Napoleon's Waterloo Army: Uniforms and Equipment

INTRODUCTION

The Hundred Days of Napoleon’s return to France in 1815 need to be seen as a continuation of the war of 1814 and lessons learnt from that campaign. Napoleon had to control Paris to prevent its capture by the Allies, and entrusted Marshal Davout to this task. Napoleon knew he had to act quickly before the Allied armies could concentrate. He had numerical superiority against the Dutch-Belgian-British forces and against Blücher’s Prussians, and had to crush each army in turn with local troop superiority to win the campaign. This haste resulted in the army not being as sufficient in horses, men and munitions as was needed. Time, the great limiting factor of the 1813 and 1814 campaigns, was a commodity Napoleon was short of, once again. The army Napoleon fielded lacked both horses and trained men. It was the rump of the army of 1814, with a smattering of experienced officers and men, and was far from being the ‘best army Napoleon had ever commanded’ to use the words of David Johnson.

With this book, I aim to describe the Armée du Nord as it was on 18 June 1815, and explore for the first time what the army was really like.

Our study is based on two forms of evidence: personal testimony and empirical hard data. What follows is a discussion of these sources to enable the reader to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the material used in the creation of a narrative about Napoleon’s last army. The material used has undergone a variety of processes before it was read by the author. Not all the archival paperwork prepared in 1815 has survived to the current day. Not all written memoirs of participants have survived. Those cited here are just those the author could identify—many more may exist in private collections, museums and libraries, and they may well tell a different narrative from that presented here. The narrative has been constructed from the sources available to the author. A vast resource, as yet untapped by the vast majority of researchers and historians for understanding the Battle of Waterloo, as well as the Napoleonic era in general, are the regimental muster lists preserved in the French army archives. These are called contrôle nominatif troupe. Every officer and man who joined the army had their personal details recorded in a contrôle book. Every member of the Legion of Honour had a dossier of their military service, as well as baptismal certificates and other relevant material, such as medical notes and date of death. These sources provided bias-free empirical data from which we can reconstruct the life story of the Battle of Waterloo from the French combatants. Empirical data, as defined by the Annales School, is obtained from records concerned with data capturing in a quantifiable way, which in this study comprise:

•Daily strength returns giving the number of men and horses under arms

•Personal service records

•Equipment and uniform purchase and issue ledgers, receipts of purchase and similar documents.

The personal service record is primarily obtained from the relevant contrôle nominatif troupe and contrôle nominatif officer held in the Service Historique de la Défense Armée de Terre at Vincennes in Paris. These volumes record information relating to every officer and man that was enlisted into a regiment. The information usually comprises age, height, place of birth, physical appearance, their service history in the army, dates of promotion; and if the individual was wounded, captured or deserted. If men, deserted were killed or were made prisoner, it was important to know, so the regiment could stop the man’s pay and also request new recruits. Therefore, the data on the whole is largely bias-free. However, the fate of men in a battle was only recorded by the company adjutant into the register at muster parades after the battle, and the remaining men informing the adjutant of their fate. The source, therefore, is fallible, which is why, as we will note later, we undertook a secondary study to check the viability of these records. These muster lists are the largest single source of empirical data for the Armée du Nord and form the core of the resulting study of the campaign.

These volumes were printed with pro-forma pages so that, in theory, every man enlisted in the army had the same information recorded about them. In order to conduct a data-gathering exercise from these volumes, a team of Napoleonic-era researchers was put together to search both the ‘registre contrôle troupe’ as well as officers’ muster lists and service papers for members of the Legion of Honour.

The date of entry of every man in a regiment is recorded, as is the fate of the men; for example if they retired, passed to new regiments or, of importance to this study, if they were killed, wounded, made prisoner of war or deserted. In this way, when the data is entered onto a spreadsheet, we can search our data to identify if any correlation exists between men who had been prisoners of war, and if they became prisoners at Waterloo or if they deserted. The data shows that the bulk of former prisoners of war deserted at Waterloo. We can hypothesise that the treatment of prisoners was so prejudicial to soldiers that the men would rather desert and face the threat of a firing squad than become a prisoner again. What the data also shows is that length of service and rank was no barrier to desertion. Veteran non-commissioned officers with ten or more years’ service were as likely to desert as a private with less than a years’ service. In this manner we have collected data for all the Imperial Guard, all the line and light infantry, and what books exist for the cavalry, artillery, engineers and train troops. In 1944 the archives at Vincennes were badly damaged when the chateau was partially destroyed by the Gestapo. The chateau had been the headquarters for the Gestapo, and when the allies were closing in on the city, the plan was to destroy the place and any incriminating documents. This means that several documents are not available for use by researchers due to water damage, notably for the 5th Légère, 7th Hussars, 12th Chasseurs, 1st and 12th Cuirassiers, 2nd to 6th Chevau-Légers-Lanciers, as well as the 6th and 8th Artillerie à Pied. Overall, my research colleagues and I, however, despite this lack of access to material, have collected approximately 70,000 points of data. In addition, almost 5,000 additional data points have been recorded from the register of prisoners of war retuned to France, as well as 6,000 data points for members of the Legion of Honour and état de service records, making a data sample of well over 8,000 with, in some cases, triple references for many officers and men.

