Napoleon’s Campaign in France 1814 – Part 2

The Battle of Brienne 29 January 1814

Brienne is the ideal place to start the 1814 tour. Not only is it the town where Napoleon went to school, but it’s also the first major field engagement of the campaign. It’s a pleasant, rather sleepy town that boasts a fine chateau (now a hospital) that featured in the battle. There is also a quirky museum with hand-made exhibits that nevertheless comprehensively describe the entire campaign. Cossack lances lean against the display cabinets and the walls, as if  their owners have just temporarily abandoned them while they’ve popped out for a little light plundering. There’s also a Napoleonic sabre that until recently was used for the local sport of what I can only describe as ‘goose-whacking’ – beheading a live goose hanging upside down from tree while blindfolded. You really couldn’t make this stuff up. The whole museum is housed in the classrooms of the military academy where the young Buonaparte was a pupil, and includes such trivia as his record of the menus in the refectory, which seemed to include a lot of beetroot!

In the battle itself, Blücher, the aging Prussian firebrand general and notorious francophobe had become separated from Yorck’s corps and the Army of Bohemia, and was concentrated at Brienne with 40,000 Prussian and Russian troops. His headquarters was in the chateau, where his troops had smashed a collection of specimen jars, owned by the Marquis who was something of a scientist. In the absence of Schnapps, they had been drinking the surgical alcohol that preserved the jars’ contents. Needless to say this did not improve their performance, whatever it may have done for their courage.

The cavalry of Lefebvre-Desnouettes and the infantry of Victor, known as ‘Marie-Louises’ since they were as smooth-cheeked as the Empress herself, by virtue of their tender age, swept across the plain from the East and through the town, forcing the Coalition  troops out by nightfall. Losses were by no means light: some 3,000 French dead and 4,000 of their enemy lay strewn across the fields and town, the whole macabre scene being lit by the glow of the fires raging through the town and chateau.

Edgehill 1642

Last week I took a group of army officers and officer cadets around the battlefield of Edgehill in North Oxfordshire. It was a fine, clear morning – quite unusual for late October. Many of them had never participated in a battlefield study before, and so approached it with some trepidation. Luckily, by the end of the exercise they all were very positive about the experience. We looked at several key themes, including the manoeuvrist concept, the role of leadership in battle, mission analysis and the influence of terrain on the outcome of this first battle of the Civil War in England.

I found Chris Scott’s 2004 book Edgehill: the battle reinterpreted (written with his friends Turton and Von Arni) very useful in preparing, along with Peter Young’s timeless classic on the subject.

The battlefield is fairly well preserved – despite the presence of huge armaments depot on the site. The view from the Castle Inn is particularly fine – and you can enjoy a pint while picking out the dispositions of both armies on the ground. It has to be said though there is a fair bit of controversy over the exact deployment, which you can review for yourself on the Battlefield Trust’s superb website. http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/civil-war/battleview.asp?BattleFieldId=3

If you’ve not been to Edgehill, I thoroughly reccomend it, the countryside is really beautiful in a a way that only England can be, and the story of the battle is full of drama and excitement. It makes a superb case study and a truly engaging visit for amateurs and professionals alike. In a future post I’ll be talking about the many visits I’ve made to the sites of the Civil War in the West Country too…

Napoleon’s Campaign in France 1814 – Part 1

This September (2011) a crack team of battlefield detectives infiltrated the Champagne region of France to conduct an extensive recce of the 1814 Campaign. It was a fascinating and truly memorable experience, that illustrated the skill and bravery of the army of Napoleon when faced with near-impossible odds. We learned a great about the value of operational manoeuvre and the difficulties of command in the pre-industrial age.

The rural nature of the region is little different from 1814, or from 1914 for that matter, so the battlefields have hardly changed and are in a fine state of preservation. Many of the landmark buildings remain intact too, so it doesn’t require a great leap of imagination to place yourself right in the heart of the action with cannons roaring around you and the drummers beating the pas de charge!

Over the coming weeks I’ll post a history of the campaign with relevant photographs and maps, and try to illustrate the Battlefields in Action approach to military history. Strap on you cartridge box, heft your musket and stay tuned…

The School of War

Battlefields in Action is a unique record of how I’ve used historical sites of conflict in the United Kingdom and Europe to illustrate some key themes in military history, and applied these for training and education.

I believe that there are vital lessons to be learned about the persistent truths of the nature of warfare, the evolution of armies, the realities of combat, the art of command and the relationship between politics and the application of force.

While society, beliefs, tactics and weapon technology have changed significantly over time, many important principles remain relevant:

• The value of defining military objectives clearly and ensuring that operations are directed toward achieving them
• The virtue of determined offensive action
• The effectiveness of ‘mass’ in battle
• How economy of effort can achieve a key objective
• The importance of manoeuvre and the flexible application of combat power
• The force-multiplier effect of unified, integrated command structures
• How effective security can prevent an unexpected advantage being offered to the opposing forces
• The advantage of surprise
• How the best of plans are simple

Toby McLeod