"March rates and cohesion" Topic

I've been re-reading and reflecting on Rod MacArthur's very interesting series of posts on march rates and formations.

(https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com/miltary-historical-research/military-historical-research/napoleonic-infantry-march-rates/)

The figures he gives support the idea of national characteristics, inasmuch as each country drilled its soldiers in specific march rates, i.e. X paces of Y length per pace, per minute. This has persuaded me that the march rate should be the same for all units in a given army, regardless of how they were formed. Grenadiers didn't march faster than anyone else, nor did columns march faster than squares, because there wasn't a different pace available or taught.

This does raise some unexpected anomalies though. I've converted one of Rod's tables into a spreadsheet to show tactical march rate in yards per minute. It shows that the French ordinary step was slower than everyone else's, at 55 yards per minute, and Austria's (post-1807) much faster at 75.

Nation / pace (inches) / steps per minute / yards per minute

British 30" 75 63
French 26.2" 76 55
Prussian 30" 75 63
Austrian – 1805 regs 30" 75 63
Austrian – 1807 regs 30" 90 75
Russian 30" 75 63

Whether these were sustainable in reality is left a bit open, other than that per the doctrine of the time, they should have been. Units did not have to keep stopping to dress ranks. The idea of the ordinary step was that it was sustainable over most terrain (and there were obstacle avoidance drills to enable this).

Yet the French are noted for battlefield mobility. Were they simply using the quick step more? Was this the pas de charge?

Something that emerges from the quotes Rod cites is that the risk of speeding up the advance was disorder. You got there quicker and were not under incoming fire for as long, but you might arrive in disarray unless you were notably well trained. Does it make sense to allow the French to use the quick step with this risk reduced?

The remarks about column of divisions are interesting too – notably its overuse by wargamers.

Better formatted link:

link

And a very interesting and provocative article.

Jim

Personally, I doubt whether differences in the length of pace and rates of march on the parade ground between various nations would have had any significant effect on their route marching along the – mostly – poor roads of the time, let alone across open country or during a battle. Years ago I was in a British line infantry reenactment unit, and found that we failed to maintain the same number of paces when manoeuvring in display 'battles'.

Yet the French are noted for battlefield mobility.

For the infantry – possibly at the beginning c1796 – apogee circa 1804-1806 – probably more due to grand-tactical practices rather than innately better marching.

Were the French march rates as remarkable in the later periods (1809, 1812-1814, 1815)?

For the French, see Chapter XXIII of John Elting's Swords Around a Throne, pages 459-465. It is full of valuable information on the subject.

Were the French march rates as remarkable in the later periods (1809, 1812-1814, 1815)?

The army marching to Dresden to reinforce St Cyr covered 120 miles in four days-artillery and 'essential trains' on the one good road, infantry and cavalry 'through the fields on either side of it.'-462.

And that wasn't the only time…

Of course… Marching at different levels…

1. Strategic – shaping/responding to battles
2. Operational – the approach to battle
3. Grand-tactical – forming and positioning on the battlefield
4. Tactical – fighting the battle

Obstacle avoidance drills or no, I'd expect a shorter line to have less trouble with real-life cluttered terrain. But the new French drill book gave them some edges in changing formation as well. Overall, put me down on the grand-tactical side, including superior French command structure through the Glory Years, and superior experience right to the end.

Strategic march rate is another story. The Napoleonic French are often quite good, but a lot of their edge is their commander. You find periods in which the Austrians cover as many miles per day, but are still outmarched as their commanders changed their minds and Bonaparte almost always knew his.

"Order, counterorder, disorder."

Maybe the French marched more hours in a day. Not talking about force marching.
Read somewhere the British lights moved at a faster rate then the rest of the army. Sorry no facts to back it up.

I've been a Civil War reenactor for many years. During the ACW march rates were:

Common Time: 28" steps, 90 steps/ minute
Quick Time (most commonly used): 28" steps, 110 steps/ minute
Double Quick Time: 33" steps, 165 steps/minute

Quick Time is easily sustainable for long distances. Double-Quick for a while. Common time seems painfully slow, so these even slower Napoleonic rates are simply glacial.