For men awarded the Legion of Honour, we can double check the man’s entry in the contrôle nominatif troupe by cross-referencing with the archives of the Legion of Honour. By comparing these two documents, we can see that men who were at Waterloo often don’t mention this in their état de service or official service papers. A number of men are listed as wounded in the contrôle nominatif troupe and not the état de service, and vice versa. It must be remembered the état de service was compiled when the men left the army, whereas the contrôle nominatif troupe was written in the days immediately after the battle. Despite the often conflicting nature of these two sets of records, comparison of the two has been a valuable check to both sets of archives.

The état de service also provided a wealth of detail on the battle. Many officers and men proudly write about their military achievements. A lot of officers and men left the army soon after Waterloo, and are thus writing about their experience of the battle while still fresh in their heads, and before their memories have become contaminated by what they have read about the battle. As legal documents, which had to be signed by the officer or man’s regimental colonel and a review inspector, who would no doubt question the events the individual wrote about, these records have more value than memoirs and letters home, and have more validity, as they are in essence sworn statements which would easily be questioned by comrades and senior officers. This untapped source of firsthand accounts for the battle and campaign as a whole has provided over 200 new accounts of Waterloo.

The dossiers for legionnaires also hold medical records. These records report the injuries sustained during the empire period, or the injuries sustained at Waterloo, which caused the person to be invalided out from the army. These data points help us to start to understand what happened to a regiment and the type of fighting it endured. For example, a high proportion of men wounded with sabre cuts compared to gunshots suggests a cavalry attack. High, or exclusively, gunshot wounds indicate a fire fight between infantry. This data can also be recorded on the various regimental muster lists. By compiling the data from the two sources, not only can we give total casualties to company level for around 80 per cent of the French army at Waterloo, we can also look at the type of injuries, which therefore tells us more about the military operations a unit was involved in.

The 80,000 data points have given us new insights on the battle. By looking at which companies of a battalion took the most casualties, we can start to say on which flank a regiment was mostly affected.

One of the great problems concerning archive material is that it is often incomplete, either from the vagaries of preservation or the loss of documents in more recent times. Housed at the French army archives is a dossier of all surviving correspondence for the Armée du Nord in the Hundred Days. The archive catalogue tells us that the box containing correspondence for the Waterloo period covers the dates 11 to 26 June. However, upon analysis, since the catalogue was created in the 1890s, the material relating to the period 25 June to 3 July, which is supposed to be in the archive box, is completely missing. No copies of this lost resource exist. Therefore, we are totally ignorant of what material existed.

Adding to the material from the Legion of Honour records and regimental lists come the records of prisoners of war. Two data sets exist: one in London and one in Paris. Neither list is complete, with approximately 75 per cent of the 4,200 or so French records not being found in the British lists. Nor, can many of the men actually be found in the relevant muster lists—either they gave false names to the British, or the names were written down phonetically and are thus unintelligible. Therefore, we have to combine the two data sets to create a single entity. However, where men are recorded in a muster list as shipped to England and returned to France from imprisonment, we can chart the individual after Waterloo. These records mean that we can test the muster lists to ascertain if a man recorded as prisoner really was made prisoner. By cross-referencing the muster lists with the prison lists, we can confirm the number of men made prisoner and taken to England, and confirm the number of men per regiment who really were made prisoner. Thus, as we shall see, this new data set has a very major impact on our understanding of the battle.

Finally, we must also stress the role of the writer in the creation of the narrative. We all have preconceived ideas and personal biases about historical events based on what we have read about the subject, our own political, economic, sociological and ideological grounds; these will impact the way the historian interprets the source material. No historian is free from bias. I am pro-Napoleon and anti-Britain at the start of the nineteenth century. I endeavour, though, to be even handed and offer critique against Napoleon and his commanders where it is justified.

I also need to make it clear that the narrative of events of the Battle of Waterloo and others of the 1815 campaign can only be based on remembrances of participants. We have no hard empirical fact for what actually occurred or when. The casualty data does not say when men were killed or wounded, merely on 18 June 1815. What we can say is who the men of the French army at Waterloo were, what they wore, and crucially, what happened to them. This book is the only indepth study ever conducted on the French army in 1815. Only by understanding the army, its loyalties, its strength and weaknesses, can we start to contextualise the written orders and eye-witness testimonies used to create a narrative of those fateful days of 1815.

The army under the Bourbons

When the Bourbon monarchy was restored to power in 1814, they inherited a bankrupt and demoralised country, fatigued after almost twenty-five years of fighting. The army was ill-equipped and under strength. Some regiments were little more than a battalion or squadron strong. The army was to be consolidated around a hard-core nucleus of veterans.

