevauxléger regiments, an uhlan regiment that was a redesignated chevauxléger regiment, and a hussar regiment. The Saxon cavalry was its most famous arm. It was noted for its professionalism and valor. After the 1806 campaign the Saxon cavalry was stripped of its horses to provide the French with remounts. However, these horses proved too spirited for the French and, with the new alliance between the French and the Saxons, they were returned.
The cavalry regiments, except the hussars, had the same organization. Each regiment had a staff and four squadrons. Each squadron had two companies. The staff consisted of eighteen officers and men. The eight companies now consisted of 768 officers and men.
The hussar regiment staff consisted of nineteen officers and men. Instead of four squadrons it had eight. These sixteen companies consisted of 1,056 officers and men.
In 1810, with the reorganization of the Saxon army, the regimental artillery was disbanded and the guns were concentrated into the artillery regiment, giving it sixteen companies.
The horse artillery consisted of two batteries formed in a brigade. They consisted of a small staff of 2 officers and two batteries with 240 officers and men and 226 horses.
The foot artillery staff consisted of twenty-four officers and men. The sixteen companies each had 114 officers and men. However, portions of this regiment were then redistributed to the line regiments in the form of four-gun regimental batteries.
The artillery was the weakest link in the Saxon army. It was armed with 3pdrs, 4pdrs, 6pdrs, 8pdrs, and 12pdrs. This resulted in a tremendous logistical problem because of the multitude of different ammunition. In addition, historically the Saxon artillery did not have a very high reputation. To support the artillery there was an artillery train battalion that consisted of 330 officers and men and 134 horses.
The Saxons had a small engineering force known as the Ingenieur-Korps staff which consisted of twenty-six officers and men. In addition there was a pontoonier company which had 127 officers and men. This pontoonier company sent a detachment into Russia.
The Army of the Grand Duehy of Warsaw
After the French victory over the Prussians in 1806, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was created from the territories that Prussia had annexed from the final partitioning of Poland, as well as from some additional Polish territories taken from Russia and Austria.
Units of Polish emigres had been serving with the French for years. Though these units remained in French service, they provided a large number of trained and veteran troops for the new Polish army.
In June 1811 the army of the Grand Duchy consisted of seventeen infantry regiments (three serving in Spain). Each regiment consisted of three battalions. These battalions had six companies of 130 men, giving the army a total of 32,760 infantry. There were now three chasseur à che vai regiments, two hussar regiments, one cuirassier regiment, and ten uhlan regiments, each of which had four squadrons, with the exception of the cuirassier regiment, which initially had only two squadrons. A squadron had two companies of 100 men, giving the Poles a total of 12,400 cavalry.
There were two squadrons of horse artillery with a total of 340 men, twenty companies of foot artillery, each with a total of 180 men, and a sapper-miner unit with 756 men.
Each infantry regiment raised a depot battalion in 1811 that had four companies, and the cavalry raised depot squadrons consisting of two companies. All of the artillery's depot needs were attended to by a single depot battalion of six companies.
The 1st, 5th, and 6th Cavalry Regiments were chasseurs à cheval, the 10th and 13th were hussars, and the 14th was a cuirassier regiment, though some sources indicated that it was a dragoon regiment at this time. The other regiments, numbering up to the 16th Regiment, were uhlan or lancer regiments.
By 1812 the army of the Grand Duchy consisted of 75,000 men and 165 cannon. It provided the forces that formed the V Corps of the Grande Armée during the 1812 campaign. This force was joined by all the Poles serving in the French army at that time, including the Vistula Legion and the 4th, 7th, and 9th Polish Regiments, though they served in other corps. Unfortunately, of the 7,000 Poles who entered Russia in the V Corps, barely 1,500 returned.
During the invasion of Russia, Napoleon liberated portions of ancient Lithuania which had been part of Poland in the not-too-distant past. There was sufficient pro-Polish sentiment there to cause Napoleon to form a provincial government there on 1 July 1812 and to make it part of the Grand Duchy.
The Decree of 1 July raised the Vilna National Guard, which was slowly fleshed out with men drawn from the recently captured territories. To police the countryside, Napoleon raised a gendarmerie in the Vilna, Grodno, Minsk, and Bialystok districts. This force consisted of a single company posted in each district.
In addition, Lithuania was the recruiting grounds for the 18th to 22nd Infantry Regiments and the 17th to 20th Uhlan Regiments. On 13 July Napoleon named the colonels for these regiments. The army of Lithuania, as it was called, was placed under the direct command of Napoleon and not made part of the army of the Grand Duchy's field forces. It did not receive its orders from the Polish general staff.