I think the variation would be much greater in strategic movement, with that difference getting progressively less, the closer to tactical, in the face of the enemy, movement.

The French, as I understand it, maneuvered at a strategic level, more quickly, without it probably having much to do with pace counts per minute. I assume they got up early, packed down their camps more quickly, got moving more efficiently, probably stopped for shorter rest or meal breaks, and made camp again more efficiently at the end of a day's march.

On the other hand, when other armies had to do this, they could. EHK was slow moving into Bavaria in 1809 but made an orderly withdrawal after Wagram and very quickly Napoleon wasn't too sure where they were going or exactly where they were. The Austrian army was not being closed in on by a faster moving French army. EH John was able to retreat through Italy in a similar way. Any rules that gave the French a faster march rate in all circumstances could not reflect that.

On the battlefield, I think they are best reflected by slicker command mechanisms for French and allied armies.

Cheers,
John

a lot of this is drill ground, according to Marmont in 1813 only his Naval artillery units could for example deploy and manoeuvre in line, much more important in my view would be could the trains keep up and in case they did not – see total failure of the Army of 20 nations in 1812, the a pace per minute is completely irrelevant.

Thank you Col Campbell. I have saved the link to read at my leasure. It seems to state that Columns of Division were disapproved of by Napoleon after his 1808 reforms if skirmishers were detached, as they usuallly were. Wonder what the readers of the Empire group would have to say?

For avoidance of doubt I'm interested in differential tabletop mobility here. Strategic march rate is something else (and nobody ever talks about how the instance of straggling rose as march rate went up).

The starting point for this is what tabletop movement rates should look like, from two angles: one army versus another, and one troop type versus another within the same army.

Rod's article says that as there were really only three cadences – Ordinary, Quick and Double – then it was basically impossible for troops to move at any other pace than these. They had not practiced any other pace and it did not change with the formation chosen, because it couldn't. Units would all have moved at the same speed regardless of formation. They did not need to keep stopping and dressing lines, and if they did, then the commander was using the wrong pace for the ground.

The only exception is that marching at the quick step stood a chance of unhinging units. Well drilled units might suffer from this less. So all units can move at any of these paces, but after a move of manoeuvring at the quick step, a unit of Landwehr has a higher chance of becoming unformed than does a regular line unit, which itself is more likely to become unformed than a foot guards unit.

What is then a bit odd is that on paper, the French ordinary step was so much slower. So did they practice moving at the quick step more? So that their true tabletop pace is quick step to everyone else's ordinary?

It does look like I've been doing column of divisions wrong. It seems the three-pairs-of-two-companies-abreast formation isn't allowed in the six-company establishment if the voltigeurs are deployed to skirmish. Furthermore, they aren't all closed up chest to backpack. They're at full distance, meaning you have one pair of companies two abreast leading, followed by another pair at one company's frontage behind, followed by the third pair the same distance behind the middle pair.

So it's not

FFFGGG
FFFFFF
VVVFFF

it's more like

FFFGGG

FFFFFF

VVVFFF

They can rapidly form square by having the left-middle company wheel to the left and the right middle company wheel to the right, while the trailing pair close up and about-turn.

I don't think that Columns of Companies or Columns of Division normally moved on the battlefield at full distance, because it would have taken too long to form square.

The French usually moved in Columns of half distance (whether formed on a Company frontage or Division frontage), because they could form their 3 rank units into 3 rank squares by simply halting, wheeling half of each centre sub-unit outwards then closing up the rear sub-unit. That ought to be able to be achieved within 20 seconds for a well trained unit. If you assume that a French Company has 90 men, so has a 30 man frontage (which is 24 paces). At half distance the distance between companies is 12 paces. The distance marched by the rear Company when forming square is 12 paces, which at 120 paces per minute takes 6 seconds. The rest of the 20 seconds is taken up with giving orders, about facing and tightening dressing.

The British formed their 2 rank sub-units into 4 rank squares by wheeling outwards by quarters of each sub-unit, so the outer quarters formed the first two ranks and the inner quarters formed the rear two ranks. Because of this they normally moved on the battlefield in quarter distance columns. Again it would only have taken some 20 seconds to form square for a well trained unit. At quarter distance there is only 6 paces between companies, but both the last two companies need to close up and about face to form the rear of the square, so again it takes the last company 6 seconds to march 12 paces.