The army was to be commanded by a council of war, formed from Napoleonic veterans, organised as follows:¹

Marshals: Augereau, MacDonald, Ney

Minister of war: General Dupont

Infantry: Generals of Division Compans and Curial

Cavalry: General of Division Latour-Maubourg, General of Brigade Preval

Engineers: General of Division Lery

Artillery: General of Division Sorbier (also first inspector general of artillery), General of Brigade Evain

The Guard: General of Division Kellermann

War administration: General Marchand

Military administration: General of Brigade Felix.

These men were chosen for their talents and merit and one of their first actions was to reform the army to a peacetime footing. The royal ordinance of 12 May 1814 disbanded the imperial army.² All three arms were culled. Only the senior regiments of cavalry and infantry were to be taken into the new Royal Army. The infantry was reduced from 156 regiments of line infantry to 90. The decree stated that:³

The 112th, 113th, 114th, 115th, 116th, 117th, 118th, 119th, 120th, 121st, 122nd, 123rd, 124th, 127th, 128th, 130th, 131st, 132nd, 133rd, 134th, 135th, 136th, 137th, 138th, 139th, 140th, 141st, 142nd, 143rd, 144th, 145th, 149th, 150th, 151st, 152nd, 153rd, 154th, 155th and 156th Regiments Of Line Infantry and the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 34th, 35th, 36th and 37th Regiments of Light Infantry are to be disbanded. The fifteen regiments of tirailleurs, the fifteen regiments of voltigeurs and the two regiments of flanqueurs are to be disbanded and the men transferred in accordance to the minister of war to the first 105 regiments.

The cavalry was reduced from 110 regiments to 56. The 13th and 14th Regiments of Cuirassiers, 1st, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 21st and 30th Regiments of Dragoons, the 7th,  8th and 9th Lancers Regiments, 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th and 31st Chasseurs à Cheval and the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th Hussars regiments were disbanded.⁴

Initially the 7th Hussars were named ‘Hussars of Orléans’ under the decree of 12 September 1814. The new regiment was formed through the merger of 33 officers, 918 men and 380 horses from what remained of the 7th Hussars, with 18 officers, 73 men and 87 horses from the 1st Hussars and 9 officers, 24 men and 16 horses from the 13th Hussars. By 8 October 1814 the regiment had four squadrons of 4 officers, 393 men and 392 horses. The regiment became the 7th Hussars again in April 1815, mustering on 10 June 37 officers, 413 men and 500 horses. By 2 July 1815 the regiment had 32 officers and 348 men.⁵

The 1st Regiment of Light Horse Lancers was disbanded and its cadre was used to form the King’s Regiment of Lancers. The new regiment was formed from the remnants of the 1st and 9th Regiments of Lancers, as well as incorporating the 4th and 5th Squadrons of the 29th Regiment of Chasseurs à Cheval.

The 2nd Chasseurs à Cheval became the ‘chasseurs of the queen’. To do so, the rump of the old 2nd Chasseurs formed the 1st Squadron. The 2nd Squadron was formed from 5th Squadron of the 16th Chasseurs and 3rd Squadron from 2nd Squadron of the 26th Chasseurs. The 4th Squadron was formed from the remnants of the 31st Chasseurs, 5th Squadron from what remained of the 11th, 12th and 13th Companies of the Chasseurs à Cheval of the Young Guard, and finally 6th Squadron from 3rd Squadron of the 2nd Regiment of Éclaireurs of the Imperial Guard. Under the decree of 10 August 1814, the 14th Dragoons, some 207 men, were merged with the 3rd Squadron from 24th Dragoons (some 120 men) and 24 men (all that remained of 5th Squadron of the 21st Dragoons) to form a new 14th Dragoons regiment.

In essence, the new royalist authorities took what remained of the army and consolidated the men into fewer regiments. This made perfect sense. France no longer needed a larger army and it was better to have 56 strong regiments as opposed to 110 weak regiments of cavalry. It also saved having to call up new men to the colours through unpopular conscription.

As well as changing the organisation of the line, the Imperial Guard was reduced to six regiments. A royal ordinance of 12 May 1814 stated:

Article one. The infantry of the ex-Old Guard will form two regiments of three battalions each; the first regiment to be called ‘the Royal Corps of Grenadiers of France’; the second to be called ‘the Royal Corps of Chasseurs of France.’

[…]

Article three. All the regiments of infantry and mounted troops will have the same organisation as their respective regiments in the army of the line.

Article four. The officers, sub-officers and soldiers will receive the high pay in the proportion to that established for the ex-Old Guard; they will continue to hold their individual prerogatives and rank assigned with the army.

Article five. Our minister of war is charged with the execution of this ordinance.

Another royal ordinance of 12 May reorganised the French infantry; each regiment was to have three battalions, each six companies strong, of which two were elite companies.

État major:

One colonel

One major

Three chefs de bataillon

Three adjutant-majors

One quartermaster

One standard bearer

Three medical officers

Three adjutant sub-officers

One drum-major

One corporal-drummer

One band master

Eight musicians

One master tailor gaiter maker

One cord maker

One armourer

Company:

One captain

One lieutenant

One sub-lieutenant

One sergeant-major

Four sergeants

One fourrier

Eight corporals

Fifty-six grenadiers

Two tambours

Four vivandières-blanchissueses per battalion (twelve per regiment) Two enfants de troupe per company (six per battalion).

