War Horse

by Louis A. DiMarco

  In contrast, the 1796 British Rules and Regulations for Sword Exercise of Cavalry advised that the slash was the most effective attack against other cavalry. Although the overall melee effectiveness of the sword was debated, its thrust was without a doubt the deadlier attack. After an engagement with French cavalry, British dragoon officer Captain Bragge of the 3rd Dragoons observed: “Scarcely one Frenchman died of his wounds although dreadfully chopped, whereas 12 English Dragoons were killed on the spot and others dangerously wounded by thrusts. If our men had used their swords so, three times the number of French would have been killed.”14

  The lance made a comeback in the Napoleonic period but was a difficult weapon to master—much more difficult than the sword. Lances ranged in length from 12 to 14 feet in Russian, Austrian, and Prussian forces, to about 9 feet in length in the French cavalry. Poorly trained lancers stabbed their own horses, their neighbor’s horses, or ran their lances into the ground. However, the lance had the major advantage of being able to reach beyond the infantry bayonet and therefore was an excellent weapon to use to break an infantry square. A British sergeant remarked, “Of all descriptions of cavalry, certainly the lancers seem the most formidable to infantry.”15 Bayonets were useless against lancers.

  In Eastern Europe, the lance had remained a prime cavalry weapon, particularly in the hands of Polish cavalry. One of the first and most respected leaders of Polish cavalry was a Lithuanian nobleman named Hulan. His cavalry unit was known by the name of its leader—the Hulan corps. Very quickly, the German enemies of the Poles began to refer to all lance-armed cavalry as Hulans, from which the term uhlan is derived. In German and Austrian armies, uhlans became the accepted designation of lance-armed cavalry. When Napoleon conquered Prussian controlled Poland, Polish lancers rallied around the French tricolor. They saw the French conquest of Austria and Prussia, and war with Russia, as promising a new era of Polish independence. The elite Polish Lancers became one of the most famous formations in the French cavalry. In the Polish system, followed by most French lancers, only the first rank of the formation used a lance. The second carried carbines.16

  The Napoleonic period saw the return of the cuirass and the helmet as standard equipment in the heavy cavalry. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Austrians had abandoned the back plate of the cuirass, and the British and French heavy cavalry had abandoned the cuirass entirely. Napoleon brought back the cuirass. The French cuirass was a formidable piece of armor. Initially, specifications required that it be musket proof. This proved difficult to achieve, but eventually the French adopted a design that could provide long-range protection against musket fire, and was impenetrable by pistol, sword, or lance. In the opinion of some cavalry leaders, however, the primary effect of the cuirass was that it raised a unit’s morale.17 Napoleon also brought back helmets to replace the tricorner hat. Helmets soon became a favorite piece of cavalry equipment in the period. They were very effective at deflecting a saber slash at the head. They were also effective in protecting troopers from rain and a fall from a horse, and they were relatively comfortable. British light dragoons were unhappy when they converted to hussars and lost this valuable and practical piece of equipment.

  Tactics

  Cavalry was always important and often decisive in Napoleonic battle. On the tactical battlefield, cavalry remained an integral part of battle as the adroit coordination of the combined arms continued to be the key to success. As Napoleon observed: “Infantry, cavalry, and artillery are nothing without each other.”18 Cavalry was not confined to the wings and did not have as its primary role the defeat of an opponent’s cavalry. Armies were too large and too capable to be defeated quickly by successfully overthrowing an entire flank, and an army’s flank could not simply be turned by defeating the enemy’s cavalry. All commanders formed reserves, and it required the cumulative effects of a series of tactical successes to win a battle.

  Napoleon pioneered the new way of employing cavalry. Rather than using cavalry in the tradition of Frederick and Gustavus against the enemy’s flanks to clear the enemy horse, he formed a large cavalry reserve in the tradition of Marlborough and then launched it at a decisive point, usually occupied by infantry. A massive artillery bombardment softened up the target before the charge.19 Napoleon’s maximums are very clear in terms of his views of cavalry.

  Charges of cavalry are equally useful at the beginning, the middle, and the end of a battle. They should be made always, if possible, on the flanks of the infantry, especially when this last is engaged in front.

  Artillery is more essential to cavalry than to infantry, because cavalry has no fire for its defence, but depends upon the saber. It is to remedy this deficiency that recourse has been had to horse-artillery. Cavalry, therefore, should never be without cannon, whether when attacking, rallying, or in position.20

  As the distinguished Napoleonic historian David Chandler remarked, “The use of ‘shock action’ by cavalry, whether heavy cuirassiers, intermediate dragoons, or light hussars and lancers, in co-ordination with infantry and guns was a fundamental condition of Napoleonic tactics and indeed of most of his opponents.”21

  The basics of successful cavalry tactics were preserving a reserve, maintaining proper formation, guarding against flank attacks, and reconnoitering the ground. Cavalry was the most complex of the arms of the Napoleonic period. Small numbers of cavalry, employed correctly, could change the course of a battle. The key to the successful employment of cavalry in battle was understanding the complex interaction of men, conditions, and—equally as important—horses. Because of these intangible factors, historian Rory Muir accurately describes its characteristics as a battlefield tool: “Cavalry was a powerful but fragile weapon which needed an extraordinary mixture of caution and daring in its use.”22