I would also comment that, whilst re-enactors can contribute to understanding of some matters, their experience of maintaining marching speeds and formations is less useful. The amount of close order drill carried out by Napoleonic soldiers every day was many times what modern soldiers do, and many, many times more than any re-enactment unit can hope to achieve. The rhythm of marching at particular speeds would have been absolutely automatic for them, as it is with the best trained modern drill demonstration units today.

Rod

Reenactors are useful, but it should be remembered that reenacting is not soldiering by any stretch of the imagination.

The French 'normal rate of march' the pas ordinaire, was 76 steps per minute. It was the standard marching speed. The pas ordinaire of some of the light infantry regiments was 85 steps per minute.

If the march was speeded up, 'quick time', the pas accelere, of 100 steps per minute was employed (it was sometimes given as 128 steps per minute).

The pas de charge (charging pace) was 140 steps per minute. It was supposed to be 'a cadenced running walk' but was most probably going as fast as possible under whatever conditions when conducted.

Conducting a forced march usually did not consist of picking up the pace but in lengthening the marches length ('doubling the etape) An etape was the length of one day's march with no fixed distance. It was also used to designate where the unit halted at the end of a day's march.

The average length of a march, or etape, 'varied from between 10 and 22 miles. The average etape was about 15 miles. Making a forced march could cover between 30 and 35 miles per day.

Rod, thanks. It's a very thought provoking article. As you note, half distance would allow the middle pair to wheel outwards while the rear pair closed up. As it happens, I mount 1/72 French on bases 11mm wide per figure, and 20mm deep. A French battalion has six three-figure companies on bases 33mm wide. So 20mm deep is not a million miles off half-distance, given that the latter, on a consistent basis, would be 16.5mm. I think you've furnished me with a justification for my (necessarily) over-deep bases: they represent half-distance. Genius.

Kevin, interesting. So it is true that some troop types moved faster than others.

I am still mystified though because a French light battalion at 85 x 26.2" (two metric feet – I checked) steps a minute is still only moving as fast as everyone else's ordinary pace: 62 yards versus everyone else's 63. Yet I have never read a book that said the French moved ponderously slowly about the battlefield.

Agree re forced marches. Years ago in my first club we had a campaign rule that if you marched more than 8 hours, you rolled an extra D6 per additional hour and that was the percentage you lost in stragglers. So in a 9-hour march you might roll a 3 and lose 3%, in the second hour you rolled 2 x D6 and you lost another 7%, in the third hour you rolled 3 x D6 and lost another 11%…if you had to do a ten-hour march, you could easily arrive minus a third of your guys. They catch up overnight if you halt.

It seemed smarter than setting arbitrary march lengths.

Are these ‘inches' all imperial inches?

The pre-metric French inch was a different length to the British imperial inch, for example. So if you just lift the figure direct from the French drill book it will need converting to the modern imperial inch before you can compare with the British drill book figure.

As far as I am aware, each nation at the time had their own system of weights and measures…

true a Prussian Zoll as different to a British inch, as well as a pace was different in almost each army.

I'm sure Rod would know re inches. I did look up the length of a French inch / foot so the 26.2 value above, and the relative rate of British versus French, are correct.

The difference in inch lengths is unlikely to account for the Austrian speeds. At 90 paces a minute they're moving 36% faster than the French, unless their inches were only 3/4 of the size of French ones – which of course they weren't.

The French foot is 3/4 of an inch longer than an English foot.

The French inch was slightly larger than the British inch. If you convert them both to modern metric measurements a French inch was 2.71 cm whilst a British inch was 2.54 cm.

The effect was that a French pace was about 28 British inches, rather than the 26.2 inches it is quoted as.

Rod

a Prussian pace is

1 Preußischer Schritt of 28 Zoll = 73.22 cm

It's kind of beside the point whether a French foot was 12 or 13 inches. The Wikipedia article says that a French metric foot was 32.48cm, in which case a two-foot pace was 25.6 inches. A pre-metric French foot was 12.75 inches.

link

My point is that however measured, the French 'ordinary' step results, per Rod's original piece, in a tactical manoeuvre rate lower than everybody else. The Austrian rate is higher than everyone else's, and by a wide margin. Both of these are exceedingly surprising to anyone who's read anything about this era. Minor discrepancies in the definition of an inch or a foot don't explain this.

