"1805/06 French Company Organization" Topic

Now that I've finally gather all the pieces together I'm looking to finish up my 30mm 1806 French project.

The project started out several years back when I acquired one of Jack Scruby's personal war game units. French 33rd of the Line 1806 (or at least in the white uniform). He had organized this unit at 1:5, but sadly organized it as most of his other units with the 1809-1812 organization…

Anyhow, to get back on track; I plan to start at the company level and work my way up to the full battalion. I'll also be pulling this back a figure ratio of 1:10. Company strength will be somewhere between 80 and 123 men.

So. my question is how were French companies organized – we know the company was split into two Peletons, so that is easy enough to sort out – I'm looking more to determine numbers of Officer, sergeants/corporals, musicians, etc.

Thanks for any help or resources that you can point me to

Year 1799-1800 while Bernadotte was Minister of War each company was to have for the Ligne :

Fusilier Company :

1 Capitaine
1 Lieutenant
1 Sous-Lieutenant
1 Sergeant-major
4 Sergeants
1 Caporal-fourier
8 Corporals
2 Drummers
104 Fusiliers

123 Total in a Fusilier company

Grenadier Company :

1 Capitaine
1 Lieutenant
1 Sous-Lieutenant
1 Sergeant-major
4 Sergeants
1 Caporal-fourier
8 Corporals
2 Drummers
64 Grenadiers

83 Total in a Grenadier company

By decree on Sept 19 1804 one Fusilier Company was to be converted into a Voltiguer Company, the number of men in the companies stayed the same except in the Grenadier companies which was increased to 99 men total (3 officers and 96 grenadiers and non-coms).

The French Army, Royal, Republican, Imperial 1792-1815 by George Nafziger.

Regards,
Shane

The 'peloton' was not a subdivision of the French company of the period. There were no platoons in a French company at this time. Peloton was used in the reglements in lieu of the term 'company.' They were virtually synomymous.

French infantry companies were organized into two sections, and each of those into subordinate escouades.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Thanks for the info!

My research notes are some 30 plus years old, so I knew I'd be missing something!

I'll be needing to add a few more officers and drummers to finish the project, but I'm close.

Just to clarify: company was a term used for administration (food, supplies etc.), while platoon (peleton) was tactical sub-unit within the battalion in the field. Usually one company would form one peleton, however I'm willing to accept theory that says that while forming the battalion for the field operation, the companies would be gathered in one place and then divided by the number of peletons that was supposed to form the battalion (exact number depending on the year involved). So the number of people in peleton could vary from one battle to another, and also soldiers from different companies could find themselves in one peleton.

I was looking up this same information last week in Nafziger and I could swear that he has peletons in the 1804 reorganization.

Matheo,

You're not going to completely scramble a cohesive unit that has trained together at the start of a campaign to form a new unit. The number of companies in a ligne or legere unit would correspond to the number of 'pelotons' referred to in the reglement. The peloton commander would be the company commander. While companies in a battalion might be 'evened out' because of losses, the company organization is not going to be changed. People could be moved between companies but the cadre would generally remain the same. And saying that the company is an administrative unit and the peloton is a combat unit is not correct. Essentially, they are the same thing-same CO, 1st Sergeant, fourrier, etc. Again, you don't scramble units from cohesive companies to make a new unit called a peloton.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Kevin, you are right – I was just being not precise enough… Of course the structure of the company would stay the same, I was just pointing out that in case when one company lost 60% of it's soldiers, it would borrow men from other coys, so the peletons are about the same number of files. And as for the "administrative vs tactical", I was just referring to the naming convention. There were no "1st peleton's barracks", same as there was no "feu de compaigne" ;)

how did they sort out the different coloured pom poms?

"different coloured pom poms?"
pompons or houpettes or aigrettes or plumets or carrots as worn with chapeaux

- color of these not regulated by compagnie until 1811
- usages before then that might be considered "common" : grenadiers (red) and votigeurs (green, maybe yellow)
- for fusiliers, blue for all compagnies might be most typical, but there was lots of variation
- it was no big deal to change one, as their base was attached by insertion into a little sleeve under the cocarde
- perhaps the most "canonical" in 1806 was the houpette avec crins (round pompon with a bit of fringe sticking up on the top) : the "ball" red for grenadiers, blue for fusiliers, green for voltiguers and white for the état-major with the "fringe" white for all
-- how much these were even worn in combat is not clear (at least to me)

picture
picture

Anyway, wrong pompons would not be so big a problem as a gap when you formed square, or the second rank firing though the first rank without being previously sorted by height …. hence the need to form pelotons for combat.

Chuey

Chuey,

If the peleton's just got reorganized before a fight….. did they withhold firing at enemy calvary when fighting from a square untill they got all the pom-poms exchanged and corrected? (I once knew a 2nd looie, who I am sure would have insisted on this type of detail!!)

As I read more and more, I'm starting to get the impression that regardless of the nation, year or offical table of organization, all battalions operated with an even number of sub-units, the number being 8 or (less common) 6, which where usually set up to 4 ""divisions"". Grenadier and light companies (or sometimes double companies of each)might be held organically or split out to outside speciality units. When we do wargaming, 2 or (3) divisions, or 4 or (6) peletons, with the special Gren/and/light companies/or/peletons contains all the variations that would really be seen in the field. Because of manpower losses and detachments, you can probably justify any of the above combinations as being plausibe for any place/time/nationality.

Personally, I build my toy armies as more generic than specific for one historical battle. Over a few years of wargaming, I bet it is as accurate a method as any other.