Marengo
Page 27
However, not all of the Foot Guards were sent on this campaign, and a portion of it remained in Paris carrying out guard duties. The Guard was sent from Paris in several detachments, of different sizes, and to cloud matters still further, we are told it was 800 men strong at the time of the battle, and that all its men were committed to action; but the oral histories speak only of 500 or 600 men (the original 600 reported by Coignet became 800 only when the memoirs were later ‘enhanced’ by a ghost writer). Unfortunately, the regimental rolls do not help us identify their strength in the battle either. Of the 1,290 men recorded in the regimental rolls in 1800, only 151 grenadiers were recorded as being present at Marengo – the records were not accurately maintained.
They were excellent soldiers. The French guardsmen were tall for the period, very lean and fierce-looking. They wore their hair powdered, unlike much of the rest of the army, and sported moustaches. The registers of the consular period Foot Guard have survived, and so it is possible to identify the type of men who formed this unit. However, the register does not appear to have been completed in terms of what happened to all the men, many of whom are simply recorded as having been struck from the registers. The average height of the grenadiers we know served at Marengo was 1.779m (5ft 10in), a good height for the period. The shortest was the 22-year-old drummer, Couboue, at 1.678m (5ft 6in), while the tallest was Grenadier Jacques Gelmont, a veritable giant for the period at 1.989m (6ft 3in). In fact, of a sample of 102 men we know fought at Marengo, forty-one of them were ‘six-footers’. With their tall bearskin caps and red feather plumes, these men would have towered over the average Frenchman of the era. All were veterans, mostly from the wars of the First Coalition (1792‑1797). There were also a few old soldiers in the ranks. Sergeant Pioline was born in 1749, and Jacques Géard had fought in Minorca in 1781‑1782 as a soldier in the old Lyonnais Regiment. There were even some veterans from the pre-revolutionary French Guards (Gardes Françaises) at Marengo. Antoine Carrieu joined the Guards in 1783, Grenadier Vargnier in 1785 and Jean Huguin Basset in 1786. From the point of view of social history, it is remarkable that we find the same soldiers who witnessed the storming of the Bastille also present at Marengo.15
The chasseurs were an altogether different prospect, and our knowledge of them is more complete. These light infantrymen were formed from the ‘foot guides’ who had returned from Egypt with Bonaparte the previous year (in the revolutionary wars, the commanders-in-chief of each army were allowed to keep a bodyguard which were termed ‘guides’). Most of them were veterans of Bonaparte’s first campaign in Italy, as well as the Egyptian expedition. They had fought in the desert, beneath the walls of Acre, and protected him during revolts. They were truly battle-hardened men. Compared to the immaculate Paris guardsmen, the chasseurs must have appeared something of a banditti when incorporated into the Guard after Brumaire. According to their regimental rolls, at least 103 of the chasseurs were present at Marengo, perhaps as many as 125 (not including officers). The eldest was 37 years old and the youngest 18. Where we have data, we find ten aged 21 years or younger; nineteen of them were 30 or older; the remainder were in their twenties, the average age of a chasseur being 26. In stature, their heights ranged from 1.62m (5ft 3in) to 1.82m (5ft 11in), the average being 1.69m (5ft 6½in). Thus, we can imagine a typical chasseur at Marengo as 26 years old, standing at 1.69m.16
Interestingly there is no mention of chasseurs or ‘foot guides’ in any of the movement orders associated with the Consular Guard marching from Paris, only of grenadiers. The two units appear to be classified as the same unit. The first detachment was 300 men which set out on 11 April; a second detachment under the orders of Chief of Brigade Jean-Baptiste Bessières left Paris with 400 men on 29 April; a final detachment of 100 men set out in May. It is only on 21 May that we see references to 800 grenadiers being attached to the army. As we know, anything up to 130 of these were actually light infantry, and the figure would have included various supernumeraries, musicians and gunners. Despite later protestations the whole guard was deployed at Marengo, it is likely some of the men would have been left as sentries to guard the headquarters. We simply do not know the exact number present on the field, but we must entertain the possibility it was lower than the 800 officially reported. Nor do we know the organisation of the unit, if it formed one single battalion or two smaller ones. A case can be made for both situations. There is strong evidence that the Foot Guard actively engaged was commanded in the battle by Chief of Battalion Jérome Soulès.17 His biography in the Fastes de la legion d’honneur18 states how in his fortieth year, this veteran of the Royal Army was appointed to the Foot Grenadiers of the Guard on 3 January 1800. At Marengo, he is said to have commanded 500 grenadiers and chasseurs of the Guard, and was ordered by Bonaparte to carry them to the right of the army.
