" P o w s what to with them not that many gendarmes huh? " Topic
19 Posts
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serge joe | 11 Dec 2014 8:51 a.m. PST |
To,What to do do with te tousands of p o w s in the austerlitz campgne? T here were not that many colditzes smile best to you all the last days before X mess serge joe |
serge joe | 11 Dec 2014 12:01 p.m. PST |
gents, In case You missed this one? greetings serge joe |
deadhead | 11 Dec 2014 3:16 p.m. PST |
I get the impression that prisoners were often put in the supervision of cavalry, till safely in the rear. A single mounted man is far better at keeping a larger number of disarmed foot sloggers in check, on the road. All accounts of Waterloo use this as some excuse for the progressive depletion of Wellington's cavalry at Waterloo, certainly. After that, the poor devils are counting on a peace and getting home. In British hands they end up on Dartmoor, or in an estuary hulk, making model boats out of their pork chops. The officers may get home in a swap or en parole. Final option is an escape, as with Lefebvre Desnouettes and a few other notables. Just got the final Volume of the Waterloo Archive today, suggesting that not all prisoners were spared, especially if their captors faced defeat. Not a subject often raised. You have done it again. I hope you get a more authoritative answer. I would like to know, not just for 1805-6 |
Marcel1809 | 12 Dec 2014 4:28 a.m. PST |
French dragoons were ideal for that sort of tasks, being mounted and musket armed |
SJDonovan | 12 Dec 2014 5:55 a.m. PST |
According to Elting in 'Swords Around a Throne', prisoners taken during the Ulm-Austerlitz campaign were sent to France via Bavaria, Wurttemberg and Baden, where local recruiting officers were allowed to enlist anyone who was willing. The rest were put into prisoner labour battalions, the officers of which were French, taken from the retired lists of the National Guard. Enemy officers and sergeants were kept separate and not required to work. After the peace treaty of 1806, Austrian prisoners were given the choice of remaining in France or returning home. |
mysteron | 12 Dec 2014 8:09 a.m. PST |
It was OK if you were an officer . In England , French Officers signed a parole declaration , from which they were found board and lodgings in a town and paid as well. Unbelievable isn't it . Normal soldiers weren't so lucky. The best they could hope for was Dartmoor Prison. Seaman were in particular targeted to be kept out of the way because of the amount of time it took for them to be trained compared to a couple of weeks for a normal soldier. |
SJDonovan | 12 Dec 2014 8:36 a.m. PST |
Apparently, the men in the French prisoner labour battalions were paid for their work, minus deductions for the cost of new clothing and shoes. The system was administered along the same lines as the French army units, with each prisoner being supplied with a 'livret' – a sort of personal passbook listing his name, appearance, background and possessions. |
serge joe | 12 Dec 2014 12:30 p.m. PST |
O K Not only the austerlitz campagne but all europian campaignes starting with te revolution wars! greetings as Always serge joe |
Lilian | 12 Dec 2014 12:42 p.m. PST |
the Napoléonic 38 Prisoners of War labour battalions in France-Belgium-Netherlands were not raised before 1811 and mainly from Spaniards, the POW's were usually sent to the interior of the country with their women and children, some of them could have a job as "free" prisoner working in the farms with the french peasants, in the schools as profesor, as artisans in the cities… The French conscripts complained that they were locked in their barracks by their officers in the evening while "prisoners of war" were still wandering in town, a British officer has done and written a "Tour de France" when he was "prisoner" |
xxxxxxx | 12 Dec 2014 2:27 p.m. PST |
If captured by Russians, in general …. If caught by angry local Russian peasants, the peasant generally stole everything (including clothing) and often killed the enemy soldiers. If caught by Cossacks, everything of value was looted (it was part of the Cossacks' compensation) and the prisoner was brought in, if convenient or if someone had specifically requested prisoners be obtained. Otherwise, they were usually just left. To increase the number of surviving prisoners, the government started paying a bounty for them. This worked well, as one might imagine. If an officer was taken (for which a higher bounty was payble), there might even be some effort to return his looted items (buying them from the peasant or Cossack who brought him in, if needed). If wounded, an officer would receive the same medical care as a Russian officer. He was then taken rather deep into Russia and lodged with a host family, often where there was some affiliation (such as the captured officer and the host family both being Masons). In general, the march to the place of internment could be difficult, but treatment upon arrival was typically excellent. For other ranks, if wounded other than very slightly, there would not be too much effort to bring him in – the unwounded ones being easier to move in a group (the bounty for non-offiicers being lower). The march to interment was often quite brutal – mostly due to incompetence, disinterest and venality than any actual plan to negliect the prisoners. But, upon arrival, they were more or less let loose (under police observation) in small groups in villages in the Russian interior. The local authorities received payment for their billeting and upkeep and the prisoners were free to work for wages (at a trade, as dancing or language instructors to the local gentry, etc.) or barter handicrafts. Conditions were really rather good and a substantial percentage (maybe 1/3) refused repatriation and became Russian citizens – including one of the oldest survivors of the war, a French chasseur à cheval that lived for many decades as a French teacher in Saratov on the lower Volga. Escape from internment in Russia was really not an option – the distances, the language, the internal police and travel controls. - Sasha |
