Napoleons Cavalry - 1813-1815

[Morifea]

Greetings!

After the staggering losses on fourfootet personnel in Russia in 1812, Napoleons Campaign in Germany in 1813 was in particular hampered by the lack of Cavalry.
Scouting and intelligence was abysmal and victorys like in Dresden couldn`t be exploited because of the lack of heavy calvalry.

Was it similar in the campaign of 1814 in France?
In Waterloo we can again witness some great (but futile) Cavalry action, were did Napoleon scrample enough heavy horses for his Cuirassiers?

As always, are there any good books on this topic?

Thanks in advance,
Morifea

[Millennium 7*]

Yes, it was the same in 2014. At the Waterloo campaign the problem was there too. One of the complaints was that much of the heavy cavalry did not have adequate mounts, thus being of less than adequate effectiveness. David Chandler's work covers this topic (it is a classic) but I don't know about a specific book on the subject.
If you fell like having some fun on the subject I have a video here

[Prince of Essling]

I know of no book that covers this in the manner that this topic probably deserves. For 1813 see Napoleon’s Equine Strategy in 1813 by Paul L Dawson https://www.napoleon-series.org/mili...ounts1813.html

It was not just a question of the lack of appropriate trained horse flesh that let Napoleon down but also the lack of trained cavalrymen.

There were some 9 to 10,000 dismounted cavalry who survived Russia. They were supplemented by 3,000 officers and NCOs from the gendarmerie. The surviving cavalry from Russia was sent to Brunswick and Hanover to be reorganised. 5 squadrons of guard cavalry were retained by the army while the dismounted guard cavalry were sent to Fulda where it formed the cadres of a further 5 squadrons.

At the beginning of 1813 the cavalry depots in France had been full of conscripts of the class of 1812 and the premature levy of 1813. The former were only half-trained and the latter totally unfit for a campaign. Nevertheless some 2,600 of these raw youngsters were despatched to the army whereby a grave error of judgement they were treated as if they had already completed their training. Thousands more were to follow them. Napoleon called in cadres drawn from Spain, drew more officers and MCOs from the gendarmerie, graduated students from the cavalry school earlier than normal and fleshed them pout with conscripts from the class of 1812 who were familiar with horses.

For how Napoleon rebuilt his 1813 army it is worth reading Camille Rousset's "La Grande Armee de 1813" at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bp...44j?rk=42918;4 and "Die Franzosische armee im Jahre 1813" at https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_...VBAAAAIAAJ.pdf

Similar issues applied to 1814, but also lack of equipment for the available manpower e.g. General Preval at the Versailles cavalry depot "There has just arrived here a squadron of light cavalry who are deficient of everything except waistcoats and breeches."; cavalry weapons were deficient e.g. 17th dragoons had 187 sabres for 349 men, 8th cuirassiers 92 sabres for 154 men! However Napoleon was able to call back battle hardened regiments from Spain.

[Morifea]

Thank you Prince of Essling, thats excactly what i`ve searched!
Gonna read them all :-)

Do you have further Informations about the dismounted guard Cavalry, that was send to Fulda? As my former Hometown its quite dear to me.

[Prince of Essling]

Thank you Prince of Essling, thats excactly what i`ve searched!
Gonna read them all :-)

Do you have further Informations about the dismounted guard Cavalry, that was send to Fulda? As my former Hometown its quite dear to me.

Afraid not much more - from page 47/48 of George Nafziger's "Lutzen and Bautzen - Napoleon's Spring campaign of 1813"
"When five dismounted squadrons of the Guard arrived in Fulda, they found material to fill their every need except horses. Those were being gathered in France."

[Prince of Essling]

Also on 1814, extracted from page 136/137 of David Johnson's "The French Cavalry 1792-1815" which has also used Henry Houssaye's "1814":

"This officer commanded the cavalry depot at Versailles where, as he informed the Minister of War, units were arriving deficient in everything but breeches and waistcoats, and where there were only 6,284 horses for 9,786 men.

Preval's greatest problem stemmed from the fact that the expense of his depot were being paid by the Emperor, whose chamberlain sanctioned payments only with great reluctance and after considerable delay. For this he could hardly be blamed. At the end of 1813 the treasure in the coffers of the Tuileries had totalled seventy-five million francs, which the cost of maintaining such establishments as Preval's and the Imperial Guard depot quickly reduced by two-thirds. 'The men must have boots and horses,' Preval pointed out to the Minister of War. 'I must only repeat; money, money, money.' And soon afterwards: 'I managed to-day to get hold of 127 horses, despite the fact that I am at the moment5 in debt for more than 800 horses, and owe the majority of contractors over 500,000 francs.

Despite these difficulties, in one month alone Preval succeeded in mounting, equipping, clothing and arming 12 regiments of cavalry; but not even Preval could do anything about the shortage of veterans, and the proportion of raw recruits to reliable horsemen was even greater than it had been during the Leipzig campaign. When General Deport saw the kind of equitation being practised by the conscripts in his new cuirassier division he could hardly believe his etes. 'No-one but a madman would expect me to charge with such cavalry,' he declared."

Henry Houssay's "1815" has a good section on the formation of the new army including a few paragraphs (pages 13/14)on horses - downloadable as a pdf https://archive.org/download/1815wat...00housuoft.pdf see below:

"On March 20th the cavalry had only 27,864 horses, the artillery and the auxiliary corps 7,765. 5,000 out of these 35,629 horses had been let out to farmers in order to save their keep ; they were hastily reclaimed for the use of the corps. The departments were put under requisition to furnish 8,000 horses, to be paid for on arrival. At the same time horses spontaneously offered by breeders and farmers were purchased at the central remount depot at Versailles. The horses of the King's bodyguard and those of the Royal volunteers were reserved for the Guard. The depot centres of every corps were authorised to make purchases on the spot. Finally, the Emperor hit on the excellent idea of appropriating half the horses of the " gendarmerie." Each gendarme received a compensation of 600 francs and was bound to find another horse for himself within a fortnight, and this was an easy task, considering his position in the country. Thanks to this expedient, 4,250 horses, strong and ready trained, were immediately allotted to the cuirassiers and the dragoons." The requisition in the departments yielded more than was expected," but at the central depot at Versailles the remounting progressed very slowly. It seemed that General Preval was the very man to resume the command of this department, where he had worked miracles in 1814. Justly or unjustly, he was, however, suspected of Royalist opinions. The Emperor sent him, or rather exiled him, to the depot at Beauvais, and Greneral Bourcier was appointed to Versailles. The latter was a pedant, a slave to rules, quibbling over the smallest trifles. He would refuse any horse over eight years of age, and any which happened to be half an inch under the regulation height. In the midst of the war, within the month of March alone, Preval had collected more than 7,000 horses ; in the space of two months, in time of peace, Bourcier could only raise 2,579 ! In spite of this mismanagement at the beginning of the campaign, there was a fine body of horses in the field. The cavalry mustered 40,000 horses at the depots and with the troops ; the artillery and the Army Service Corps amounted to 16,500.'

[Morifea]

Great read, have some rep!
Quite interesting, that the Gendarmes had still such good mounts left after nearly 20 Years of constant warfare.
I would have taken all horses of Prussia with me on the retreat out of Germany....