The formation decree stated that the entry requirements for the Royal Corps were that the nominated men were to have served in four campaigns and have served in the army before 1812. A royal ordinance of 21 May 1814 stated that those men of the Guard who had been prisoners of war were also eligible for readmission into the Guard with their old rank and pay. The men of the ex-Young Guard were to be incorporated into the depot of the ex-Old Guard regiments based on their length of service, but the vast majority were taken wholesale into the line battalion by battalion so that the flanqueur-grenadiers sent a battalion into the 10th Regiment of Line Infantry and another to the 11th Regiment of Line Infantry. One of the most enduring and pernicious myths surrounding the Imperial Guard during the Bourbon Restoration is that the Parisian cafes were filled with former Guard officers and half-pay men who had been ejected from the new Royal Corps of grenadiers or chasseurs, grumbling into their coffee. Yet such an image does not stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

As a result of this reorganisation, a great number of officers were placed on indefinite leave or half-pay. The suggestion that the army and the veterans in 1814 were treated badly is pretty much a myth, though obviously the army felt badly used at the time. With peace it was necessary to reduce the size of the army; far better to consolidate over 150 regiments into fewer full-strength regiments and, above all else, for a bankrupt state to cut costs and save money. Dupont, the minister for war who rallied to the Bourbons after his treatment by Napoleon over his supposed treason at the Battle of Baylen, was essentially an honest man and did his utmost to ensure fair treatment for the veterans. There was always going to be discontent about former émigrés being given appointments, but the Bourbons rightly felt that those who had supported them during their exile had a claim on their gratitude.⁶ Dupont, via the king, issued the following order:⁷

Paris, 25 June 1814

War-office order of the day

Having laid before the king an account of the orders given for accelerating the organisation of the army, the minister for war has called the attention of his majesty to the generals and officers of all ranks who compose the staff. Their number amounts to 4,400. A staff so considerable is evidently out of proportion to the new formation of the French army, and requires numerous reductions. But if the situation of the public treasury and the peace establishment render these reductions necessary, the affection of his majesty for his brave armies induces him to wish that such an object should be accomplished with all possible consideration, and that the change from the emoluments of active service to those of a state of inactivity should be less felt than the circumstances under which it is affected would seem to permit. His majesty deigning, at the same time, to attend to the interests of the officers of every rank, and of all arms, has ordered that the general and other officers of the army, the inspectors of reviews and commissioners of war, shall receive their full pay to 1 September next, with the deduction of the indemnities attached to active service. At that period, the officers of every rank who may have received no appointment shall enjoy at their places of residence the half-pay of their rank in active service.

The corps of the army having been dissolved in consequence of the treaty of peace, and all the regiments being now stationed in their garrisons, or being on the march to proceed to them, and receive their new organisation, the officers of every rank, who are not in actual employment, will repair to their [illegible] domicile, unless authorised to the contrary; and orders are given that they shall receive in their department the pay of active service granted them to 1 September next.

This benevolent disposition will be received by the staff and officers of the army with more lively gratitude in consequence of it proving his majesty’s attention to everything connected with the interests of his troops and how much he in particular appreciated the services and devotion of their chiefs.

Signed Count Dupont, minister of war, Paris, 25 June.

The concern over the pay of half-pay officers and the issue of pay still outstanding to officers with the army and on half-pay was sufficient to result in the following proclamation:⁸

Paris 25 Aug. 1814

The minister of war has addressed the following circular to the commissaries of military divisions:

Sir, the king, who pays very particular attention to the fate of the military, having charged me to render an account to him of the state of payment of soldiers on half-pay and discharged, I made known to his majesty the delay which this branch of the service has experienced under the late government.

His majesty, anxious that brave men who have shed their blood for the glory of the French name should not languish in want, has given me special orders to cause to be discharged without delay, not only the pay of the current quarters, but also the arrears left by the last government.

In order to fulfil his majesty’s intentions, I have placed at the disposal of the divisionary paymasters, funds destined wholly to discharge the first quarter of 1814 and the greater part of the second. I have at the same time taken measures in order that the portion of the second quarter, still in arrears, may be discharged by the end of September next.

At the same time, and in conformity with the will of the king, the paymasters will receive all the necessary funds for completing the payments for 1813, in order that those arrears may be entirely paid off at the end of the third quarter.

I beg you, sir, to contribute by all the means in your power to the execution of the paternal views of his majesty, who desires that this important service should no longer experience delay and that it should be watched with all that interest which the soldiers who are the objects of it must necessarily inspire.

Receive, sir, the assurance of my high consideration.

Count Dupont, minister of war.

