"Rally points?" Topic

Hi,

Just wondering, when brigades in the period would prepare for an attack, did they often pre-designate rally-points where the troops would be ordered to fall-back on beforehand? There's a lot of mention in battle reports of battalions falling back, reforming and assaulting again many times before breaking through the opposing side. Also, a brigade, for instance, would have supply wagons and such, which would have to be located somewhere in its rear and which it couldn't simply abandon as they fell back. Or would units simply fall back with the goal being to rally as quickly as possible? It seems like the reality was a little more complicated than the standard war game trope of randomly falling back X-inches and then stopping.

Might and Reason was the first game I remember where defeated attackers fell back to their starting position automatically, and I rather liked this more than the alternatives. What are some other unique or nuanced retreat mechanisms out there? How do they match up to historical reality?

I can imagine that a rally point might be designated for something like a night raid on an enemy post, but I doubt that it would be done very often in a stand up battle for the simple reason that it assumes the possibility of the failure, which is hardly likely to generate confidence in the attacking force.
I suspect that what happened in practice is going to depend a lot on whether the unit is falling back in a controlled way or routing. If routing, I assume that units would generally rally at the closest point at which they could be made to rally, assuming that the officers had an interest in making them rally. I doubt that the average routing soldier gave two hoots about the concept of protecting the baggage.

It was a rather common practice. Regulations had SOPs for rallying and surprisingly, most all armies had the line as the rally formation.

A defensive line would already have a 'rally point' designated, which was often important when retreats or withdrawals would be behind the second line [which was a common rally point for any first line…] Units attacking would generally have their rally point where they deployed for the advance [generally 1100 to 1500 yards from the enemy or outside artillery fire]

Wellington once told a fellow officer [Around 1826 IIRC] that all troops rout/run at some point. Being prepared for that eventuality was the trick.

This is a great question! I've always wondered what happens to routing troops. Do they desert completely? Do they disappear for the remainder of the day but come back the next day at chow time :) Or do they simply rally somewhere close by and come back to the battle after a short break. Seems like a predefined rally point would suggest the latter.

The rallying point for any battalion would be the battalion's colour party. That was one of the purposes of carrying colours into battle.

AussieAndy and Major B have it right, I think. I find it highly unlikely that the men in the ranks would be briefed about a rally point since it would give them an excuse to leave the ranks and head for it. The officers might possibly be given a fall-back point, but in practice the rallying point would always be the colors. Each battalion would rally on its own colors and then, hopefully, the brigade commander could get all his battalions headed toward the same place.

Would not the Brigade commander and his aides act as rallying points for the whole brigade. I.e they would stand behind the line of attack of defense and rally any battalions battalion commanders have failed to rally!

In theory, I suppose, but in the smoke and confusion of battle it might be pretty hard to do. Still, this is a very good question. I've always been curious about what happened to all those troops in d'Erlon's corps after it was repulsed at Waterloo. There were something like 16 battalions involved. What became of them? They weren't all killed or wounded. Did they rally? Just keep fleeing? Where did they all end up?

I think it was either a guy on his horse swatting with the flat of his sword or the color party and a real tough NCO

There is a difference between two things we are using interchangeably:

1) designated rally points
2) points at which troops might rally when running

The first is where men know they are likely to find their unit if separated and when officers know to attempt to reform such men.

The second is more dynamic and refers to wherever men are when they are able to 'rally' up from bad to better morale.

I believe the OP is about the first.

Cheers,

The Bandit

But both are interesting are they not? And how well do games represent them?

Hi all, glad to hear that other people have thought about this issue before. I was really more interested in any SOPs that may be involved but the psychological aspect is also of interest.

As far as SOPs go, I don't think that the rank and file of certain armies/formations were ever specifically told, 'hey, if the attack fails, rally at x location." The officers, especially the brigade or division level officers, must have planned for this however. That being said, I think that the conditions that would lead to a brigade being forced to retreat/route and the conditions that would cause a single battalion in an organized assault to tactically fall back and rally around the colors a few hundred meters back are very different. A battalion could rally much faster than a brigade could, and exponentially faster than a division or a corps. It would be folly, I think, to assume that a division should be able to rally and recover order because the component brigades have rallied. Rallied brigades might be a prerequisite for the division getting back into action, but they should only be a condition. There's a lot to account for here and a lot to take into consideration.