  The Cavalry Charge

  The mounted charge continued to be the tactical operation that justified cavalry’s presence on the battlefield. Charges generally followed the Prussian model. Organized into five stages: walk, trot, within 150 to 200 paces canter, within 70 to 80 paces full gallop, and within 20 paces the charge á la sauvage, an extreme uncontrolled gallop. One of the products of the slow acceleration from walk to trot, trot to canter, canter to gallop was a steady process of mentally preparing the charging cavalry. The intent was that in the last phase of the charge engaged the rider and the horse emotionally so that they were impervious to the shock of contact with the enemy. The charge was the tactic used against other cavalry, infantry, and artillery. Captain Louis Edward Nolan observed, “The success of a cavalry attack depends not so much on the description of the cavalry or horse employed, as on the determination of the men.” Nolan was describing the fact that the success of a cavalry charge was most dependent on psychological factors. Napoleonic cavalry did not use pistols in the charge at all. Historian Rory Muir put it more bluntly: “Cavalry’s main weapon was fear.” There were two aspects of a successful charge: first was the morale and spirit of the charging cavalry and second was deftness of the cavalry commander’s timing. The relative size of the forces was not overly important. There were numerous cases of light cavalry defeating medium cavalry, medium cavalry defeating heavy cavalry, and smaller bodies of cavalry forces defeating larger bodies of infantry or cavalry.23

  Timing was everything in cavalry operations, and the difference between success and failure was often a matter of minutes or seconds. Ideally, as Napoleon indicated, cavalry operated as part of a combined arms team, and the attack of cavalry had a much greater chance of success if supported by infantry or artillery. At the battle of Borodino the Cavalry Reserve’s great charge was supported by 100 guns of horse artillery that could move with the cavalry and position rapidly in support.24 Attacking without support of the other arms, though occasionally successful, was a gamble that could cost the cavalry high casualties as it did at the battle of Eylau in 1809 and at Waterloo in 1815.

  Speed was another essential ingredient of the charge. Once within the effective range of th
e infantry musket, cavalry had to move at the gallop to reduce their exposure to fire. In addition, the gallop not only positively effected the morale of the cavalry but also adversely effected the morale of the enemy—especially infantry and artillery. Hundreds of horses moving in a tight formation at the gallop were a very imposing sight and could literally make the ground shake under the feet of the infantry and artillerymen. The advantage of speed in cavalry combat required cavalry to immediately countercharge when opposing cavalry attacked. Austrian cavalry regulations prohibited receiving a charge at the halt. The British usually countercharged when attacked. The French still occasionally relied on carbine fire to receive an opposing cavalry attack. In 1812 the 16th Chasseurs used this tactic against Russian Cossacks. Instead of countercharging, they fired a volley of carbine fire at the Cossacks at a range of 30 paces. It had little effect, and the Chasseurs suffered severely as a result.25 A drawback with achieving speed was that it made control difficult and required well-trained horses and riders.

  For action, cavalry typically operated in a line formation of two or three ranks— most armies used two. For maneuver, cavalry moved in column. A key cavalry training task was to move rapidly from column to line. A new formation that evolved in the Napoleonic era was a modified line called echelon. In this formation, a line of cavalry was broken into squadron segments and then arranged in echelon to the rear by squadron. Typically, anywhere from 150 to 300 meters separated the squadrons in echelon.26 This formation was used for the charge. The echelon had several advantages. First, it dispersed the cavalry formation in depth without decreasing the total front of the formation. This greatly increased a defending infantry formation’s fire control problem. If the entire infantry formation fired on the first squadron of the echelon, the other squadrons were out of range but would be on the infantry before they could reload. It also confused the infantry as to the point of the attack. Echeloned squadrons could incline and reinforce the point of attack of the lead echelon, they could attack other points, or they could attack across the entire front. Additionally, the following echelons could break off a charge before they got within effective range if the commander judged by the results of the first echelon that the charge would be unsuccessful.

  The problems of commanding the charge remained significant and were expressed by French cavalry commander A. J. Rocca in his 1828 Memoirs of the War in Spain: “When a regiment or squadron of cavalry charges, either in line or column, the exact order in which it commenced to gallop cannot long be preserved; for the horses incite each other, and their ardour increases, till he who is best mounted finds himself foremost, and the line of battle is broken.” Commanders relied on bugles, personal presence and example, and preplanned orders to facilitate control of the cavalry when it charged. The problem was as much a training problem as it was a tactical problem. British Captain William Tomkinson noted, “In England I never saw nor heard of cavalry taught to charge, disperse, and reform, which of all things, before an enemy, is most essential.”27 Battle taught cavalrymen these hard lessons—if the cavalryman survived long enough. Veteran cavalry were likely to understand the dangers of not controlling the charge and the necessity to quickly rally. However, for many of the major campaigns, most of the allied and French cavalry were far from veterans.