Clearly, Dupont was actively engaged in the welfare of these men, which numbered no more than 13,382 individuals.⁹ These men were given the right to fill up to two-thirds of the vacancies when they occurred in regiments, so at least their outlook was not totally bleak. The reduction of the army was harsh on many individuals, but it was carried out fairly and honourably. Men returning from captivity in other countries as prisoners of war were, where possible, entitled to fill the vacancies in regiments for officers, sub-officers and men in precedence to those on half-pay under the terms under article eleven of the ordinance of 12 May. Some officers grumbled and did not get paid, like Sub-Lieutenants Pierre Auvrary, Lauthonnye and Lemarois, who were sadly victims of bureaucratic error; there were arrears of pay for two campaigns to arrange as well as issues relating to returning prisoners, and it would be surprising if everything had progressed smoothly with no mistakes. Given the vast scale of the undertaking, it took time to settle each and every claim.¹⁰

Another way both Dupont and his successor as minister for war, Marshal Soult, found to provide reward to virtuous officers and men, both serving and on half-pay, was a mass issuance of crosses of the Legion of Honour. The award came with a small stipend, and by honouring these men that Napoleon had not done, it was hoped it would bind these men to the monarchy just as the decoration had bound men to Napoleon. In its small way it achieved what it set out to do. Napoleon indeed scattered hundreds of crosses to the army from April 1815 onwards to tie men to his cause with the coveted cross. Some 5,415 legionnaires were created by the Bourbons and some 5,092 by Napoleon during the Hundred Days.¹¹

The royal army in the spring of 1815 mustered some 12,113 officers and 183,780 men, and when one counts the gendarmes and veterans, this swelled to 203,776 men. Further, if we count those men on leave, the total manpower theoretically available to the monarch increased to 245,248, some 41,742 men being on leave accompanied by 12,000 officers.¹²

Under Napoleon

Paris in spring 1815 was restless with rising unemployment and increasing taxation. The Congress of Vienna was busy endeavouring to redraw the map of Europe; the process was far from easy. France backed by her allies, Austria and Great Britain, was on the verge of declaring war against Prussia over the fate of Saxony, one of Napoleonic France’s allies. To face this crisis, the French army needed to be brought up to a war footing, and brought up to strength. One of the last acts of the monarchy in the spring of 1815, on 9 March, was to call up 12,000 half-pay officers and 30,000 half-pay men, of which it seems some 8,952 men returned to the army.¹³

Into this political milieu stepped Napoleon Bonaparte in March 1815.

When Napoleon returned to France in spring 1815, we forget that he was forced to do so as the treaty he had signed with the Allies on 13 April 1814 had not been upheld—Napoleon was out of sight and out of mind as the Allies debated a new vision for Europe in Vienna. Napoleon was denied his rights and income as agreed by the Congress of Vienna. Given no treaty existed between Britain and Napoleon, the British government had no grounds on which to declare war, and moreover was bound by no treaty to pay the stipend to the former emperor. Regardless of the legal arguments about treaty violation, the Congress of Vienna declared war on Napoleon and not France or the French people, and sought to replace him with the Bourbon monarch. Clearly it was assumed with Napoleon gone, the war would be over and that would have no further ramifications in France. Little thought had been put into what happened when the war aims were over. The Allies pressed for regime change, much like wars of recent years, but thought little of the implications that would happen.

Napoleon also faced civil war: Generals Grouchy and Lamarque were dispatched from Paris to crush the rebellion. Grouchy, for his service, was made a marshal of France. In the north, General Allix issued a proclamation to the Departments of the North urging them to rally to Napoleon, stating ‘for the last three months your old oppressors and their agents have announced the arrival of foreign troops…these foreigners will not respect your liberty and independence… it is impossible for the Bourbons to save your beloved country, other than with war and civil war’.¹⁴ Historian Charles Esdaile notes the desire for Napoleon to return was far less than to remove the Bourbons, and as soon as war returned to the political agenda, popular and political support rapidly fell away from the new regime. He ruled not by consent of the people, but the desire of the army.¹⁵

On his return to France, Napoleon inherited an army of 235,000 men under arms, but wanted to mobilise a force of nearly one million men to face down the vast Allied threat.¹⁶ The only resource of manpower Napoleon could call on was the return into the ranks of the soldiers on limited and unlimited leave and the recall of numerous deserters carried on the muster-rolls as ‘absent without permission’. Napoleon could not reintroduce the hated conscription. Almost all of these men on leave the war ministry felt could be counted on to rejoin their colours; Marshal Davout, minister of war, estimated that the recall of soldiers of every category would bring to the army around fifty-nine thousand men if everyone summoned under the decree of 9 April abided by it.¹⁷

As well as men on leave, France had thousands of men who had been conscripted but not yet called upon to fight for France and were termed reservists. On 28 March, Napoleon issued a decree calling up reservists, but due to the antiwar mood in France, it was not made public until 9 April. These reservists only began to be called up from 25 April 1815. These influxes of men with no training were to be directed to the 4th, 5th and 6th Battalions, but, as we shall see, many found their way into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions and took part in the fighting. Height restrictions of those to be called up were abolished in 1815:¹⁸

‘We may take men of all heights, provided they are well-formed. These limitations are good for ordinary times and are not suitable in the present circumstances.’