Threat level, for instance, and a basic distance over which the men could be expected to run before exhausting themselves, plus enemy pursuit actions, terrain and friendly supporting elements. The flip side of this is the victory effect, where troops that see off an assaulting enemy or who successfully assault gain an advantage in the accuracy of fire and morale- American kriegspiel marks this advantage in shooting at 10-15% if I recall. That's very siginificant in terms of real world combat effectiveness, as high as oblique fire.

I've read a lot of letters, diaries, memoirs etc by men who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, both officers and other ranks. I can't remember any reference to a pre-determined rally point.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence, of course!

In nearly every description of battle, the sequence goes more or less like this –
1. we were ordered to advance against the enemy in front of us / the enemy advanced on us
2. fighting of some sort happens
3. the enemy were repulsed and we ended up in a field/wood/village / we were repulsed and ended up in a field/wood/village.

The implication is always that an attack is expected to succeed.

Troops who run/rout/whatever are probably not acting in a predictable manner so it is hard to work out what they might do. Not all of them will do the same thing, for a start.

My guess is that the majority will head in the direction they came from until they feel safe. Or knackered! Hence the importance of having Cavalry available to chase beaten troops!

One big thing that comes across from reading contemporary accounts is how limited each mans' perception of the event is. They can usually see and are concerned with only their own small part of the battlefield. So they might not run far before it seems safe to stop, making it easier for their officers to restore order.

That being said, I think that the conditions that would lead to a brigade being forced to retreat/route and the conditions that would cause a single battalion in an organized assault to tactically fall back and rally around the colors a few hundred meters back are very different.

Yes, but we must avoid the temptation to think of a brigade as a single entity. In reality, of course, a brigade is made up of a number of battalions. Each battalion would rally to it's own colours (as you say a fairly quick process), but then each battalion commander would look to the brigade commander for further direction as to what to do.

forwardmarchstudios,

I've actually made a detailed study of this very topic. Here's what I can tell you from my research.

1. For Brigades & Divisions (Offensive) their Ralley point would typically be approximately 400m behind the line of contact with the enemy and would take advantage of a prominate terrain feature if available. This statement is also supported by Napoleonic battlefield doctrine that directed Attacks be conducted in two (2) Lines. The second Line roughly 200m behind the first (out of musket range).

Thus any unit falling back to ralley, would fallback behind this supporting line <AND> out of musket range, which is ~400m.

2. This distance is also substantiated by the fact that an Attacking Brigade or Division size unit (that has not been Routed yet), could typically Attack retreat and ralley 2-3 times within the time space of 1 hour. Which if look at the simple battlefield math of: one attack, retreat & ralley equaling approximately an 800m round trip (i.e. 400m up and 400m back) for the unit. And that they could perform this trip (by attacking) up to three times in in 1 hour, that's rougly a marching distance of 2,500m total. Now hazarding an optimistic guess that it would take a Brigade size combat unit at least 10 minutes to ralley & reform and You have a valid solution that fits nicely within the time and space boundaries I have explained above.

This research was based upon a sampling from three battles. The Austrains at Marengo 1800, the Prussians at Dennewitz 1813 and French at Waterloo 1815.

Regards,

James

Interesting

This statement is also supported by Napoleonic battlefield doctrine that directed Attacks be conducted in two (2) Lines.

Is that true for all nationalities?

Thus any unit falling back to rally, would fall back behind this supporting line <AND> out of musket range, which is ~400m.

But surely just falling back behind the supporting line would put them out of musket range without going 200m further back?

"Yes, but we must avoid the temptation to think of a brigade as a single entity."

That's what I meant, haha. I mean that a brigade is more than the sum of its parts, both in offensive capacity and in C2 considerations.

