Training light infantry and skirmishers

I have a question for you more knowledgable folks out here. Does anyone have any good, detailed information as to how one would train the light infantry during this time period? Most interesting would be to see how the training of countries with successful light infantry differed from the less successful ones.

@Mr. T,

Hey man,

I'm interested in the training of infantry of this time period too but most of the body of documentation/scholarship is in the original languages only, ex. French, German, Russian, etc. Very little exists in the English language.

There are some books you can find on amazon.com like Von Steuben's training manual for the Washingtonian infantry during the Revolutionary war and other works from Christopher Duffy & David Chandler which do make mention of the troops & formations of the 17th & 18th centuries but for specifics, go to the specific countries of interest and learn another language!

Not the best of answers, I know, but it's the truth.

Ex. I'm Greek and if I want to find out how the Greek guerrilla fighters fought the Ottoman Turks before & during the Declaration of war against the Turks in 1821, I have to go to the original language, Greek, to find out the Greek perspective and Turkish, if such records do exist on their end, regarding their perspective.

Happy reading!
hellas1

Originally Posted by MrT

I have a question for you more knowledgable folks out here. Does anyone have any good, detailed information as to how one would train the light infantry during this time period? Most interesting would be to see how the training of countries with successful light infantry differed from the less successful ones.

Assuming Santa Claus is still going to be good to you - read pages 110-132 of Nafziger's "Imperial Bayonets". He says on page 112 that "there are very few documents of any type and almost no regulations that speak of the employment and operations of light infantry in battle. Most documents that do speak of light infantry tactics dwell on pickets, vedettes, or the operations of raiding parties."

On page 115 Nafziger outlines Marshal Davout's instructions on the practical employment of skirmishers.
Page 116 et seq discusses British skirmishers - Nafziger cites a 1798 work by Rottemberg "Regulations for the Exercise and conduct of rifles and light infantry on parade and in the field" which supposedly formed the basis of British light infantry operations into the late 19th century. I haven't been able to track down a copy on google books but will keep searching. This forum http://2nd95thrifles.myfastforum.org/sutra2620.php has a list of drill manuals and if you join you can access Rottemberg and others. I seem to recall that Sir John Moore was instrumental in setting up or running the British light infantry training school at Shoreham(?).

There is at http://books.google.com/books?id=Agc...page&q&f=false "A practical guide for the light infantry officer" by Captain T H Cooper (its one of the books mentioned by Nafziger).

Nafziger says that the Austrian 1807 regulations are one of the few that goes into skirmishing in any length.

You may be able to find on the internet a copy of Major-General Winfield Scott "Infantry tactics or, rules for the exercise and manoeuvers of the United States' infantry" - this apparently drew on both British and French practice - though perhaps weighted more on the French. Here is a link to his previous book "Abstract of infantry tactics" which covers light troops http://books.google.com/books?id=6M4...page&q&f=false

Light infantry training was very much similar to the hat infantry training, with the addition of more drill and maneuvers. It was simply a matter of learning how to open up files, how to close files back together, and various firing drills that focused more on individual fire rather than the normal volley style of firing drill.


The most detailed "training" per se was done with the officers of light infantry corps (like those in the other parts of the army), who would have learned most of their craft from contemporary light infantry treatises, personal experience( i.e., from experience in conditions which required light infantry style tactics), or through direct teaching from those with personal experience.

Extract from the forum of the 2nd Battalion 95th Rifles (http://2nd95thrifles.myfastforum.org/sutra2620.php) (Re-enactment Group)

3. Regulations for the Exercise of Riflemen and Light Infantry, and Instructions for their Conduct in the field, with plates, 3s 6d' Fawsett's translation of De Rotenburg. Available as an 1814 print from Naval Military Press or 1798 Fawsett Print from Ken Trotman and for viewing on Google books as a PDF.