Napoleon also authorised the retention of a Bourbon scheme dated 31 December 1814, whereby fifty francs were paid to every volunteer that enrolled, which brought in a further 15,000 men. By these measures of calling back men on leave and reservists, by 1 June 52,446 men had arrived with the depots; of these, 23,448 men were en route to the war battalions, but tellingly, 6,626 had deserted en route.¹⁹

According to the decree of 28 March 1815, each regiment was to have a staff and six battalions, each formed from a grenadier company, a voltigeur company and four fusilier companies. A battalion was to comprise 432 men, and three battalions 1,312 men. The regimental staff was to have a staff comprising:²⁰

One major, three battalion-commanders, two captain-adjutant-majors, one lieutenant pay officer, one surgeon major, two assistant surgeons, three lieutenant-adjutant-majors, one wagon master, one drum-major, one corporal-drummer, one master armourer, eight musicians, one corporal sapeur and four master workmen.

Each company was to have:

One captain, one first-lieutenant, one second-lieutenant, one sergeant-major, four sergeants, one fourrier, eight corporals, two drummers, two sapeurs, two enfants de troupe and fifty-six men.

However, some regiments in 1815 fielded from two to four battalions, many regiments being under their official strength decreed by Napoleon. The 1st and 2nd Battalions were to be formed from the men then present and under arms, the 3rd Battalion was to receive all the men returned from leave, the cadre of the sub-officers for the 4th and 5th Battalions were to be formed when sufficient men had returned to fill out the 3rd Battalion, and the 6th Battalion was to be the depot battalion formed by renumbering the old 5th Battalion. The officers on half-pay or leave were to be recalled back, but were kept ignorant of their destination regiment. As an incentive to return, the men were promised their pay for the previous six months when on unpaid leave. Napoleon hoped this measure would see some 130,000 men return to the colours with a further 20,000 men volunteering to receive their fifty franc bounty.

Cavalry regiments were to have the following organisation:²¹

One colonel with three horses, one major with three horses, two squadroncommanders, each with two horses, two adjutant-majors, each with two horses, one lieutenant-quartermaster with one horse, one standard bearer with one horse, one surgeon major with one horse, one assistant surgeon with one horse, two adjutant-sub-officers, each with one horse, one master veterinarian with one horse, one second-class veterinarian with one horse, one corporal-trumpeter, one tailor, one saddler, one boot maker, one breeches maker and one armourer.

Each of the four companies was to comprise:

One captain, one first-lieutenant, two second-lieutenants, one sergeant-major, four sergeants, one quartermaster-corporal, eight corporals, two trumpeters and sixty troopers, of which forty-four were mounted and sixteen dismounted.

In total, the staff had ten officers with eighteen horses and ten sub-officers with five horses, and each company had four officers with five horses and seventy-four men with fifty-eight horses: a total of forty-two officers with fifty-eight horses and 602 men with 469 horses.

A further royal ordinance had been issued on 4 August which dealt with the organisation of the regiment. Company organisation was altered so that two master farriers were added to each company. Thus, the regiment was to have 42 officers with 66 horses and 592 men with 597 horses. In 1815 the royalist organisation remained in place, and a fifth depot squadron was to be reraised. However, many regiments failed to even form three squadrons, let alone five.

In May 1815, the eight foot artillery regiments were organised as follows. The regiment staff comprised:²²

One colonel, one lieutenant-quartermaster, one surgeon major, one wagon master, one master artificer, one master tailor, one master rope maker, one master gaiter maker, one master saddler, one master armourer, one major director of the parc, one guard, two sub-guards and two drivers.

In 1815 a company of foot artillery (eight guns) consisted of:

Two captains, two lieutenants, one sergeant-major, four sergeants, four corporals, one fourrier, two drummers and twenty gunners of first-class and forty-eight gunners of second-class. Additionally, each company had four blacksmiths, four ouvriers, thirteen carpenters and artificers.

The regiments of horse artillery staff were to be as follows:²³

One major, two squadron heads, one adjutant-major, two sub-adjutant-majors, two surgeons, one first veterinarian, one assistant veterinarian, one trumpet-major, one corporal-trumpeter and one sergeant-farrier.

Each horse artillery company, it seems, had six guns and not eight, and was to comprise:²⁴

Two captains (one first-class, one second-class), one first-lieutenant, one second-lieutenant, one sergeant-major, one fourrier, three trumpeters, four sergeants, six corporals, four workmen (two carpenters, two blacksmiths), twenty-five gunners first-class, fifty gunners second-class and two farriers.

Some ten days later the decree of 8 April 1815 re-formed the Imperial Guard.²⁵ Thus, the Imperial Guard, both Old and Young, was to be hastily re-formed from the Corps Royale and a huge influx of men on half-leave.

