"French Napoleonic Sappers" Topic

What did the engineers/sappers do the French Napoleonic army? From my quick TMP/google checks, I know about the distinction between sappers that were part of an infantry unit & sappers that were part of a separate engineering battalion. I'm primarily interested in the sappers attached to the unfantry units.

I assume they built earthworks (since sapeur is French for digger). But it seems that the French army had separate units for building bridges & mining. Would the sappers have dealt with setting explosives like on a bridge, or would that have been the artillery?

I'd assume the infantry unit sappers would support whatever that unit needed, like if the unit need brush to be cleared in front of the unit to give a clear field of fire?

So other than digging & chopping stuff, any other duties? I'm looking for skirmish scenario ideas.

Thanks

Sapeurs d'infanterie were picked men, from the grenadier and carabinier companies in the infantry regiments who were also part of the tete de colonne along with the drummers and were uniformed differently from the rest of the regiment.

They originated in the old Royal Army as 'soldier carpenters' and were referred to as ouvriers in the Swiss regiments and the French Guards. There were four per battalions in the infantry, but they also appeared in dragoon, hussar, and chasseur a cheval regiments. Their duties were equivalent to the modern combat engineer.

In combat and on campaign they were employed to break in gates, as well as chop their way through obstacles and palisades and they also removed obstacles on their unit's line of march, as well as improving roads.

They were in the middle of combat, especially around the eagle, and they were remembered in the battle of Medellin 'swinging their axes amid the panicked Spaniards as a Mameluke would swing his scimitar. They were big men and generally tougher than woodpecker lips.

The engineer arm was an all-officer organization until 1793 when Carnot had engineer units formed for service with the armies. The miners had been part of the artillery arm for decades, but were finally cut loose and assigned to the engineers. This transformation made the engineers a combat arm. The twelve battalions of sapeurs du genie were combat engineer units, not pioneers. The use of the term 'sappers' for 'sapeurs' is not a direct translation of what the two types of engineer troops actually did and that has to be taken into account when using terminology.

The engineers did build bridges, trestle bridges being their specialty, but the pontonnier units, which belonged to the artillery, were responsible for the pontoon train and for 'throwing' the bridges themselves. At the Berezina in 1812 it was chiefly the 1st Pontonnier Battalion, under General Eble (an artillery officer, not an engineer as he is too frequently described) with attached engineers and sailors, that built the two trestly bridges across that frozen river. The pontonniers suffered 90% casualties, including their general, but they got the remnants of the Grande Armee out of Russia.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Excellent description Kevin.

BTW, the British Royal Corps of Engineers was only 60 officers. I have painted up the entire corps at 60:1!

Thank you very much-I appreciate the compliment. I've been doing a little research on the French engineer arm and it is quite fascinating.

My next little research is into the British engineer arm which isn't talked about too much.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Thanks a lot, sounds like perfect troops for skirmish scenarios.

"tougher than woodpecker lips" – that will have to be remembered.

It's a Marine Corps expression. It tends to stay with you-kinda catchy. ;-)

Sincerely,
Kevin

A while ago I went looking for evidence of French Sapeurs d'infanterie for the Wars of the French Revolution and in spite of my (admittedly limited) research they proved somewhat elusive. The Sapeurs d'infanterie do not appear to have been commonly listed as such in the battalion organisations until well into the Napoleonic Wars. So I read Kevin's revelation that they may have been called "ouvriers" during the earlier period with great interest. If some modern secondary histories have misidentified / mistranslated these chaps as simple none combatant "labourers", and therefore chosen to excluded them from their tables of organisation, that could go some way to explaining why evidence for their existence in the early period is difficult to track down.

However, the alternative might be that they just weren't that common. Sapeurs d'infanterie were certainly a feature of some European armies from at least the mid 1750's onwards (usually forming part of grenadier companies) in the familiar aprons and carrying the famous axes. There is no reason to assume the French did not still have theirs from 1792 to 1802, but I do wonder how universal they were amongst ALL the National Guard and regular army battalions during the tumultuous years of the early Revolutionary Wars? I have, so far, only seen one roughly contemporary illustration of Sapeurs d'infanterie from this period (reproduced in the Opsrey Elite #63, on the French Revolutionary Infantryman, page 5) and he appears to be Garde Franҫaises, so strictly speaking – he is pre 1792. There is also a Sapeur clearly visible in Berton's famous painting of Colonel Rampon inspiring his men to defend the redoubt at Monte Negino (sometimes Legino) in 1796, but it was painted in 1812 and so should be treated with caution as a source.

Can anyone else shed any light on the employment and the uniforms of Sapeurs d'infanterie between say 1792 – 1798?

John Chadderton
Eureka Miniatures

John,

I should have put this in my original posting on this thread, as it is important to the sapeur d'infanterie question.

The actual/official formation, as well as how they were going to be equipped, of the French sapeurs d'infanterie was not settled in the Grande Armee as a whole until 1805-1806. Of course, that does not mean that there weren't any, but that would have been up to the regimental commanders. Seems to me that they would be pretty common at least in the infantry regiments and as already noted, they existed before in the old Royal Army.

