12. The Reorganization of the Heavy Cavalry (2)
In Bonaparte’s reorganization of 1802 we note three main points. The first was that he much diminished the number of heavy cavalry regiments, but made those which remained much heavier. We are told that when he took over charge of the army the twenty-five heavy cavalry regiments differed in little but name from the dragoons—the men on an average were no bigger, the horses no taller or stronger; the only practical difference was that they wore blue instead of green uniforms, and carried two pistols, instead of the carbine, furnished with a short bayonet, which marked the dragoon. Both differed from light cavalry in using the straight thrusting sword, and not the curved sabre which belonged to hussars and chasseurs à cheval.
Bonaparte cut down the number of heavy cavalry regiments from 25 to 14 before 1802 was over, but made the surviving corps much heavier. They were furnished with the cuirass—in all twelve of cuirassiers and two of carabineers. The old heavy cavalry regiments Nos. 12 to 18 were turned into dragoon regiments; those numbered from 19 to 25 were drafted into the new cuirassier and carabineer regiments, except men who were notably short and weak, and unfit to wear the cuirass. So with the horses—all the strong and tall mounts of the twenty-five old regiments did not suffice to do more than fill up the ranks of the fourteen new ones. The cuirassiers, then, a creation of 1802, may be considered to be Bonaparte’s special contribution to the French cavalry arm, as a result of his observations during his earlier campaigns of 1795–1800. They were very heavy cavalry indeed, wearing both breast-plate and backplate, and not merely a front protection like some of the heavy cavalry of the old French monarchy, or the Austrian cuirassiers with whom they were so frequently to be matched. Their headgear was also new—the steel helmet, with peak in form of a vizor and long horsehair plume, superseding the broad cocked hat which the old French heavy cavalry wore.
The very limited number of cuirassier regiments were all through their existence told off by Napoleon purely for battle service, and almost invariably were used as a cavalry reserve, destined to strike heavy blows in the last stages of a general action. They were never dispersed as divisional cavalry, or army corps cavalry, but down to 1812 were kept united in brigades or divisions entirely composed of themselves. In 1812 Napoleon tried the experiment of attaching one regiment of lancers, a new arm only just created, to each cuirassier brigade, with the direction that the lancer regiment was to do all the light service, to furnish all patrols and vedettes, escorts, etc., so that the cuirassier regiments might always be intact and complete, and might be in full strength for battle whenever wanted. The experiment was not repeated either for the army of 1813 or for that which marched to ruin at Waterloo. In each of these the cuirassier regiments were massed in perfectly homogeneous brigades and divisions.
Though in the course of the twelve years of empire which were before him in 1802 Napoleon added many new regiments to his cavalry, only two of them were fresh cuirassier units. Of the 13th and 14th regiments of that arm, the 14th was taken over from the Dutch army when Holland was annexed in 1810; the other was constituted in the previous year from a number of cuirassier drafts who had been acting together in Spain as a provisional regiment. Having done very good service they were, as a token of honour and reward, constituted into a permanent unit with the number 13. The reason for keeping down the total number of cuirassier regiments was mainly expense—the large and strong horses required to carry big men in very heavy equipment were both dear and hard to procure; in France, Normandy was the only district which bred them, and the majority of the mounts had to be procured in Germany. In 1805 the best of the captured horses of Mack’s army, when it surrendered at Ulm, and in 1806 the horses of all the Prussian heavy cavalry which was captured after Jena, were handed over to the cuirassiers of the victorious French army. But such chances of procuring remounts for nothing and in great quantities did not recur. We often get the note that bad weather and winter campaigning were especially fatal to the mounts of this ponderous reserve cavalry, when those of the hussars and chasseurs suffered comparatively little.
With the fourteen cuirassier regiments ranked the two other heavy regiments which Napoleon maintained—the 1st and 2nd of Carabineers; they were originally a sort of horse-grenadiers, wearing bearskins, and without body armour, and carried (as their name shows) the carbine instead of the pair of pistols allotted to the cuirassiers. But after Wagram, in 1809, Napoleon directed that these two regiments should be furnished with back- and breast-plates, so that for all intents and purposes they became cuirassiers. They were always kept among the reserve cavalry, and the two regiments were brigaded together all through the years of their existence.
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