deadhead | 12 Dec 2014 3:06 p.m. PST |
Sasha has added a really good outcome for any prisoner (of lower rank). You join in and assimilate with the locals. (Beats a firing squad or worse!) Your other respondents make another point. You actually work for the "ENEMY" ……probably subjects of a related monarch before our era. I like to believe Sasha's version, when I read of the Berezina. Those who chose not to cross and were left behind, were invited to work for the local community, whilst watched by the local police. Which is nice…….. Actually, his reply is almost worth a book in itself. The Masonic influence, but it could never be published, the chance of survival, if an officer, those who really did make their lives in a a very foreign country. Serge Joe, there is still something very strange about your postings, but your topics are brilliant. I thought this was one of your oddest. I now think there is a book in this……..if the high level evidence is still there |
xxxxxxx | 12 Dec 2014 7:55 p.m. PST |
Deadhead, Russia of the era was rather feudal …. which explains alot about their treatment of prisoners. To the Russians, there was an almost instinctive equation of officer = noble, and a noble should not be ill-treated. They *knew* that the French promoted from the ranks, but the instinct was to consider officers more valuable as human beings. The enemy other ranks were even a stranger thing : free (non-serf) and often middle class. If there were few nobles in Russia, the non-noble middle class was vanishingly small and typically not actually ethnically Russian. So when these strange creatures were marched off to some village in the Vologda governate or the Perm concession (very very far from the "front"), they were really quite locally famous and treated with interest by the locals (and carefully maintained by the local administrators who had to account to government for them). Actually, if you, as a foreginer, go to some remote village in Russia even today, you get much the same interested and rather friendly reception. That said, the poor wretches at the Berezina mostly died. Estimates of "stragglers" abandoned by Napoléon are in 40,000+ range and – if memory serves me – only about 8,000 prisoners from the Berezina lived through being caputred and marched to the interior. The long-lived chasseur à cheval in Saratov was one of these. In terms of writing a book, there have been at least 2 (possibly more) general studies of these prisoners – and thier stories are often part of local historians' researches. The theme of the foreigners coming as "conquerors", losing the campaign, then be well treated enough to refuse repatriation and then often taking on the character of local celebrities as well as loyal new Russian citizens is an appealing one to Russians, naturally. It is funny, you occassionally see a name in Russian that looks clearly like a French surname transliterated. I suppose if my wife and I had a child who stayed in Russia that someday someone might see my French last name printed phonetically in Cyrillic characters and wonder if my family was really from one of the prisoners of long ago. - Sasha |
serge joe | 14 Dec 2014 10:33 a.m. PST |
dear Dead head . Thanks For this compliment Serge Joe, there is still something very strange about your postings, but your topics are brilliant. I thought this was one of your oddest. I now think there is a book in this……..if the high level evidence is still there greetings serge joe |
deadhead | 14 Dec 2014 11:08 a.m. PST |
Alexandre, Ireland is full of stories of folk who claim descent from shipwrecked Spanish sailors from the Armada. Any who did survive the Atlantic and the West Coast of Ireland….last thing on their mind was the local girls! Must agree about traditional Russian hospitality, if you once get away from the Tourist areas. Serge Joe. Must ask….how the name???????? I almost imagined Sergei at first….. |
serge joe | 14 Dec 2014 11:55 a.m. PST |
Just Joe from the Netherlands down south a province called north brabant near the town eindhoven a village called best a long the route to nuenen remember brothers in arms? ww2 greetings serge joe |
deadhead | 14 Dec 2014 1:09 p.m. PST |
I remember Eindhoven from a Bridge Too Far (and Bs in As of course). First of the bridges before Nijmegen and Arnhem… Best! Yes of course…..just came back to me…….from Bs in As!!! |
xxxxxxx | 15 Dec 2014 6:41 a.m. PST |
Very interesting, as always, post from the much esteemed Steven H. Smith on the Napoleon-Series: link Image of Cossacks direct recruiting among French/Allied prisoners. Never did I know of this before. Cossack status and hence even ethnicity was, initially, voluntary – the Cossack Hosts were at first of very mixed races or ethnic groups, people who sought freedom or a new life among a "free" people. It would appear that this still applied in the early 1800's. Fascinating. Note on the right the table with Cossack uniforms to be issued to the new Cossacks.
- Sasha |
Supercilius Maximus | 17 Dec 2014 12:25 p.m. PST |
From the style of the uniforms – particularly the headgear – is it not possible that this painting is from the Crimean era? |
deadhead | 17 Dec 2014 12:54 p.m. PST |
Might have been painted then. That is so often the problem. That conical shako for example. But the lapels turned back, the czapkha (however you spell it). This was intended to show Napoleonic…… |
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