On the day of the battle, we know the Foot Guards arrived behind Victor’s troops at about 2.00 pm, if not shortly before. Coignet clearly reports them handing out cartridges to the troops engaged in the morning, so this places the Guard on the main road (probably the ‘old road’), level with Spinetta. Coignet then describes how the First Consul marched the Guard away:
‘He placed his Guard in line at the centre of the army and made it march forward. Sometimes it formed into a square, sometimes it deployed itself in line, and immediately stopped the enemy.’
Petit also witnessed the Foot Guard being sent forward into action:
‘The Foot Grenadiers of the Consular Guard now came up, in the same state they have always been beheld on the parade. They formed up in the most orderly manner, in subdivisions, and advanced against the enemy, which they met with not a hundred paces from our front. Without artillery, without cavalry, to the number of five hundred only, they had to endure the brunt of a victorious army. But, without considering the smallness of their numbers, they kept advancing, and forced everything to give way in their passage. The lofty eagle hovered everywhere around them, and threatened to tear them to pieces. The very first bullet which struck them laid three grenadiers and a quartermaster corporal (fourrier) dead on the ground, being in close order.’
One will notice that Petit called them 500 men only; however, Petit was mistaken when he said they had no artillery. It appears they had with them four small ‘battalion guns’.19
With the Guard moving away from the centre, we must look for witnesses on the right of the French line who saw this movement. A crucial piece of evidence, not previously found in other accounts of the battle, was a letter by the commander of the 28th Line, Roger-Valhubert, written to Dupont on 23 March 1804:
‘At one o’clock the 28th drew closer to the plain, but still holding the right of the army. The grenadiers of the Guard of the Consuls came to occupy it for only a moment, and having scattered a column of cavalry which very quickly came to charge them, they received the order to carry themselves to another point.’
The first sentence of this account refers to the first movements of retreat during the action to defend Marengo. Unfortunately, he does not tell us when the Guard arrived alongside his troops, but simple arithmetic places this closer to 3.00 pm (it would have taken twenty minutes to march up level with Barbotta, but first the guardsmen had to hand out cartridges, then regroup before marching off). Nor does Valhubert report seeing the Guard again, something which will become crucially important. As far as Valhubert was concerned, he remained the right flank of the army.
As Valhubert indicates, the Foot Guard’s first action was against Austrian cavalry. This is a point no one contests. To understand more, we must now look to the Austrian sources, particularly Stutterheim, who was a staff officer attached to Ott’s column. This first description of what occurred appears to have been almost entirely a repeat of the 1804 account given by Geppert, and therefore pre-dates Berthier’s 1805 official French account of the battle:
‘Shortly before this crucial moment the Guard infantry came marching on the Sale road to the centre. With these chosen men Bonaparte hop
ed if not to restore the battle to stop us for a while and to afford protection to his other troops that were already on the verge of flight. In a column of open sections the Guard marched across open field and had individual skirmishers accompanying their march at a distance of some 60 paces. There could not have been a more desirable sight for our cavalry. Ott, whom the Guard passed with four cannon, ordered the Lobkowitz Regiment to blow the rappel and to attack as soon as all were assembled. Only here there were circumstances - above all Colonel Fürst Taxis could not be found – as such Ott ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Graf Harrach to lead the charge against the Consular Guard; after time-consuming preparations they set off at a walk, then into trot, finally into the gallop. The Consular Guard infantry seemed to be close to disaster when at a few musket shots from its skirmishers the whole regiment turned about and ran away. Some French cavalry that had been observing this from a position behind the Guard pursued our dragoons. The situation for Ott’s infantry seemed desperate as in midst of the coverless plains she had been deserted by her only cavalry.’
