"Napoleonic National differences." Topic

In addition, doubling down with contemporary accounts that fit one's prejudices is narrowing the world to a place where because they said it back then , it must be true. But is the sampling large enough? Do all the officers who left memoirs talk about these national differences or just a few?

Argh. What I have been saying, and providing evidence for is:
1. What they believed was true, AND more importantly,
2.How that influenced what they did in combat and the attendant decision-making.

Without #2, it is just opinions being expressed, not national characteristics.

Do all the officers who left memoirs talk about these national differences or just a few?

So, how many are necessary to be more than a few? It also matters is who talked about them. For instance, ALL the major French military thinkers of the 1700 and early 1800s mention them in debating how war should be successfully fought by the French.

Guilbert, who most agree was very influential in France's development of the French way of war during the Napoleonic Wars goes to explain how these beliefs shaped his conclusions on how the French should fight. This is true for each national army of the period.

However, these ideas and their applications/evidence on the battlefield are all over military thinking, memoirs and post-analysis of battles. Do all officers mention them? No, particularly when they were 'common knowledge.'

Perhaps the survival gene for French officers wasn't so much in what they saw but in how much they went along to get along? We might have what they wrote but we don't know what impulses motivated them to write their observations; they may not even have themselves understood their own motives. We can't assume that French officers were always driven to objective, military efficiency; maybe they were writing to be "fashionable". Certainly, by your own submissions, they didn't seem to want to recognize that their infantry did not want to always charge a la bayonet. This illustrates the exact opposite of a "Gallic" national charging character and makes me wonder if the French just did not want to properly drill their units and, further, whether their officers stayed in command due more to shortages of replacements rather than "survival of the fittest" reasons.

de Charge:
I didn't want to ignore your lengthy missive. It had some terrific observations.

Those are all reasonable questions, several 'Perhaps' and possible answers. How do you determine their accuracy? By the evidence, as has been noted, IIRC by you.

For instance, speaking of what drove French officers. The French officers had a 6% casualty rate compared to the British 4% in the same theater. [According to Oman's research.] How does one explain that 50% discrepancy? Well, you look to see if:
1. it was noticed by the combatants at all,
2. if noticed, how it was explained by the French and British.
3. Also determine what was seen as the French and British officer roles in combat, and
4. note if they explain it referencing National Differences.

@ 4th Cuirassier

To know if it looks like Napoleonic warfare?

I don't know what the Napoleonic wars and other wars were like and no wars for that matter, but it seems more innovative to me despite being 32 years old. And its author has a good reputation…

And it is a rule well purified of various details which began to become tiring,as the tactical factors due to the equipments and national characteristics, ect…

@ McLaddie

So, how many are necessary to be more than a few? It also matters is who talked about them. For instance, ALL the major French military thinkers of the 1700 and early 1800s mention them in debating how war should be successfully fought by the French.

A point often lost on the more shrill advocates of imposing their own anachronistic 20th-century opinions onto the 19th century is that these same opinions have not been arrived at in any "better" way. They're just dogmatic repetition of the current received wisdom, affording an opportunity to pose a bit and feel oneself superior to people who don't agree with you. The same people would have done the same thing in 1805, when the received right-on wisdom was quite different, for the same reason. You don't often come across contemporary accounts suggesting that the writer's own side is somehow deficient by its national characteristics. It's everyone else who's deficient by theirs.

The main difference between now and then is that soldiers of this era had a lot of empirical opportunities actually to test their assessments of their own and their enemies' national characteristics. A Russian commander who eccentrically thought his troops' tenacious character would deliver excellent volley fire despite three rounds a year of firing practice was at liberty to give it a go. A French commander who imagined that the British fire discipline he'd heard about was a disgraceful racist myth was free to close with British lines, and debunk it by showing how easily he could win the firefight. British cavalry commanders who perversely thought their men's superior horseflesh and stalwart British character would see off French cavalry had a number of chances to check this out and see if it was true.

Funnily enough, no contrarian views seem to have lasted if they ever existed, whereas the majority of the conventional views survived the era intact, almost as though they were borne out by experience. The French belief that the French were better in the attack, for example, was still in tactical evidence in 1914-18. After that experience they abandoned attack as too expensive an approach, adopted a defensive doctrine, and proceeded to lose the next two wars they fought off their new defence-focused approach.

It's probably not knowable why these differences existed. The claim that they did not exist at all usually unpacks into an anachronistic political insistence that they should not, overlooking all the evidence that they did. You could just as well argue that a Roman army should not have been disheartened by bad auguries because we know they are superstitious bunkum. Superstition or not, what matters is what they made of them at the time, because expectations shape conduct.

You don't often come across contemporary accounts suggesting that the writer's own side is somehow deficient by its national characteristics. It's everyone else who's deficient by theirs.

4th Cuirassier:
Well, certainly there are many examples of that "Us good, them bad" in contemporary writing. However, when you read observations on National Character by all the nations' military men, that isn't the case:

[The French] had at that time [the reign of Gustavus], as in this day, their first moment of force and impetuosity, that shock, which in one instant nothing can oppose, and in another the most slight obstacle can repulse; an inconceivable intrepidity of courage, which at times is able to surmount everything, and a panic very often carried to the greatest excess of weakness…

written by Guilbert in his Essay on Tactics, p. 108 and generally accepted by French officers.

The French generals have early discovered the advantages resulting from dispatch; it is besides wonderfully adapted to a people, naturally impatient and greedy of novelties. Dispatch multiplies their strength, by promptitude of of re-union; it facilitates their enterprises, and spreads astonishment and trouble [to the enemy]; and in defeats, it soon carries them out of the reach of the enemy. [They retreat with dispatch…]

Page 18 of the French Army's publication The Character of Armies in 1800. Translated by the British [1804/1809], Austrians and Prussians.

A point often lost on the more shrill advocates of imposing their own anachronistic 20th-century opinions onto the 19th century is that these same opinions have not been arrived at in any "better" way. They're just dogmatic repetition of the current received wisdom, affording an opportunity to pose a bit and feel oneself superior to people who don't agree with you.

I would imagine that because we're in the 21st century this either means I'm not part of this anachronistic group, that it it means Bruce Quarrie or it is a reveal of how reactionary the author of this statement is.

I dont see how it is a problem to not want to use an ethnic sliding scale of merit from someone who admires an institution which used an ethnic sliding scale of merit. Btw, Bruce Quarrie's love of the SS and ethnic obsessions got hims into trouble in other areas, not just his books and rules.

If anyone thinks that I'm dogmatically repeating received wisdom, which I imagine means "virtue signalling" you'd imagine they wouldnt have to avoid a head on discussion or fear having their own unsavory preferences bared.

A French commander who imagined that the British fire discipline he'd heard about was a disgraceful racist myth was free to close with British lines, and debunk it by showing how easily he could win the firefight.

This is sad hyperbole. Who has conflated these two ideas except for the author themself? British fire accuracy and discipline is well documented due to British military professionalism and has nothing to do with race. In fact, I myself propose this plus firing modifier for British infantry.

This hasnt anything to do with the nature of the British as a people but with the refusal to derive modifiers from a rules writer who seems to have sipped a little too eagerly from Himmler's grail.

You could just as well argue that a Roman army should not have been disheartened by bad auguries because we know they are superstitious bunkum. Superstition or not, what matters is what they made of them at the time, because expectations shape conduct.

Do many rules give special characteristics like this to ancient armies? I think it's the opposite where every nation's particular class of soldier is considered equal.

de Charge:
I didn't want to ignore your lengthy missive. It had some terrific observations.

Those are all reasonable questions, several 'Perhaps' and possible answers. How do you determine their accuracy? By the evidence, as has been noted, IIRC by you.

I am not sure what you are proposing vis-à-vis Napoleonic rules? The French (and the British) had a low opinion of Spanish soldiers but they seem to have given the French plenty of trouble. Sure, they had unreliable elements but this was more a question of how they were used by their commanders. The empirical Spanish fighting qualities were the same as those of any other nation's soldiers of a like recruiting/training grade and not native to their desire to get back to a "siesta".

Another example of contemporary writing not really reflecting reality involve black troops during the ACW. Plenty of people writing at the time, including Lincoln himself, had reservations about the ability to both train and motivate black troops to fight effectively but they were ultimately wrong. However, based on what they wrote should we make black ACW units unable to maneuver or more likely to rout?

Even at a tactical level, the pluses and misuses of national characteristics really even out between nations. There are a couple of exceptions but really nothing to suggest that the ethnic character of troops makes them fight radically different from each other. There are a couple of modifiers but too many modifiers distract from the game itself, except for a few players who might derive sadistic pleasure from watching Spanish troops always run away.

I dont see how it is a problem to not want to use an ethnic sliding scale of merit from someone who admires an institution which used an ethnic sliding scale of merit. Btw, Bruce Quarrie's love of the SS and ethnic obsessions got hims into trouble in other areas, not just his books and rules.

I don't see it as a problem either. I was just suggesting that Napoleonic contemporaries had a view of armies' National Characteristics that they believed and used over a 20 year period. It might be interesting to use.

I am not sure what you are proposing vis-à-vis Napoleonic rules? The French (and the British) had a low opinion of Spanish soldiers but they seem to have given the French plenty of trouble.

True, but that isn't what the accepted notions of the National Characteristics of the Spanish were. This is what the French manual says about the Spanish National Characteristics in 1800, and generally accepted across Europe: I have italicized the points made concerning 'national character' as opposed to descriptions of neglect in the army.

The Spanish Army*

In military matters, the Spaniards are as backward as in the year 1740. They are neither disciplined nor instructed. Place one of their regiments inline with another of any nation, and it looks like. an assemblage of beggars; yet these beggars are nevertheless the descendants of those who once domineered over Europe, and conquered Africa. Had they leaders, they might return to what they were.

No troops are more sober, patient of hardships, and submissive to their officers. It is not from the care which the latter take of their soldiers that this originates, for, in fact, they [officers] never trouble themselves about them; it is the sergeant-major of each company that manages everything in it. Their pay is very irregular, and their maintenance and mien detestable, with the exception of the Spanish and Walloon guards. The misery of the soldiery forces them into scenes of disorder and rapine. During a siege, they have been known to destroy their own trenches and the works that covered them, in order to steal earth bags, and sell them for a Few pence.

The cavalry was in great repute during the wars of Spain and Italy. Like the infantry, they have degenerated, and are inferior to those of other nations.

The listlessness and ignorance has pervaded their other troops, arc visible also in the Spanish, corps of artillery and engineers. Their guns are clumsy, heavy, and badly kept up.'

Promotion in Spain is very slow, and goes entirely by interest at court. The most importunate generally succeeds, while merit, which has' no credit' with those in power, must expect to crouch in subaltern commissions.

The Spanish army is capable of being brought to excellence sooner and more easily than many others; because it possesses in itself courage, high points of honour, a spirit of subordination, and firmness in hardships: at present it is every where in an evident state of inferiority, calculated to humiliate a soldier once brave, haughty, and naturally fitted for war.

The ignorance and presumption of the Spaniards save them perhaps from acknowledging or feeling this lamentable truth.

* This was written before the late Revolution, which has proved so honourable to the Spanish character, and which will doubtless enable their soldiers to retrieve the national glory. [The Spanish beat the French briefly during the Revolutionary wars, the French suing for a separate peace.]

Even at a tactical level, the pluses and misuses of national characteristics really even out between nations. There are a couple of exceptions but really nothing to suggest that the ethnic character of troops makes them fight radically different from each other.

I am just saying that is not how Napoleonic Officers saw it, for instance, in the French Text on National Character:

The Austrians possess that system of tactics which had hitherto been so much dreaded by the French, and which rests wholly upon discipline, science, and order. It has been seen, in the preceding article, that the properties of the French armies are different. The French soldiers are impetuous; their courage requires something to excite, and movement to keep up its warmth. Their attack is more violent; but they are not, like the Austrians, able to sustain a regular and open fire from the line; they have not that moral and physical immobility, which, without being affected, can see whole ranks fall beneath the bullet, and whole files swept off by the cannon. The courage of the French is less constitutional than artificial; emulation and vanity are its most powerful incentives: honour, example, and habit, keep it up to its proper pitch.

The instant the ranks are broken, the Austrians become like a flock of sheep, dispersed and incapable of being reunited [Unlike the French]. They carry their fear of being outflanked to a degree which is ridiculous and extravagant; it might indeed be called a national disorder, or weakness.

I was just suggesting that such descriptions could be built into a game's tactical combat system.

I sort of tripped over these examples yesterday of how military men were always justifying military decisions based on National Character:

From Duhesme, Essai sur l'infanterie légère (1814)
[Again, I've italicized the points regarding Naptional Characteristics, imbedded as they are in the text.]

French success credited to "French genius":

Page 177

These skirmishers, whose fire is so murderous, which, scattered on the front of our battlefields, precede the charge of our battalions like swarms of furious wasps, whose cries, shots, and impetuosity are to the terrible charge‐step of our line of battle or of our columns, what the flash of lightning, the sound of lightning, are to the thick and devastating cloud which they announce; these are new means of destruction which this last war has brought to light.This kind of fighting has always been particularly suited to the genius of our nation; we owe to it some beautiful rays of our military glory in the preceding centuries…

Disorder a product of French vivacity [Something Guilbert discusses and accepts in modeling his ideas regarding the advance of French infantry.]

Page 213
…,if it was a hedge, they made as wide a passage there as they could, without stopping too much the battalion which passed this obstacle with French vivacity, perhaps a little in disorder; but the chief of the battalion, immediately alter the passage of the obstacle, halted it and put it into order to continue his march.

And the explanation for not having rifle-armed French troops:

Page 220-221

Perhaps it would be an opportunity to discuss whether it would not be proper to give our voltigeurs the rifled carbine, whose range is so long and so accurate; but besides that I wish our voltigeurs to charge with the bayonet, and not lose the advantage which the impetuosity of our nation gives us by this charge, I shall observe that we have made, and I particularly have the experience of these rifles; that we were obliged to take them away from our chosen companies, who in the light infantry have retained the name of carabiniers, and to give them the ordinary caliber musket with its bayonet.

And then repeated later:

Page 441

My skirmishers will also have bayonets, they will not remain behind; no only will they have followed this charge, but they will accompany it, and will throw themselves upon the guns and into the openings of the enemy's line. It is in such moments that shine with the greatest splendor, and the genius and courage of our nation; this is what our enemies call this French fury to which nothing has ever been able to resist, whenever we have been able to employ it and support it appropriately.

What is interesting is that while the bayonet is referred to as their troops' 'favorite weapon' in the accounts of the British and Russians, there is no reference to 'British or Russian fury,' or requiring their light infantry to forgo using rifled muskets. The Austrians and Prussians never suggest the bayonet is their troops 'favorite weapon.'

Such 'reasoning' in military thinking and subsequent practice is everywhere in Napoleonic narratives and studies.

Hmmm

For the War of 1812 you could have

Americans – +4 when talking about the USS Constitution

@ All

Thanks