The following is a link to the .pdf mentioned above, I've hidden it as its so long it distorts the page layout.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://books.google.com/books?id=QZ8...page&q&f=false

I tend to find that re-enactment groups manage to turn up this sort of information quite effectively as they need it for their own training and often contain ex-military people with access to private archives.

What is lacking in this and all published regulations (past and present) is the method of application and delivery. Regulations tend to restrict themselves to what must be done, rather than how it should be accomplished, and drill manuals whilst they take this to the next level of detail rarely include explanations of how to make the drills work. In my experience the detail is usually passed on from drill master to drill master by practice and example and rarely written down so there are always annoying questions left unanswered in the detail of how some tactic's and drills were achieved.

As regards your second question:

Most interesting would be to see how the training of countries with successful light infantry differed from the less successful ones.

I would argue that the answer is unlikely to be found in the drill manual or the training. Most light infantry and skirmishers were trained along similar lines and the degree to which that training produced a successful result had little if anythng to do with its content, and much more to do with the raw material to which it was applied, and the attitude of those applying it.

The Germans (Prussia, Austria etc.) tended to view the role of skirmisher as a specialist activity which required the employment of men with a natural talent for the task. They deliberately set about recruiting men with a natural ability and background in hunting and irregular warfare. The first fifteen Austrian Light Infantry battalions were formed deliberately by men drafted from their disbanded FreiKorps units, and their later Tyrolean Jager Regiment was deliberately recruited from the Tyrol because of the number of natural riflemen living in that region. The problem they discovered was that such men also have a natural aversion to discipline and regulation and so tended to rebel against the training that was being imposed by their officers, who were all academy trained and so pre-disposed to follow the book. This inevitably led to friction, desertion and in at least one case rebellion, and eventually Austria was forced to disband all its light infantry units and limit its recruitment to the more disciplined Tyrolean recruits.

The French tended to view all soldiers as patriots, inspired by a natural desire to fight for their country and their emperor. Therefore, French regulations placed a lot more emphasis on personal bravery and initiative than other european tactics. It was the French for example who first allowed the men in the ranks to fire voluntarily rather than in volleys, using a fire control system. So, in that respect the French took the view that the only difference between a soldier in a line and a soldier in a light battalion was that soldiers potential for initiative and independant action. The men in their light companies would have been specifically selected on the basis of these qualities and their more elite light regiments would have drawn on the best and most accomplished of those selected. This created an elitist attitude as these men (even in the volitgeur companies of a line regiment) knew that they had been selected because they were better than the rest and so they were personally motivated to prove themselves. Hence the French habit of using light infantry as assault troops for taking key battlefield positions such as Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.

The British adopted a somewhat different approach to both the German and French. They believed that any man can be trained to perform as a light infantryman, which actually ties in with the wider belief that any man can be trained to be an effective infantryman. This belief was mainly based upon simple observation and experience, as the British Army had been forced to produce effective soldiers from the dregs of society for decades and knew not only that it could be done but also understood the process involved in achieving it.

Therefore, when the Experimental Rifle Corps was formed there was no attempt made to deliberately recruit 'hunters' and 'poachers' the intial draft was supplied by existing regiments of Foot and the Militia. The order had asked for men of initiative and good character, but in fact, most Regiments did the sensible thing and used the draft as an opportunity to get rid of their worst soldiers and biggest maligerers. In effect, the British probably ended up with a unit not dissimmilar to that formed by the Austrian Light infantry experiment, but without the shooting ability. The difference was that the officers commanding the initial British experimental rifle corps recognised that they had to be innovative themselves rather than slaves to the regulations. Unlike Austria, British officers were not put through a rigorous academic selection process and so they were not as regimented in their own thinking and attitudes and more flexible in their approach to the training of their men. However, this in turn creates problems for historians trying to document what they actually did, as its clear that there were several different schemes in use and new idea's were constantly being tried by various officers. Mark Urbans book Rifles mentions a number of these in passing and also gives a few peeks beyond the manuals and written material at what actually happened during the training of a British rifle or light infantryman. We are told for example that the men were encouraged to hunt small animals, to get them used to the techniques for leading a target and to improve their aim, something which a line infantry officer would probably have considered a waste of government ammunition and a breach of discipline. However, what is also clear is that unlike the Austrian recruits the British recruits were not naturally rebelious to discipline and drill (they had after all been drafted from the line), so it seems that whilst innovative schemes were used to improve their shooting skills, they did not consider themselves exempt from the normal standards of British Army discpline and training. Indeed, Urban makes the point quite forcefully that the British Light infantry and riflemen were more rigorously drilled and more ruthlessly discplined than most line regiments. A regime which it seems the men themselves only tolerated because they considered themselves better than the line infantry anyway. This had the main advantage that both the light infantry and the rifles were able to function in close order just as effectively as they could in skirmish order, and in most cases could out perform the line infantry in both roles.