CHAPTER 1

CLOTHING THE ARMY

Under the Restoration very few new items of clothing were made or issued. The army remained dressed overall in what it had been wearing under Napoleon in 1814, though it seems with the Napoleonic emblems removed. A large number of firearms, munitions, provisions, horses, uniforms and shoes were needed, and there were very few. Almost all of the materials had to be improvised.¹

A wide-ranging report on the condition of the army’s uniforms was delivered to Davout on 1 May 1815. In more than twenty regiments the men were in need of shoes and in the crack corps, such as the royal chasseurs, some of the men had neither boots nor shirts. In the 14th Regiment of Light Infantry the men had worn for two years, in winter as well as in summer, linen pantalons. The 27th Regiment of Line Infantry was due 30,000 francs for the clothing of the prisoners repatriated prior to 1 January 1815.²

Sample of Aurore cloth dated 1823. Aurore has been shown by many artists to be a shade of yellow, when in fact it is a vivid shade of dark orange (Collection KM)

This cloth sample from 1823 is bleu de ciel, the colour of cloth used by the trumpeters of the Imperial Guard. It is much darker than the colour shown by modern artists. (Collection KM)

The total cost of clothing the army, as it stood in May 1815, was estimated at thirty million francs, with a further twenty-one million francs needed to clothe the new entrants to the army in the course of the year. In order to produce uniforms, Davout centralised manufacturing in the Paris region. With soldiers on hand to oversee operations, it was hoped that the cobblers would manufacture 1,800 pairs of shoes per day. However, they required to be paid in cash before starting work, for which the money was released totalling thirteen million francs for the production of clothing and equipment. The workshops were, in theory, able to supply 1,250 habits per day.³ Work was pursued actively in the regimental depots by the regimental tailors, using what stocks of cloth that could be purchased locally or were already to hand.⁴ However, due to non-payment of bills for clothing produced in 1813 and 1814, cloth suppliers and tailoring companies demanded that their debts be paid before they would start work on new government contracts. The accumulated debt owed was around fourteen million francs. Furthermore, a vast sum of 6,550,224 francs was owed for new clothing issued under the Bourbons but not paid for. In order to begin production and restore credit, Davout proposed an advance of 4,728,782 francs to be made to manufacturers and suppliers.⁵ Also in short supply were serviceable saddles and harnesses, which were of vital importance if the cavalry was to field as many horses, and therefore troops, as possible.⁶

This cloth sample from 1823 shows Imperial Blue wool cloth as used by the Grenadiers à Cheval and Elite Gendarmes for their habits. In 1815 the name of the cloth changed to Bleu de Roi. (Collection KM)

In all, Napoleon hoped to grant thirteen million francs for the production of uniforms, shoes and saddles, but due to financial problems, he succeeded only to unlock two million francs from the Bank of Paris.⁷ The lack of credit available to the French state had collapsed in the autumn of 1813 and it had serious implications. Due to the lack of credit, the army could not purchase sufficient numbers of horses for the cavalry and artillery trains, neither could it clothe, equip, feed and pay the army. The non-payment of debts, and lack of credit would frustrate Napoleon’s ambitions in 1815.⁸

We are left in no doubt as to the colour of the facings of the Polish Lancers, and of trumpeters of the Guard cavalry with this cloth sample of 1823. (Collection KM)

The scarlet facings of the Grenadiers à Cheval, Empress Dragoons and other regiments which had scarlet facings was in this rich bright scarlet cloth. (Collection KM)

Another issue was the lack of cloth. Daru noted that:⁹

‘There is concern that there is insufficient blue cloth to clothe the army. It is proposed to increase its production, which requires considerable time. Could we not, until the necessary blue cloth has been produced, clothe the soldiers with a good greatcoat, overalls, waistcoat and gaiters? In the last campaign, the majority of Allied troops were dressed that way.’

Furthermore, through a circular issued by the office of clothing in the Ministry of War, Davout made known to all sectors of government, civil and military, that the emperor accepted the prices set by manufacturers. But, traders and manufacturers were forced reluctantly to provide all the equipment the army required. Davout also knew they would only be paid when state finances permitted it.¹⁰

This sample of iron grey wool cloth from 1823 leaves in no doubt as to the colour of the cloth used by the artillery and equipment trains. (Collection KM)

The manufacture of shoes and boots was of paramount importance; Davout estimated that four pairs per soldier were necessary for the duration of a campaign. To get close to this figure, it was necessary to establish in Paris a reserve of 100,000 to 150,000 pairs of shoes, which were to be sent directly to the army corps that remained on the border. However, to make such a reserve, Davout required 750,000 francs. Due to the chronic lack of credit available to the regime, only 100,000 pairs of shoes could be ordered. Due to the lack of credit and non-payment of bills, as a result, the manufacture of shoes could not begin until the month of May. Very quickly problems arose, because the manufacturers of Paris refused to begin work without an advance of 3.75 million francs payable within twenty days so that they would be paid for the work, as opposed to being issued promissory notes, which had been the traditional Napoleonic method of payment. To resolve this issue, Daru, the man who had helped rebuild the army in 1813 and 1814 and had in part masterminded the production and distribution of clothing and equipment, convened on 18 April 1815 between the manufacturers and the government, and a majority of them agreed to work with the imperial government. But the suppliers required prompt payment.¹¹

