French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792?1815

seems to be a recurrent phenomenon throughout history when national leaders who have registered a few early successes later develop ever thicker fingers, while looking at ever smaller maps of the world.

The secret of the French success surely lay in the fact that they possessed the cohesion and resilience to adopt whatever tactical arrangements they chose, even in the heat of battle.

To the present author, it seems that tactical flexibility of this order, unavailable to the armies of the early 1790s, was the hard-earned result of 15 years’ combat experience, training and drilling.

It was this flexibility which gave the French a distinct operational advantage over their opponents for several years.

A platoon of Imperial Guardsmen firing at will in a three-deep line. In the Règlement the first volley fired by each platoon was supposed to be simultaneous by each file, immediately followed by the next file, and so on, rolling along the platoon line. After that, everyone was supposed to fire at will at their own speed. This could vary widely, since the 1791 manual specified about 25 separate movements for loading and firing a single shot. This picture is based closely on the Règlement, with the platoon officer in his regulation place on the right flank; the men in the foreground stand straight upright with their feet correctly placed at right-angles, and the men of the second rank pass back their muskets to be reloaded by the third rank – an