Analsim- that's some interesting information. The time hacks you've come up with are very interesting to me, certainly. I'm curious about a few more points you mentioned as well, but I may have to get to them later on tonight. In the meantime, I was wondeirng if there was any artillery to be factored into those situations? It seems like rallying under cannister fire might be quite difficult, or at least more difficult than under certain other conditions.

It seems like rallying under cannister fire might be quite difficult,

I would think it almost impossible.

AussieAndy and Major B have it right, I think. I find it highly unlikely that the men in the ranks would be briefed about a rally point since it would give them an excuse to leave the ranks and head for it. The officers might possibly be given a fall-back point, but in practice the rallying point would always be the colors. Each battalion would rally on its own colors and then, hopefully, the brigade commander could get all his battalions headed toward the same place.

The rank and file were the ones who had to be rallied. The dynamics of most uncontrolled retreats would have the colors retreating last in most cases, with all the men retreating before them. It was an understood SOP, not something that troops would have to be 'briefed' on each time they went into battle and more than they had to be briefed on where the regulating battalion/company would be. That they practiced this rallying would certainly indicate they planned for it.

As James points out, there were expected points for rallying, and thousands of men didn't do it in ten minute intervals by happenstance.

The idea was to rally in a protected spot, not within canister range. IF there was a supporting line that the retreating units passed through, then they would not be direct targets. It would be very hard to rally men while under fire. That is why the rally points attempted to avoid such situations. It is also one reason why the enemy would chase retreating men… to deny them the time to rally safely.

Divisional artillery sometimes followed advances and was intended to provide the support behind which retiring infantry could retire and/or rally – on the other hand, sometimes this was not enough and the collapse of the command led also to capture of the command`s guns.

One example in the Peninsula is Massena's rearguard withdrawing from the Lines of Torres Vedras. Markers (standards, NCO, officers) were sent across the stream and took up positions for the new line then the line in combat was ordered to disengage and move rapidly to rally on the new position. This is a "rout" by command? Whether this is SOP or documented because it is unusual I cannot say.

Bugeaud makes the following observation. "Your men run away, let them run for a little, for it would be useless to attempt to stop them in the first moment of fright , and you would waste your breath and energies. You were in front of your troops before they turned around, and of course now you find yourself behind: follow them closely, calling near you sublterns and best men, in order to draw them away from the mass that flees and to form, while going on, a first nucleus; then, as soon as you meet with any accident of ground or anything favourable for rallying, increase your speed, push on before your men, face them and give the command to halt, engaging both voice and gesture to be obeyed."

After Leipzig French corps were designated rally areas and staff officers directed the troop (formed or otherwise) to the corps rally areas. (Marbot I think)

When considering rallying a brigade or larger formations then one battalion can be expected to be designated the regulating battalion so that the individual battalions can be aligned to their proper place in the brigade.

Whether this is SOP or documented because it is unusual I cannot say.

I *think* it is unusual in that it was used for a controlled retreat. the use of 'markers' to designate the rally point [usually marking the two flanks of the line to be formed with fanions or flankers is SOP. It would make sense that if the regulating battalion can be formed, other battalions could then reform on it. I haven't read of that though.

forwardmarchstudios,

Let me add a couple more pieces to this puzzle before addressing your question regarding artillery.

For ease of future discussion let's simply call this reorg/rally area the 'Rally zone' and assume that it can exist 400-600m away from the enemy.

At this distance, two (2) other major factors come into play. The first is that by no strange coincidence this Rally zone exists at the 'maximum effective' range of artillery canister fire for 4-12 lbs. guns. The second factor is the average Line of Sight (LOS) at ground level, in Europe is ~600m.

So, it isn't likely that Artillery canister fire is going to be very productive, 'IF' the Artillerymen were fortunate enough to be in a position that would enable them to bring fire on this Rally zone in the first place.

The Battlefield commanders were aware of these types of factors and included them within workings of their tactical/operational doctrine.

Regards,

James