Because the territory had been ravaged by the retreating Russians, it was impossible for the Lithuanian army to be raised without active French financial support. Napoleon provided financial support, but not sufficient to do the job completely. In order to fully provide the finances for the fledgling army, the regimental commanders were selected from the most eminent and wealthy families of the country. They were expected to provide a great deal of the funds necessary for the organization of their regiments. Money was not the only problem. There were insufficient weapons, uniforms were hard to acquire, and horses were quite scarce. Approximately 40,000 muskets were provided by the French, but the lack of organization and the shortness of time prevented a complete distribution of these arms.
On 24 August Napoleon named General Hogendorp as president of the Commission of the Lithuanian Government and charged him with completing the organization of the Lithuanian army. Hogendorp promised Napoleon that he would have the army completed by the beginning of January, but the outcome of the campaign prevented this from happening.
In the beginning of August it was decided that an additional six battalions, all of light infantry, would be raised. These battalions were formed from foresters and other outdoorsmen who had experience with weapons. They were to act as scouts and to control the incursions of cossacks, apprehend vagabonds, and act as a police force. They were organized from volunteers and the expense of their outfitting was to be absorbed by the proprietors of the forests in which they had worked prior to their volunteering.
In September it was decided to incorporate these six battalions into the regular army. In November the government of Lithuania resolved to form these troops into two regiments of light infantry, each with three battalions. However, recruitment was very slow and only one regiment was actually formed, and it had only two battalions. It was commanded by Colonel Kossakowski.
The first two battalions were raised in the Minsk district. Eventually a third battalion was raised near Vilna, but it did not join the regiment. It remained as an independent body for the rest of its existence. There is some indication that a fourth light battalion was raised, but very little documentation was found to provide details of its service.
A total of 15,000 Lithuanians were brought into active service by the French administration. These men and their regiments were distributed throughout the province, and with the retreat of the French army from Moscow, they quickly found themselves in combat. Some units participated in the battles during the passage of the Berezina and, along with approximately 6,000 others, withdrew with the French into Germany. Others simply vanished.
In 1810 there was a reorganization of the internal structure of the Polish infantiy. Each battalion now was reorganized such that it had six companies. Of these companies, one was a grenadier company, one was a voltigeur company, and four were fusilier companies. Each regiment was still organized with three battalions, though before 1812 some regiments raised a fourth battalion. The regimental staff now consisted of thirty-eight officers and men. Each company consisted of 140 officers and men.
The internal organization of the cavalry in 1812 was quite consistent. The chasseurs, hussars, and uhlans were all organized with a staff and four squadrons, each squadron having two companies. The staff consisted of twenty-one officers
and men. Each of the eight companies had ninety-eight officers and men.
The staff of the cuirassier regiment, when it had only two squadrons, consisted of sixteen officers and men. When the cuirassier regiment was brought up to the full four-squadron strength, its staff was reinforced and brought into conformance with the other cavalry regiments.
The Poles had a sapper-miner battalion which consisted of 756 men and 180 horses.
The artillery regiment consisted of twelve field companies and four static companies. The staff of the foot regiment consisted of twenty-two. Each field company had 180 officers and men. The static companies consisted of 127 officers and men.
The field company manned a battery of two 6-inch howitzers and four 6pdr cannons. There appears to have been only one 12pdr battery in the army of the Grand Duchy, and it appears to have had six 12pdrs and no howitzers. Most of the equipment was either captured Prussian or Austrian equipment. The foot regiment had a total of 2,685 men and 1,803 horses.
There were four horse artillery companies, each with four 6pdr cannons and two 6-inch howitzers. The staff of the horse artillery regiment consisted of nineteen officers and men. As with the foot companies, the horse companies had always consisted of 181 officers and men.
In addition, after instructions sent to the king of Saxony and the duke of Warsaw, each infantry regiment had two 3pdr regimental guns manned by a crew consisting of seventy officers and men. The batteries were equipped with two 3pdr cannons, three caissons, one field forge, one ambulance caisson, one document caisson, two caissons for cartridges and bread, and ninety-five horses.
The supplementary artillery battalion, established by the Decree of 26 June 1811, had a staff and eight companies. The staff had eighteen officers and men. Each of the eight companies had 132 officers and men.
Napoleon's Invasion of Russia Page 8