"grouping together Imperial Guard cavalry at Waterloo?" Topic

Hello,

If we look at the OOB for Waterloo of the Imperial guard cavalry we have:

Lefebvre-Desnouetts Guard Cavalry: [4100 sabers]
Grenadier a Chevals: [800]
Dragoons: [815]
Gendarnerie d"Elite: [110]
Chasseuers a Cheval: [1200]
Mamelukes: [26]
Guard Lancers: [900]

Grande Armee suggests to have two bases to represent them:

Grenadiers+Dragoons
and
Chasseurs a Cheval+Guard Lancers

I haven't received yet all the books I have ordered, but did historically those units operated together? If I recall properly the Guard Lancers did terminate the Scot gray, but I do not remember they operated with the Chasseurs a Cheval.

As I said, I have quite some literature on its way but I'd be curious to know whether the units above operated at Waterloo indeed together or they are grouped together just for gaming convenience.

Even though I hope I will find the detail answer in the Waterloo companion book, it would be very interesting if someone could give me the big lines of what these particular cavalry regiments did at Waterloo.

thanks a lot

There were two divisions of Guard cavalry in Belgium in 1815. Lefebvre-Desnoettes commanded the light cavalry division and Guyot commanded the heavy cavalry division. The light cavalry consisted of the Chasseurs a Cheval and the Guard Lancer Regiment, which included a squadron of Poles (who were the 1st Squadron of the regiment). The heavy cavalry division consisted of the Grenadiers a Cheval and the Dragoons.

Sometimes the Gendarmerie d'Elite are included in the heavy cavalry division, but they were separate for the campaign and were attached to Imperial headquarters.

The lancers that helped destroy the Union Brigade were line lancers from Jacquinot's division. They hit the brigade in the flank while cuirassiers hit them in the front in a mousetrap.

The Guard cavalry, both divisions, participated in the French cavalry attacks after the repulse of d'Erlon's corps. They also formed the rear guard for the army after the defeat and repulse of the Old Guard's last attack in the evening. The Grenadiers a Cheval were the last French unit to leave the field and did so in perfect order.

Sincerely,
Kevin

I make each of the Gd Cav regiments a separate unit in my GA 15mm Waterloo French army.

Pictures here:

link

thanks a lot Kevin!

I'm going to make a huge mistake my attempting to disagree with Kevin by saying it was the Middle Guard who was repulsed by the English center and not the Old Guard.

Couple of things that may not matter but I will toss out in support / defense right at the start:

I do realize that the war dept. classified all of the Grenadier and Chasseurs foot battalions as Old Guard in 1815, but the war dept. classifying them all as Old Guard and all the battalions *being* Old Guard is different.

I'd be hard pressed to bring up citations but my general understanding is that the army, the members of the Guard themselves, and certainly some scholars see only the two senior battalions as Old Guard.

The requirements for entrance into the senior battalions was also higher than the others.

Ahead of time I don't have a list of supporting citations prepared and I'm going to be moving to CA by the end of the month so any support I do have in book form will be in boxes shortly … but perhaps Kevin or others can fill in the blanks with regard to my understanding and its correctness.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Bandit,

If you have Lachouque's and Brown's Anatomy of Glory you can check there, and it is also listed in the Esposito/Elting Atlas-there was no Middle Guard in 1815. All of the foot grenadier and foot chasseur regiments, four each, were classed as Old Guard.

The only grenadier regiment that was a Middle Guard outfit was the 3d (Dutch) Regiment which was disbanded after Russia.

The heart of the Middle Guard infantry were the Fusiliers-Grenadiers and the Fusiliers-Chasseurs, and they were not reactivated in 1815.

Sincerely,
Kevin

I tend to agree with what Kevin is saying, officially there was only "OLD" or "YOUNG" Guard at Waterloo in 1815. With the influx of veterans returing to the flag and the return of former prisoners of war I think the Guard was innundated with manpower so much so that they could field them all as OLD guard and leave the "MIDDLE" Guard annotation out of the equation.

As we all know, the first two regiments of both Grenadiers and Chasseurs were known as the oldest and toughest units in the French army but with the influx of manpower the third and 4th regiments were able to be formed as well. The men I feel were every bit a tough and experienced as the first two regiments but lacked proper uniforms and head dress etc.

you have to remember Napoleon had a limited time to organize his army and although special attention was given to his Guard even they were not fully formed and ready by the end of May 1815. They went to war as they were at that stage and accounted for themselves very well.

On the flip side however, Napoleon had ordered only the 3rd and 4th regiments to form the attack on the British line (or was it some btlns of the second regiments also?). So doing this I feel Napoleon himself counted the first two regiments of Grenadiers and Chasseurs above the 3rd and 4th regiments…

If so then war gamers might be justified in placing more importance on these two senior regiments of both corps and thus allow a higher combat ability, morale and other factors from a war games rules perspective. This is why many gamers (me included) prefer to see the 3rd and 4th regiments as only Middle Guard for games statistics even if the term, "MIDDLE" Guard did not relate to them officially.

