"Wellington’s Guns: The Untold Story of Wellington..." Topic

… and his Artillery in the Peninsula and at Waterloo.

"The history books have forgotten the artillery of Wellington's army during the Napoleonic Wars, but in this book Nick Lipscombe offers a study of the gunners through first-hand accounts, bringing life and color to their heroic actions.

Wellington was, without doubt, a brilliant field commander, but his leadership style was abrupt and occasionally uncompromising, especially to his artillery. He trained his infantry generals as divisional commanders but not army commanders; for his cavalry commanders he had little time often pouring scorn on their inability to control their units and formation in battle; but it was his artillery commanders that he kept at arm's length in particular, suspicious of their different chain of higher command and of their selection through ability, rather than privilege. In consequence, Wellington's relationship with his gunners was dutiful at best, and occasionally failed completely. Frequently frustrated by his lack of control and influence over the artillery off the battlefield, Wellington would occasionally over-exert his authority on it, personally deploying the guns sometimes against the advice of his experts. Wellington's personal distrust culminated in a letter to The Master General of the Ordnance in December 1815 in which he commented, 'to tell you the truth, I was not very pleased with the Artillery in the battle of Waterloo'. This resulted in the mistaken belief that the gunners performed badly at this crucial battle, supposedly abandoning their guns and fleeing the field, in direct contrast to French eyewitness accounts.
Wellington's Guns is the long overdue story of this often stormy relationship, the frustrations, challenges, the characters, and the achievements of the main protagonists as well as a detailed account of the British artillery of this period. Even with the valiant contribution of some 12,000 gunner officers, NCOs and rank and file, five battery honour titles, and numerous primary accounts, this is a story which has never been told. This despite the fact that the artillery itself was revolutionized during the course of the Napoleonic Wars from developing the vital 'danger-close' missions in the woods of Hougoumont, Belgium to the mountain gun attacks during the Pyrenean campaign of the Peninsular War and creeping barrages and Congreve rockets in all theatres, with the ultimate result that the artillery itself became a crucial component of any future and indeed modern army."

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Amicalement
Armand

Excellent book-highly recommended.

Indeed an excellent book, but as someone else said it would have been better titled 'Wellington's Gunners'. There is little on the technical and tactical side but a wealth on the reality of life on campaign and the vagaries of advancement under the Board of Ordnance which was by seniority and not by purchase.

Absolutely. It is a tale of interpersonal conflicts and the tribulations of working with the bureaucratic command structure. Personalities far more than guns. A good read nonetheless, but not quite what I was hoping for.

Not sure the tale of the "British" artillery has yet been told, half as well as the opposition's!

Spot on Deadhead. This book gives the story of people and Franklin's 'British Napoleonic Field Artillery' gives the technical side par excellence. However, the true tactical tail is yet to be told.

The problem with the British artillery arm was that there was never enough of it.

In Portugal and Spain the British artillery had to be augmented by the British-trained and -equipped Portuguese artillery arm, and in Belgium in 1815 allied artillery supplemented them.

Luckily, the KGL was a British unit.

Thanks for the guidance boys!.

Amicalement
Armand

Tango01

A good book yes, but not as good as I hoped. And most of the maps are also far too small. But the prints, both colour and black and white are fine. Definitely a book worth having.

Thanks my good friend… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

The problem with the British artillery arm was that there was never enough of it.

That's an interesting point. As the one arm (I'd include the Engineers with them for this purpose) requiring considerable technical training for all ranks, how did the French cope with providing "enough" (were there ever?) gunners?

The French artillery schools (plural) began in 1679 at Douai. Woolwich was modeled on them.

Gribeauval, among his artillery reforms, revamped the curriculum and began a professional school for artillery NCOs.

The French had the added advantage of having their commander-in-chief being an artilleryman and the French artillery arm had reestablished their reputation as the finest in Europe by 1789.

In 1809 the field artillery arm consisted of eight regiments of foot artillery and six regiments of horse artillery, of twenty companies each and six companies each, respectively.

A foot artillery regiment consisted of 2,582 all ranks and a horse artillery regiment consisted of 524 all ranks. With the artillery train, artificers, veteran cannoneers, pontonneers, the garde-cotes, the French artillery establishment counted 46,489. This does not count the Artillerie de la Marine, the naval artillery arm.

The establishment was large and a proportion of the yearly conscripts would go into the artillery as replacements.

I believe we've covered the British engineer arm before and it should be noted that they were poorly trained in the taking and defense of places and their enlisted arm was not fully established until 1812-1813 (see the excellent volume, Wellington's Engineers).

The French had fixed the latter problem in 1792-1793 thanks to Carnot who had battalions of sapeurs du genie organized and fielded and who ordered the miners transferred from the artillery to the engineers.

Thanks for that. Was there a process for selecting recruits from each year's conscript intake? Is it right to assume that men were chosen on the basis of size and intelligence or literacy?

The French selected their gunners for size and intelligence because that was the requirement for the arm.

It was a lot of hard work, and not just in combat.

I'll leave out the stupid gags about size and mattering.

Instead, I will ask, in all seriousness……if conscripted into artillery, how long did one serve?

I am thinking of the investment in training vs infantry, (or even a drummer………)

I know that I could head out to the garage bookshelves to find Swords around a Throne….but it is subzero out there tonight

Until discharged or killed in action, if you were conscripted. Those badly wounded or disabled were discharged or were put in a veterans' company.

There were also voluntary enlistments, and some of those conscripted stayed in the service because they liked it.

I haven't found any evidence of anyone having a different time in service requirement based on the arm of service.

Wasn't the Old Guard soldiers enabled to be used as gunners too?

By memory that happened at Wagram…

Amicalement
Armand

Yes-it's in Coignet's memoirs.

Thanks Kevin!. (smile)

My bad memory still works…

Amicalement
Armand

It was a lot of hard work, and not just in combat.

Kevin is correct.

Look at the strength of a battery, say 110 men and about 100 horses to look after. Plus the maintenance that has to be done on the guns on a regular basis. One of which was greasing the axles of the gun carriages, that is hard enough job with a Civil War 12pdr as I know from personal experience; the Napoeonic guns were heavier.

Generally estimated that an artilleryman work twice as hard as a cavalryman or three times as hard as an infantryman on any given day.

Good data my dear cousin!.

Many thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand