"Breaking a Square" Topic

A friend of mine sent me this message over the weekend. I thought it might be of interest to my fellow wargamers.

I subscribe to a Facebook thing whereby "old" [Civil War] reenactors discuss our past glorious deeds and antics. One thing I read recently is thought-provoking.

There was a real good Federal unit that I was friends with, and with whom I marched as a "guest" on several occasions. They relate the story about how they were just basically having fun drilling and so on at some event. They were being challenged and "threatened" by a Federal cavalry unit several hundred yards away. All in fun, of course. Anyhow the cavalry did "charge" them. The infantry went into square.

But…..here is the variable. The ground was wet from some earlier rain event, or maybe just dew….who knows. Anyhow, although the cavalrymen tried to "rein in" just shy of the bayonets, one of the horses slipped on the wet grass. The horse crashed into--and broke--the square. Regrettably, one of the infantrymen was hurt---for real. His leg was broken.

My friend was the one who suffered the broken leg, and he ended up being okay, in the long run. But it does provide food for thought. This doesn't change the fact that MOST of the time the infantry unit in square would be in pretty good shape, provided morale held up. But the incident proves that sometimes one or more of the horses might plow into the square even if it had not WANTED to.

Also shows that with "friends" like that, who needs enemies!

And I told my friend that his incident was similar to what actually happened at Garcia Hernandez, except with a wounded horse.

Jim

Great story thanks.
I love reading about Garcia Hernandez.

Jim,

Do you recall what unit that was? My own group, the Mifflin Guard, is one of the few organizations that routinely practices forming a square. A few times we've worked with cavalry who pretended to attack us. Fortunately, we've never had an accident like that!

Shoulda' just shot them out of their saddles!

I've read there is a few cases in real action this happened as well with injured horses crashing into squares.

In The Face of Battle, John Keegan makes a convincing historical argument about the danger to squares posed by dieing/injured horses. Shooting them before they got too close was always better ! :)

rain features a lot in the 'list' of napoleonic squares which were broken – it is assumed this is because of fouled muskets, but skidding casualties is well worth thinking about too

Glad it didn't happen here – my teenage son is one of the guys directly in the line of this charging horse:

More details: link

I wonder how close cavalry ever really got to a square that had not fired? It's easy enough to ride up to a square at a re-enactment and wave a sword over the lads heads. But in a real action there was always that 'moment of hesitation'. From Clausewitz at the Battle of Prenzlau:"The French dragoons advanced at a gallop, and we could see with what anxiety they awaited the moment when they would receive our fire; when at a range of 100 paces they had received no fire, they more and more drew in on their horses, and finally were approaching us only at a slow trot. Fire was ordered at 30 paces; many fell, the rest lay down in rear of their horses' necks, wheeled about and fled." If the square fired at 30 paces that would probably be further than any horse would slide. wounded or not.
Regards,
Dave

3rd Div

Prenzlau – wasn't that the 1806 battle in which Murat, after cutting up some Prussian units and with just cavalry fooled the Prince of Hohenlohe with a whole Prussian Corps of infantry, cavalry and artillery, to surrender?

I am in Spain at present, without my "hard copy" library, but I seem to recall that De Brack's "Light Cavalry Outposts" contains his views (as a French Napoleonic Brigade Commander) on how to attack a square.

My memory is that he advises attacking on two adjacent faces of the square simultaneously. Given that a typical cavalry half squadron would have frontage of about the same as any one face of a square, this would allow a single squadron to split and achieve this.

I presume the thought is that the two half-squadrons will meet at a corner of the square. There is therefore no way that the cavalrymen on the junction can swerve outwards from the square, and they will therefore crash into it.

This does require a tremendous amound of dedication from the cavalrymen on the inner flanks, but these would of course be officers or NCOs.

I am unaware of it actually being successfully used in practice.

Rod

This is how the KGL famously broke the French square in Peninsular war….a dead horse crashing through allowing the others in

Considering that the Napoleonic wars were 23 years long and that there about 600 "battles" the number of mentions of cavalry breaking a square are very few.

Which really goes to show how hard it was.

And indeed from reading the post above about the fire at 30 paces, it would be some very brave cavalry indeed that charged a square, let alone charged home.

Another method would be to get one half squadron to fire at one face of the square at an oblique angle, with the other half waiting to charge home when enough infantry had fallen.

3rd Div wrote: "If the square fired at 30 paces that would probably be further than any horse would slide. wounded or not."

How experienced were those dragoons ?

"…we could see with what anxiety they awaited the moment when they would receive our fire…"

How experienced was the unit which fired the volley? Was this a squadron versus battalion encounter which Clauswitz is describing or something larger?

If it were such a rarity for cavalry to break squares, why would cavalry have even tried? And that's not to say that breaking a square was easy, but that it did require effort, experience and an expectation that in the doing there would be a certain number of casualties and also that they might not be able to accomplish it.

What would the riderless horses do if the rider was shot off or dead, but the rest of the squadron continued its advance/charge at the enemy square ?

I think the major example of cavalry trying to break squares was Ney's cavalry charges at Waterloo, which went on for quite a while.
Yet surely they knew it was virtually impossible to break a square.

And surely the commanders of the day would have used the tactics most wargamers use.
That is bring you cavalry near the infantry so that they form square, then blast them with your artillery.

Sounds like most wargamers play Waterloo.

Just been reading about the action at first Krasnoi/Krasnyi/Krasnoe, August 1812, in which Murat attacked a large Russian square formed by the Russian General Neverovski. The numerous cavalry attacks failed and even when some cavalry actually penetrated the square, they were said to have been forced out. This contrasts well with the action at Garcia Hernandez, were luck was on the side of the Allied cavalry attacking a French square.

The Black Watch trapped French cavalry – lancers no less – inside when they formed square at Quatre Bras; the horsemen were all killed.

Squares were always able to be broken, we factored in skidding cav 20 years ago, but blinkered gamers still think a square is the absolute in safety.

Its all down to LUCK the curse of war.

M

Great long list of numerous examples here:
link

So, if only 1%-2% of squares attacked by cavalry were broken then it was pretty rare indeed. How many wargame rules only give the cavalry a 1% chance of success?