In Stutterheim’s second account, he is more specific about the Guard’s intentions. As described above, the Guard were following the route of the Sale road, which is easy to trace as it still exists today. It is the road from Spinetta which leads into the centre of Castelceriolo. His second account describes how the Foot Guard were spotted by Ott’s jäger who were skirmishing against Lannes’ flank. The Guard, the account states, were hidden by tall crops, but their tall red plumes gave away the location of the column. As described above, there was an element of confusion and a delay trying to form up the Lobkowitz Dragoons, but they did eventually charge. At this point, the Foot Guard’s column of march was screened by the light infantry chasseurs, a standard precaution. Having spent a great deal of time in the Egyptian campaign fighting Ottoman light horse, the Lobkowitz charge does not appear to have alarmed the chasseurs. According to the Austrian accounts, they were supported by four battalion guns which the Guard had with them. This well-aimed, withering fire on the approaching horsemen broke the momentum of the charge. Meanwhile, the grenadiers, it appears, either formed square behind them, or closed up their column of march. Berthier reported this encounter in his first report (written that evening), although he incorrectly identified the regiment concerned:
‘A squadron of the Latour Dragoons was entirely destroyed by the fire of the grenadiers of the Guard of the Consuls.’
There is no point of dispute on this account from either side. The cavalry which chased off the Lobkowitz Dragoons would have been Champeaux’s brigade, as this was operating in the area, and had screened the advance of Monnier’s men into nearby Castelceriolo. With the Lobkowitz Dragoons departed, the Guard continued its march towards Castelceriolo.
Where the accounts become confused is what happened next. The 1805 official report into the battle describes the Guard as being ‘isolated at more than six hundred yards from the right of our line’ and ‘they appear as a block of granite in the middle of an immense plain’.20 Petit concludes the Guard action thus:
‘Charged three times by the cavalry, fusilladed by the infantry within fifty paces, they surrounded their colours, and their wounded, and, in a hollow square, exhausted all their rounds of cartridges; and then, with slow and regular steps, fell back and joined our astonished rearguard.’
Heroic stuff; the question is, which rearguard? Not the 28th Line; there is no mention in Valhubert’s account of the Foot Guard coming back and rejoining him, and he continued to hold this position for the remainder of the battle quite isolated. In fact, there is scant evidence of the Foot Guard doing anything for the next three hours or so. Victor’s memoir is a little fuller in what apparently occurred:
‘A few hundred men, however, pretend to make an obstacle: it is the battalion of the Grenadiers of the Consular Guard, all veterans proved in a hundred battles; it is there, in open country, between Li Poggi and Villanova, formed in square, motionless. The enemy beat him at first with his volleys of cannonballs, canister and shells; it does not move. Ott throws his cavalry against him, it does not move, and this cavalry flees and disperses before his discharges and bayonets; General Gottesheim arrived with the infantry regiment of Splényi; our grenadiers are deployed on the centre and welcome these new assailants with the most murderous fire; but at this moment they are charged in the rear by the hussars of Frimont, who at last shakes them, and the enemy continues his march forward without any resistance.’21
Clearly we require evidence from the Austrian accounts as to what occurred. Perhaps the most partisan account is the regimental history of the Splényi Regiment. We have encountered this regiment before, driving away Gardanne’s attack on the bridgehead the night before the battle. They clearly had a reputation, and despite their reduced number (probably about 650 strong after their losses on 13 June), they took on the challenge of fighting the grenadiers with a degree of relish. This excerpt from the regimental history begins after the Lobkowitz Dragoons have been driven off:
‘There moves GM Gottesheim with the Splényi Regiment, in line and with music playing, under cheering hurrahs at the enemy cavalry supporting the Guard, in the middle of the plain. This falls back after the first discharge. Now the Regiment Splényi, supported by a battalion of Frölich [IR 28], turns against the “Consular Guard”, which had also deployed into line, and received the attack with a lively fire. Neither side would yield, and the battle remained undecided; at this critical moment, Colonel Fronius [sic – read Frimont], with four hussar squadrons from the main column, bursts into the back of the Guard, and their fate is now sealed. A terrible massacre ensues, in which only a small part of the Guard escaped with their lives. These too are captured, the total artillery is conquered. The splendid “Consular Guard”, the pride of Bonaparte, the elite troops of France were destroyed; destroyed by the feared “Legion infernale”, the heroic regiment of Splényi, who were supported by a few sections of Hungarian cavalry and Bohemian infantry.’