So, the way I see it there were three distinct approaches to the training and employment of light infantry in existence during the 18th and 19th century, but they were not based upon what was written in the drill manuals, but upon the way the soldiers themselves were viewed by their officers, and how they viewed themselves.

Wow, thank you all, you guys are great!

Hellas1: you make a good point, problem is the only other language I have any chance of understanding is german but if anyone has a link to a german manual or suchlike I would definitley give it a try

Prince of Essling: If I get Nafziger I will bombard you even more with questions But great as always will look at the links

43rdFoot: This:

The most detailed "training" per se was done with the officers of light infantry corps (like those in the other parts of the army), who would have learned most of their craft from contemporary light infantry treatises, personal experience( i.e., from experience in conditions which required light infantry style tactics), or through direct teaching from those with personal experience.

seems, according to Didz, to be something that varied between nations. For example the Austrian and Prussian officers seem to be only academically trained.

Didz:

Most excellent reading! Most of it I heard about but you put into a good context, good job. This:

This created an elitist attitude as these men (even in the volitgeur companies of a line regiment) knew that they had been selected because they were better than the rest and so they were personally motivated to prove themselves. Hence the French habit of using light infantry as assault troops for taking key battlefield positions such as Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.

was especially interesting since I have always wondered about that.

Originally Posted by MrT

was especially interesting since I have always wondered about that.

Yes, in a way its counter-intuitive. The traditional assault role is of course assigned to the Grenadiers, the biggest and toughest men in the regiment.

However, the French seemed to favour the voltigeurs and light infantry for this role and one can only deduce that this was a recognition of the fact that these men were selected for their personal initiative, a quality which was very important when attacking an enemy in a prepared position and where formal drills were pretty much useless.

The other revelation I find interesting is the failure of the Austrian Light infantry system. Many historians have tried to explain this and quite a few have deliberately misrepresented the facts to try and make them fit with their own theories. For years, I believed the lie that the Austrian Army were too conservative to even form light infantry regiments, and even now you can read official historical accounts that the Austrian Army never had any light infantry prior to the formation of the Tyrolean Jager in 1801.

However, this simply isn't true, in fact the Austrians formed fifteen regular battalions of light infantry in 1798, at about the same time as the British formed the small Experimental Rifle Corps and so in many ways the Austrians were ahead of the game. Also, unlike the British, the Austrian's had a large pool of manpower experienced in irregular warfare on hand, who should have been naturally suited to the role. So all the evidence suggests that the Austrian Light Infantry should have been highly effective.

The occassional mention by historians that it was ruined by over-drilling is a 'red-herring' and makes no sense when compared to the facts available. There are documented complaints of over-drilling by Austrian officers at the time, but the British experiment proves that drill and skirmishing are not mutually exclusive activities and a good light infantry regiment needs to be able to do both. I suspect that if the Austrian officers did resort to more drill than was necessary, then it was their pre-programmed reaction to the lack of discipline in their men, as drill was and still is the primary basis for teaching men to obey orders and work as a team.