  British cavalry were notorious for losing control while charging. Even when they were successful, as they were at Waterloo, they took severe casualties because their commanders could not control them. This led to Wellington’s famous analysis “I consider our cavalry so inferior to the French from want of order, that although I considered one of our squadrons a match for two French, yet I did not care to see four British opposed to four French, and still more so as the numbers increased, and order (of course) became more necessary. They could gallop, but could not preserve their order.” British cavalry were prone to overpursuing after the charge and then enduring a subsequent cavalry countercharge. This habit of British cavalry frustrated Wellington: “Our officers of cavalry have acquired a trick of galloping at everything. They never consider the situation, never think of maneuvering before an enemy, and never keep back or provide for a reserve. All cavalry should charge in two lines, and at least one-third should be ordered beforehand to pull up and reform, as the charge has been delivered, and the enemy been broken.”28

  The Infantry Square

  Ultimately the goal of cavalry was to defeat or contribute to the defeat of the enemy’s infantry. The Napoleonic armies were predominantly infantry armies, and the defeat of a Napoleonic army required the defeat of the infantry. Infantry used the same basic formations as cavalry: the line and the column. The infantry line was used to facilitate infantry firepower, and the column was used to maneuver and for the quick bayonet attack. The problem with the basic infantry formations was that they were vulnerable to cavalry attacking at the gallop. Infantry were always concerned about the location and intention of cavalry. Austrian infantry commanders had a great fear of the charge. This fear was so great that they insisted that each maneuvering infantry formation have a body of cavalry to protect it from enemy cavalry. This had the effect of parceling out the Austrian cavalry strength and preventing it from forming a massed reserve for decisive employment.29 It was the formation of the infantry square that provided a means by which infantry could protect itself from a cavalry charge.

  The bayonet wall of the square, with the infantry formed in three ranks, presented about seven bayonets in a 36-inch space, which was equal to that filled by a single cavalryman. The concept of the square assumed that no horse would willingly impale itself on such a wall of bayonets. However, the horse did not perceive bayonets. What the horse perceived was a three-rank-deep wall of men that formed an obstacle, but the horse could sense the rider’s fear. The rider’s fear of the square was more likely to cause the horse to balk during the attack than the horse’s own perceptions. Also, the bayonet was not the infantry square’s most important protection against cavalry. The real key to an effective square was firepower. Infantry firepower, when delivered in a timely and sustained manner, could break the back of a cavalry charge. The other key to the square’s success was that the formation of a square was equally strong in all directions and did not have any flank or rear vulnerable to cavalry attack.

  Cavalry approaching at a trot would have almost no chance of success against a square because attacking at the trot greatly diminished the physical and psychological power of the mounted formation, and the infantry commanders had a much easier time judging distances and effectively directing the fire of their defensive volleys. The French cavalry charges at Waterloo advanced at the trot. A British observer at Waterloo described the charges coming at a trot uphill through mud and artillery fire as “visits.” The effectiveness of British fire devastated the French cavalry. A French lieutenant reported, “They showered us with musket balls, seven of which hit my horse.”30 Cavalry trotting against a square was destined to fail.

  Another problem that Napoleonic cavalry had when dealing with the square was the training of the horse. A horse could be trained to crash through such an obstacle just as a horse could be trained to walk through shoulder high grass, or to jump a fence. However, there is no record of such training occurring. 31 There is no record of formally training horses to charge a square. Even worse is the record of feigned charges against squares. In these feints, the cavalry rode down on the infantry square, and then the riders intentionally halted and wheeled away or veered around the square. After doing this once, the horse, with its phenomenal memory, remembered that action. A single false charge could wipe out months of training and taught the participating horses to avoid close combat with the square. Over the course of a campaign, unless commanders were very conscious of the training of their horses—and most were not—veteran horses, rather than better trained, could become less responsive in combat because they had inadvertently been taught to avoid the enemy.

  Given the effectiveness of the square, the obvious question is
why cavalry attacked it at all. The answer is that the square was only effective when it had time to form, discipline held, and command was competent. These perfect conditions were necessary because the cavalry charge put the infantrymen in the square under severe psychological stress. British Captain Tomkinson explains the view from within the square: “It is an awful thing for infantry to see a body of cavalry riding at them at a full gallop. The men in the square frequently begin to shuffle, and so create some unsteadiness. This causes them to neglect their fire. The cavalry seeing them waver, have an inducement for riding close up, and in all probability succeed in getting into the square, when it is all over.”32

  Military thinkers believed correctly that the power of the cavalry was the horse and that the average infantryman was more afraid of the horse than the rider. The stress of battle and fear could cause the infantry to make any one of a variety of mistakes: officers ordering fire before the horses got close enough for the fire to be effective; officers ordering fire too late; individual infantryman firing without orders and setting off spontaneous fire, ruining the fire plan of the square; positioning on or near terrain allowing the cavalry to get close to the square undetected or protected from fire; positioning on terrain causing gaps or holes in the square; forming a square where it was subject to artillery or infantry fire; and individuals flinching and running from their position and causing gaps or spreading panic.