Crossard’s account of the battle concurs that the Guard, ‘which Bonaparte had estimated as his most formidable reserve, had been almost fully destroyed or made prisoner’. Crossard was a staff officer attached to Ott’s command, it must be remembered. Even considering the jingoistic nature of regimental histories, and the certain bias of a noble émigré, it is difficult to imagine these statements being published without there being some substance behind them.
We find the most definitive explanation of events in Stutterheim’s two accounts, the first of which followed Geppert’s 1804 account (to which Stutterheim probably contributed), and the second of which followed the publication of Mras’ account of the battle. According to Stutterheim, when the Lobkowitz Dragoons broke, a battalion of Splényi broke from the column ‘on its own impulse’ and advanced on Champeaux’s cavalry with bayonets lowered. This battalion fired at the French horsemen, which scattered and cleared off. GM Gottesheim was then instructed (presumably by Ott), to attack the Consular Guard with the Splényi Regiment, and a battalion of IR 28 Fröhlich. The two adversaries engaged in a fusillade with platoon-fire and volleys as if on an exercise ground. Gottesheim was wounded, but the musketry continued with no sign of either adversary backing down. Ott was unable to deploy more troops to assist, because he also had to deal with Carra-Saint-Cyr and Schilt who were bottled up in Castelceriolo. By now it was 4.00 pm. Our timekeeper in Alessandria, the wounded General Soult, stated his companions saw the action begin with the Guard (it is more likely they saw puffs of smoke at a distance of 6km rather than specific formations), followed swiftly by firing at Castelceriolo, which was the counter-attack led by Vogelsang with the Stuart Infantry Regiment.
According to Stutterheim, as Ott was engaged with Monnier’s troops and the Guard, the main column was engaged in crossing the Fontanone at Marengo, and the infantry was followed by the cavalry. Among these horsemen was Frimont, the commander of the main column’s advanced guard. While most of the Austrians were engaged in deploying oppos
ite the French at Spinetta, Frimont headed northwards on exiting the village and travelled to the left (he had done the same thing earlier that morning when clearing Hadik’s line deployed outside the bridgehead). With some squadrons of the Bussy Light Horse and the Nauendorf Hussars, Frimont saw the Guard deployed in line fighting against Gottesheim, and so charged into the rear. This ended the action, with the Guard’s four guns being seized and, in the words of Stutterheim, ‘only a very few escaped with their lives’. Stutterheim was vociferous in his defence of this account: ‘The Frenchmen hid this circumstance up to now in their reports completely.’ He even laid down a challenge: ‘The author witnessed this whole incident and requests all who have been present with the Consular Guard at Marengo if they could dispute this account.’22
From the pages of history, there certainly is a challenger to this. Read Soulès’ biographical account in the fastes de la légion d’honneur, bearing in mind he was awarded a coveted ‘sabre of honour’ for his conduct in the affair, and later entered the Senate and became a respected French peer:
‘For five hours consecutively, he [Soulès] held this position, despite the reiterated efforts of a column of 8,000 Austrians which looked to flush them out, and he did not retire until he received a formal order from the commander-in-chief, who sent him to protect the retrograde movement of the army with around 200 men who remained with him.’23
We thus find ourselves at this point, like Coignet sheltering under his tree, caught between two fires. On the French side we have the Guard, immobile, like a rock of granite in the centre of the plain, albeit surrounding its colours, and making a fighting withdrawal in the direction of the French rearguard. We then have the Austrian accounts, which describe a bloody massacre. On the balance of probability, something calamitous clearly occurred. There is some evidence for all this in Petit’s striking description of how the ‘soldiers of the legion of Bussy had collected the caps of the grenadiers killed or wounded, and exhibited them to us, by twirling them round on their sabres’. Petit also complained about the treatment of French prisoners, how they had the earrings torn from their ears, and gave an account of the treatment one foot chasseur received: