"Organization of French Revolutionary Armies 1791 - 1801" Topic

"As the Revolution in France began to gain momentum, France found herself at odds with most of the powers of Europe. After war was declared in 1792, Europe experienced an almost continual state of warfare for the next ten years until the Peace of Amiens was signed in 1802. Throughout this period the French military experienced significant changes, most notably…"

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Armand

Excellent and very helpful.

Déjà vu, same thread previoulsy opened few months ago

for a while I think to declare war agaisnt all unjustified translations from french especially in english-speaking military terminology given that, aggravating circumstances, in this field the english cames heavily from french vocabulary and both languages can be very similar and so there is often no excuses at all :

here a good example with only basic simple geographical historical terms

Army in the Dutch Republic (Armée dans la République Batave) !?
Army of Holland (Armée de la Batavie) !?
Army of Holland is renamed the French-Dutch Army (Armée Gallo-Batave) !?

Army of Switzerland (Armée d'Helvétie) !?

nope the Dutch State at that time was the "BATAVIAN" Republic sometimes reduced to Batavie-BATAVIA,
nor Helvétie-"HELVETIA" is "Switzerland" what is the excuse to use others words?

or you choose to translate the names and titles or you choose to let it in the original language but not something inaccurate… an "entre-deux"

without pity, without mercy we could add that the "Midi" usually translated in South not only in this page is not a good translation,
a chance that French Armies didn't count "Armée du Sud" with another "Armée du Midi" or an "Armée du sud du Midi"!

Traduttore, traditore

Thanks Kevin.

Armand

Was the infantry on an 8-company or 9-company footing in this era? AIUI, voltigeur companies were around before they were formally authorised as such. But were they a further company additional to the standard eight, or were they a repurposed existing company leaving eight others of an original nine?

my understanding is that the battalions sent parties of men out from each company, the same men did this duty creating the impression of a separate company perhaps. I cover this in my new book Throwing Thunderbolts a Wargamer's Guide to the War of the First Coalition 1792-7, and this is the period my remarks refer to. This link is to an introduction to my book youtu.be/CyW2x341iU4

Regards

Garry

That's interesting because in the original eight-company organisation there were seven fusilier companies of 100-odd and a weaker grenadier company of about 70. This looks a lot like "pick the 10 biggest men from each fusilier company". The units which had voltigeur companies before 1804 presumably did the same to muster those. So I wonder if the addition of a voltigeur company added any new heads, or simply subdivided the same ones differently.

The Reglement specifies 8 Fusilier and 1 Grenadier company.
In ‘Bayonets of the Republic' John Lynn devotes a chapter to what he describes as ‘Open Order Combat in the Armee du Nord. Several OOB for the period refer to Tirailleurs, which I think were ad hoc formations of infantry for skirmishing duties in the advance guard. Sources also refer to groups being deployed as skirmishers ahead of and on the flanks of the army during an advance.

A lot of the OOBs confuse the many light battalions of volunteers, giving different names for the same units. Even the commanders at the time seem to use differing names or shorthand. For example the battalion of light infantry at Boxtel, was the newly formed 3e/30e DB Legere but has been variously referred to as 3e Regiment d'Infanterie Légère, 3e Bataillon Troupes Légère, 3e Bataillon de la Demi-Brigade
d'Infanterie Légère and the 3e Bataillon Infanterie Légère.

youtu.be/CyW2x341iU4

Regards

Garry