This is akin to the 'official' formation of the battalion voltigeur companies when they were authorized in March 1804 in the light infantry battalions and in September 1805 in the line infantry battalions.

Coignet, Teste, and Thiebault all mentioned the formation and employment of eclaireur companies (scout) in their memoirs and letters and they refer to them being in existence between 1796 and 1801.

The 3d company in each infantry battalion became the voltigeur company.

Sincerely,
Kevin

It seems the sapeur d'infanterie (and their forbears, under various nomenclature) were NOT a continuous feature of French armies from the Ancien Régime through to the Napoleonic period. Created in 1710 they were suppressed in 1771; reinstated in 1778-80; suppressed AGAIN during the Revolution, and then restored by Napoleon under the Consulate. Even then they do not appear in the official battalion organisations until a decree of 1808. We also might be guilty of over glamorising them a touch when describing them as "combat engineers", at least as far as the pre Napoleonic period is concerned.

Having spotted the above discussion an associate of ours emailed me with the following information he had tracked down which I reproduce here in full (with his kind permission). There is a fair bit to go through, but worth reading for those interested in the details.

In response to my statement above –

If some modern secondary histories have misidentified / mistranslated these chaps as simple none combatant labourers…

- he writes…

It is perhaps more accurate to say that modern secondary histories have misidentified / mistranslated /misunderstood the main rôle of the sapeurs d'infanterie as some sort of combat engineer or special squad of shock troops. Their main functions were guarding the regimental headquarters, carrying messages, and occasional non-combatant labor such as tree-felling and filling in ditches – and of course looking good at the head of the regiment on parade.

Dictionnaire portatif et raisonné des connaissances militaires …. (1825) François-Gervais-Édouard Le Couturier translation :

"At the heads of regiments one notices robust men, of a distinguished height, having a bearskin, a long beard, aprons of whitened leather, and armed with parade axes – these are the sappers. There is a great difference between these soldiers and the engineer-sappers. These are messengers – they carry the dispatches of the commanders. In the field, they might also cut an opening in a property's hedge-fence and fill ditches. The infantry-sappers, who are counted among the grenadier companies, can be considered like a parade soldier."

link

Dictionnaire de l'armée de terre …. (ed. 1841 – vol. 8) Etienne-Alexandre Bardin translation :

"A kind of sapper who in skills or training have nothing in common with the art of sapping; also, they were not called sappers until the last quarter of the previous century. In 1710, there were created 6 "porte-outils"/"tool-bearers" per regiment …. The Ordinance of 19 January
1747 established 10 "soldats porte-haches" / "soldier axe-bearers" for each company of grenadiers. The Ordinance of 19 April 1766 created 2 "soldats-charpentiers" / "soldier carpenters" per company; …. they replaced the "soldier axe-bearers". The Ordinance of 25 April 1767 gave them a strong axe, a toothed short sword, a black leather apron, a bearskin without plaque 3 inches less tall than those of grenadiers. ….. [sappers were suppressed in 1771, authorized in times of war in 1778, re-established in peacetime in 1780, suppressed again at the revolution, restored again under the consulate] …. No regulations governed the service of the French sappers. They were customarily used (although the ordinances and the tactical instructions said nothing), en battle formations, in the intervals between battalions, aligned with the second rank. When the unit was in march or in route, and when they were staging for a parade, and finally when in presence of the enemy and in column, the sappers of all the battalions of the regiment grouped themselves on the right, with a frontage of the size of a section; they placed themselves in two ranks, and they filed off in front of the drum-major. [sappers were confirmed in the Decree of 18 February 1808, and were first mentioned in a work on tactical doctrine in 1831}" …. in maneuvering, it is well if each adjutant, or adjutant-major, can have his sappers at hand to follow at his heels. ….. {the beards in the consular guard were real, but they were bought from suppliers to the Opera for the imperial guard]. Valued as messengers, serving like toy soldiers at garrison parades, at exercises employed as "huissiers d'armes" / "heralds" or "gardiens de faisceaux" / "guards of arms stands", also found at the entry onto bridges, the widening of a constricted passage, the leveling or the filling of an obstacle on the march – these constitute nearly all the usefulness of these sappers, a usefulness that is contested in the Journal of Military Science. Exempt from fatigues and picket duty when encamped, they were nonetheless taken from among the most robust and well-regarded men. The sappers had a corporal for their chief …. the call for the sappers, their placement in presence of stands of arms, and the direction of their tactical functions, were looked after by the adjudant-majors and adjudants."

link

Again from Bardin:

To attack the works of an enemy, the "sapeurs du génie" / "engineer-sappers" were used, including in small detachments leading an attacking column.

link

There are many examples of this – a notable example being the advance by the troops of the comte d'Erlon on La Haye Sainte. A quick search in google books in French with the words "colonne attaque sapeurs" (without quotes) will yield many more examples.
_____________________________________________

So – what I think our associate is saying here is that the sapeur d'infanterie, while not without their uses, were as much for show, parade glamour, message carrying, and guarding the battalion command assets. When it came down to serious ‘combat engineer' tasks French commanders preferred to turn to the professionals and employed detachments from the Engineers proper at the heads of their columns.

John Chadderton
Eureka Miniatures