So did the French manoeuvre at faster step? Or did they indeed plod about the battlefield at a tortoise-like pace in order to defeat the hares of the Austrian army?

The French, as did the Polish infantry, indeed maneuvered at a faster pace, as outlined above.

I an not convinced it's all up to how big a step is. Maybe in a straight line it might matter but also it should be changing directions, formation, how much moving and halting simulator to a traffic jamb.

Whether these were sustainable in reality is left a bit open, other than that per the doctrine of the time, they should have been.

I don't think most folks realize how 'essential' contemporaries in all the armies considered the pace and cadence to be in 18th and 19th century warfare.

I would also comment that, whilst re-enactors can contribute to understanding of some matters, their experience of maintaining marching speeds and formations is less useful.

I agree with Rod. There were different attitudes held by the armies concerning the trade-off between speed and order/cohesion. The French, starting with Guibert, saw speed or the advance as more important than order overall, order being something that can be re-established, while lost time can not.

M. Guibert A General Essay on Tactics translated into English in 1789 pp. 142-144.

As Guibert's work was a foundation for the French military, it would appear that the French were willing to risk some disorder, where other nations were not, with the corresponding advantages and disadvantages. This view also played into the early French armies' untrained troops, where speed over order became a norm. With this view, the shorter paces weren't as much of an issue against the Allies' longer strides.

On the other hand, the Prussians, British, Austrian and Russians valued order over speed, maintaining longer strides. Regardless, mastering a uniform pace was one of the fist and most important things a recruit in any army learned. Drill Sergeants carried around a 'pace stick' for this very purpose.

Pag 8 Rules and Regulations 1792, page 7 1798, and page 1-2 1824 Reiterated by Torrens

1792

The ordinary step being the pace on all occasions whatever, unless great clarity be particularly ordered, the recruit must be carefully trained, and thoroughly influenced in this most essential part of his duty… [2nd Italics mine]

In all the instructions including Torrens is the following:

Page 1-2 Neither fife, nor music, must on any account be used; it being essential to confirm the Recruit by habit alone in the cadence of step which is is afterward to maintain in his march to the enemy, amidst every variety of noise and circumstance that may tend to derange him. [Italics mine]

In the manner hereafter prescribed, each Recruit must be trained singly, and in squad; and until he is perfect in all points of his duty, he is not to joint the battalion;--for one awkward man, imperfect in his march, or distorted in his person, will derange his division, and, of course, operate on the battalion and line in a still more injurious manner. Every soldier, on his return from a long absence, must be re-drilled before he is permitted to act in the ranks of his company.

I find it telling that the British didn't use the drum or fife to beat cadence, but instead expected every British soldier to learn the 30" pace by heart.

The pace not only insured cohesion at the most basic level when maneuvering, but was the 'speed control' for the commanders, who were always concerned about 'time and distance' issues in engaging the enemy.

I agree that cadence and the pace is very essential to 18th and early 18th century warfare, funnily enough I well realized this as a re-enactor whihc made me understand why it is so essential. The worse drilled re-enactors are, the shorter the step will become, notice some Old Guard re-enactment units which maintain beautiful step and cohesion at a pace of one foot – could they do it with the regular step?

On the battle field – as reflected in the drill regulations, you maintain cohesion as best as possible without being fuzzy -and the strange and odd thing – nobody ever discusses the pas de course.

Whether these were sustainable in reality is left a bit open, other than that per the doctrine of the time, they should have been.

This is from Torren's 1824 Regulations, a near copy of Dundas's 1788-1798 regulations. Here he is speaking of columns and lines of 8 battalions.

page 284

Movements of attack may be made in columns, and the distance from the enemy at which these columns of attack should for in line, must depend upon his position and the natures or the ground:
In general, the line should be formed within 1200 to 1400 paces of a posted enemy, unless the ground particularly favours and covers an attacking force from the fire of his artillery, the enfilade of which is what chiefly prevents bodies in column from approaching nearer; and troops in line will march over that space in 12 to 13 minutes, under the constant protecting fire of their own artillery. Though columns may move with rapidity close to an enemy, yet as they must then form in line, no time would be gained; and their loss would be heavier than when the formation is made at a due distance.