So, the real reason why the Austrian experiment failed and the British one succeeded remains unexplored by most historians. My own theory is simply based upon the old Sherlock Holmes principle that 'having discounted all other explanations, what remains must by implication be the true cause'.

The simple fact is that the only real difference between the British and Austrian experiments was the source from which the manpower was obtained, and background of the officers in charge of the training.

Austrian Officers were selected for their academic skill, and formerly trained to be officers at military academies. So they would have all shared a common understanding and belief in how to train and command soldiers. By contrast the British officers were a bit of a weird mix of long serving gentry and mercenaries most of whom had strong personal and sometimes conflicting radical views on how to command and train men. in short most of the British officers involved were a bunch of misfits themselves, but obviously with something to prove.

In theory, the Austrian's had all the advantages but this is one example where the theory proved false in practice. The British produced the Light Division which was to cover itself in glory in the Peninsula, the Austrians produced a mob of drunken, rebellious troublemakers who had to be got rid of as quickly as possible.

Ironically, many of the men Austria drafted into their light battalions were eventually got rid of by handing them over to either the French or the British, both of whom were later to claim that they made excellent soldiers. So, on that basis it would seem that the blame must lie with the Austrian Officer training as that is the only factor which was different.

Austrian Officers.
[Österreichische Offizier]

Austrian Empress Maria Theresa (ext.link) opened military academies in 1752.

Sons of serving officers and state officials, minor nobility and commoners entered these schools in their teens. The artillerymen were trained in the Artillery Corps School in Bohemia and in the Bombardier Corps formed by Kinsky (director of artillery). Sir T. Graham wrote with some exaggeration that "interest and intrigue were the main avenues of promotion". Actualy the officers could enter the army in three different ways:

1. appointment as a cadet
2. commission (mainly for aristocracy)
3. promotion from the lower ranks

Austrian officers received formal training. Those who came from aristocracy passed faster through the ranks than those who came from lower social classes. The cadets were taught by sergeants and they were the most numerous group among officers. Majors and higher ranks in infantry and cavalry were promoted by the Emperor himself. General of artillery handled the promotions in artillery. Promotions in Grenzer (border) regiments depended on Supreme War Council Hofkriegsrath

The senior officers revealed obsessive concern with trivia like the regimental bands played in proper intervals. They spent a lot of time banqueting instead of studying and training the troops. Majority of officers were Germans, Czechs and Hungarians. But there were also French, Poles, Croats, Swedes, Irish and English. This multinationality of the officer corps was not something strengthening their army.

This is what Rothenberg has to say about the Austrian senior and staff officers. "The staff was not capable of handling the corps system. The officers of the Quartermaster General Staff were still primarily trained in mapping, mathematical computations, horsemanship, drawing and penmanship. Many were personally brave and on paper quite capable of elaborating plans for moving troops. In the field, however, it was a different matter. The new system created much confusion and the Austrian general staff lacked a common doctrine and manuals of procedure. And this became especially critical when because of the small size of the permanent staff untrained officers had to be assigned for duty when the army was activated." (Rothenberg - "Napoleon's Great Adversary")

Extract from http://www.napolun.com/mirror/web2.a...strianofficers

This is quite interesting reading, thank you. Especially the history of the failure of the austrian's light infantry i did not know about this.

Originally Posted by micheljq

This is quite interesting reading, thank you. Especially the history of the failure of the austrian's light infantry i did not know about this.

Glad you found it interesting. As a Napoleonic wargamer for over 40 years I was always led to believe that the Austrian Army was outclassed by the French because they had no light infantry. Its only quite recently that I came across Rawkins history of the Austro-Hungarian Army 1798-1814, and discovered that they had raised 15 regular battalions of light infantry in 1798, and the subsequent problems they had in training them.

http://www.napoleonicassociation.org...01798-1814.pdf