Regards,
Shane

p.s. If one thing I have learnt about Napoleon in the history books I have read he constantly rated men in units at levels or tiers of ability. Everything he did was structured around levels of competency and one would rise or sometimes fall on this ladder of military prowess.

Every unit had its station and appointed place in his army and favour, he structured the army and its commanders to respect this ladder and take it seriously as he did. I think it was his way of maintaining or keeping order amongst the possibility of chaos which otherwise mess everything up. These tiers were like breeding grounds of order from one tier to the next and for my mind it worked very well.

The best men in a Line regiment went into the Grenadier companies eventually, from there they might flow into the Young or Middle Guard, from there they might fill gaps in the Old Guard after so much experience and campaigning. It was a very complex but workable system of promotion with or without increasing a soldiers rank and Napoleon would severely reprimand any commander who did not hand over his best men into this system when ordered to do so.

Shane

Kevin,

What you said I'd already stating in my post, however, I do not feel it is representative of the reality. Just because the Spanish army classed some units as elite, it doesn't really mean they were excellent. Point being: not everything is in a name. My point is that the quality of the senior battalions was more in line with what was historically called Old Guard were as the *more junior* battalions were at a combat level more commonly seen in the Middle Guard. The war dept. can label em whatever.

Shane,

Yes.

The Old Guard is a title used to mean a lot of things. On the wargaming table the Grenadiers à Cheval are always classed as Old Guard, however, the French War Dept. classed it by squadron in the later years, there were Old Guard and Young Guard squadrons of many Imperial Guard cavalry regiments. Not all squadrons were created equally even of the same regiment.

At its largest, the Old Guard foot battalions numbered four in 1812 and were tiny at the end of the campaign. The men that made them up were perhaps of the best in Europe at that time. 1813 and later, the ranks had to be filled with what was left, certainly very, very good, but also always graded on a curve. In 1815, the army that supplied the Guard was probably more of a mixed bag, lots of vets, lots of new people, lots of variation.

The fact that Napy kept the Guard organizationally small does not mean that all the battalions were actually equal, it means they were organized and classed by the army's administration as though they were equal. Yet, the senior most battalions, which had different entry requirements from the others, were not used.

Lastly, the fact that some units were uniformed and supplied differently is curious to me. I'm going to differ with Shane on this point, I don't think it was a factor of the time available, that could be true for everyone but the Guard, Napy *always* outfitted them as he desired regardless of consequences.

Cheers,

The Bandit

To get back to the cavalry: I believe the Gd. Lt. Cav. was placed in support of (behind) one of the heavy Cav. Corps, which in turn was supporting (behind) the I Army Corps (I think); while the Gd. Hvy. Cav. was supporting the other heavy Cav. Corps, which was supporting the II Army Corps (or vice versa). Anyway, one supporting hvy. cav. behind an army corps, the other the other hvy. cav. behind the other army corps. The Gd. Inf. (and originally the VI Army Corps) were in reserve between the two cav. forces.

As for the Gd. Inf.: Some sources I have seen show all the Grenadiers together in the 1st Div. of the Guard, and all the Chasseurs together in the 2nd Div. Others show the 1st Gren. Brig. and the 1st. Chas. Brig. forming the 1st Div. and the 2nd brigades of both forming the 2nd Div. The latter would tend to support the "Middle Guard" interpretation, the former would tend to counter it.

All sources indicate that there was no official Middle Guard at Waterloo, just Old and Young. However, I have read that the 3rd and 4th Regiments of each type did not have as strict entrance requirements as the 1st and 2nd Regiments, which would make them a sort of "middle" Guard in actuality.

My armies are organized for use with Grande Armee rules, which rates the OG as "guard" and the YG as "elite," and there is no category between "guard" and "elite," so it rates the 3rd & 4th Regiments as "guard" also. If one wanted to downgrade the 3rd & 4th Regiments to "elite," one would logically also have to downgrade the YG to "veteran" (the same as legere inf.).

Remenber the 3rd and 4th regiments, upgraded to the OG status, were formed in 1815, partly from the former "Fusiliers grenadiers", partly with veterans of the line.
See "La Garde Impériale" the Cdt Lachouque's masterpiece.
Only the 1st and 2nd were "original" OG.

Actually, only the 1st regiments of grenadiers and chasseurs were. The 2d regiments were formed later, disbanded, and then reformed. They were definitely Old Guard, but they were formed at the earliest five years later than the 1st regiments.

Sincerely,
Kevin

You are right Kevin but you must also remenber that this second regiment had been made by using the manpower of the first one, dividing the number of companies from eight to four per battalion.
Another exemple of how Army makes new things using the "Old" ones….
"On va leur percer le flanc!"