There is a lot of interesting information here concerning how the British viewed an infantry attack and their expectations concerning speed.

With the 30 inch pace, the distances mentioned in paces above are 1000 to 1166 yards. Dundas gave a time of 13-15 minutes crossing that distance, 2 minutes longer than Torrens.

At Torren's rate, the eight battalion formation of infantry in line is expected to march at about 75 paces per minute. [13 minutes to cross 1000 paces.] but to cross 1200 will require changing speed because it would take 16 minutes to cross 1200 paces at ordinary pace.

Obviously, I would think the 'speed' at which they expect the approach to achieve involved changing speeds, probably speeding up to quick time closer to the enemy.

It is interesting that in the ACW, quick time was 110 steps per minute as mentioned by Scott. At 28" per step, to cross 1400-1600 yards would take between 18-20 minutes. Lee ordered the divisions of 'Pickett's Charge' to march at quick time and Pickett's Division crossed that distance in just that time. That included crossing two fence lines, dressing ranks twice and maneuvering at an angle to target the clump of trees as ordered by Lee. That timing is one of the better documented with four sources, though each observer started the charge at different times.

Paces were serious business.

I am now pretty much persuaded that units should manoeuvre at 'ordinary' pace regardless of formation. If they go to 'quick', they roll for cohesion at the end of the turn, with elite units needing a lower score to remain formed than their line peers, and Landwehr needing a better roll still than those. The French move at quick all the time and don't require the cohesion roll.

This leaves me at a loss with respect to 1809 Austrians. I can't relate any of this to what I've read of Austrian tactical speed. Fortunately my Austrians are 1805 so they just move at the same speed as everyone else.

I think in practice the Austrians were no quicker than anyone else. I can't explain those stats but they don't seem to fit with the actual battlefield performance so frankly, I'd ignore them. Leave the Austrians moving like everyone else, assuming they got the orders and acted on them.

In the long forced marches that the Grande Armee conducted, large numbers of stragglers were generally accepted, such as Davout's march to Austerlitz from Vienna in December 1805-70 miles in 36 hours without halting, Friant's division, which conducted the march, had large numbers fall out because they could not keep up.

Officers were stationed along the march route, picked up the troops, put them into wagons if they were available and pushed the remaining troops along to keep up.

The stragglers were rested and then hustled back on the route. In this manner, the stragglers caught up to the division and were given a night's rest and fought an admirable economy of force action at long odds the next morning holding Napoleon's right flank which allowed Soult's decisive attack on the allied center.

while you would manoeuvre the French would use the pas acceleré with 100 paces per minute, attacking, I would assume they would use the pas de charge of 120 / minute, or indeed the pas de course.

One aspect of the marches that is usually overlooked is the 'accordian effect' where if the march isn't carefully regulated according to the terrain, the front of the march column will outpace the rear of the column, causing them to run to catch up.

That hasn't changed over the years…

@ von W

Agreed – in the final distance to contact, you'd expect them to quicken.

The bit I am slightly dubious about is Landwehr and militia. These guys would certainly have been drilled to march at the same rate as the regulars, because you obviously can't have parts of the army manoeuvring at different speeds. But did the Landwehr's relative inexperience mean they had to keep stopping to straighten out; did they just press on to keep up, risking disarray; or were they not allowed onto the battlefield unless they'd mastered this basic drill? Had I to guess, I'd say they could do the marching, but the inexperience might manifest in firing and formation changing proficiency.

Quick march was advocated for some maneuvers and Torrens claims that during the Peninsular War, quick march was much more the norm for the British.

The amount of 'disorganization' an army would tolerate in an advance or maneuver differed between nations--and commanders. I do find it telling that the nations who placed cohesion over speed [Dundas makes that very clear] uniformly had the longer pace. While France maintained the shortest.

Austria, from what I and friends can discover, kept the same pace length from 1755 to 1805: @22" depending on how you parse the Austrian measures.