However, we must note that Davout estimated that the reserves of shoes and clothing would only be completed by July 1815. Therefore, not all regiments had yet received their uniforms before marching to Belgium on 10 June 1815, nor had all regiments been equipped with their camp effects.¹²

As well as clothes, the army needed munitions. On 1 April 150,000 muskets were in stores to be issued, and a further 300,000 needed repair. Of the muskets needed to be repaired, by 10 June almost 150,000 had been repaired and were being distributed to the army. We must note, however, of these 150,000 muskets, some 80,000 were destined for the national guards. The result of this effort was that by the end of June the remaining 68,000 muskets needing repair had been, and a further 20,000 new muskets were available to be issued. Davout estimated that by 1 August 1815 a reserve of 150,000 muskets would be created. Yet, in reality, despite the acceleration in the production of firearms, the increase in production could not cope with the increased flow of men into the army, particularly between mid-May and mid-June. This resulted in a huge shortage of muskets and this only improved after 10 June. By 1 May, there were about 60.4 million cartridges for the infantry in stock, while there was about 1.39 million kilograms of powder for the production of another fifty-five million new cartridges.¹³

This sample of dark green cloth is the same colour as used by the Guard light cavalry from 1800 to 1815. (Collection KM)

Thus, as Napoleon’s last army marched to war, it lacked clothing, muskets and cartridges. Everything was improvised, as Davout had planned for a July campaign and not June.

Dress regulations

On 8 February 1815, the ministry of war, issued a new dress regulation to dress the army in the new royalist manner. The regulations were framed on the Bardin regulation of 1812. It was the first time that the army had had a chance to be totally re-equipped with new pattern clothing and equipment, although some regiments clung onto the old-style habits and other idiosyncrasies. Under these regulations, two patterns of shakos were authorised for the infantry: the taller grenadier pattern with red lace, and the lower fusilier pattern. The voltigeur type was to be eliminated. All pre-Bardin regulation clothing was to be removed from service. Plumes for the cavalry were abolished bar the first regiments of each arm, who were also authorised to wear aiguillettes.

This sample of chamois cloth is the same colour as used by the voltigeurs of the Line and Light Infantry and Flanqueur regiments of the Guard 1815. (Collection KM)

This sample of yellow cloth (Jonquille), is a cloth sample from 1823 (Collection KM)

Voltigeurs wore the same shako as fusiliers, but were allowed a yellow horse hair aigrette (in essence a plume made from horse hair). Only grenadiers were allowed fringed epaulettes; voltigeurs had shoulder straps like the fusiliers. The return of the 20th Regiment of Line Infantry and many other regiments again confirms that voltigeurs did not have epaulettes in 1815. Presumably, the lace on voltigeur shakos was taken off to make the shako conform to the same design as those of the fusiliers. However, the voltigeurs of the 95th Regiment of Line Infantry had new shakos issued, as this appears to have been easier than removing the lace. It also seems that the black gaiters, which had been made from black worsted in previous years, were now made from black cloth, likely to be a linen fabric dyed black.

A supplementary regulation was issued on 1 April 1815. The tariff appears to remove from the voltigeurs and grenadiers the sabre and belt, no doubt on grounds of cost. However, the 95th Regiment of Line Infantry still had sabres for the grenadiers. The tariffs also allowed for the porte-giberne to be made from blackened cow hide.¹⁴

The light infantry was dressed in the 1812 Bardin regulation, comprising an entirely blue habit-veste with white piping. The collar was scarlet for carabiniers and chamois for voltigeurs. They wore imperial blue pantalons de tricot tucked into knee-length black gaiters. Under the habit-veste a sleeveless gilet was worn. On campaign, linen overalls were issued, along with a capote and a sleeved gilet.

Cloth and colours

In general terms, the French army of Napoleon I used flax or hemp fibres to be woven into linens or wool fibre, to be made into broadcloth. The army used two types of broadcloth:

Broadcloth—a dense plain-woven broadcloth.

Twill—woven with a pattern of diagonal, parallel ribs.

The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width, but the fact that it was woven much wider (typically 50-75 per cent wider) and then heavily milled (traditionally the cloth was worked by heavy wooden trip hammers in hot soapy water in order to shrink it) in order to reduce it to the required width. The effect of the milling process is to draw the yarns much closer together than could be achieved in the loom and allow the individual fibres of the wool to bind together in a felting process. This results in a dense, blind face cloth with a stiff drape which is highly weather-resistant, hard-wearing and capable of taking a cut edge without the need for being hemmed.

In a twill weave, each weft or filling yarn floats across the warp yarns in a progression of interlacings to the right or left, forming a distinct diagonal line. This diagonal line is also known as a wale. A float is the portion of a yarn that crosses over two or more yarns from the opposite direction.

Twill fabrics technically have a front and a back side, unlike plain weave, whose two sides are the same. The front side of the twill is the technical face; the back is called the technical back. The technical face side of a twill weave fabric is the side with the most pronounced wale; it is usually more durable.¹⁵ The army used different qualities of twill:

Blicourt—a superfine milled serge

Cadis—milled serge

Serge—serge with a raised nap.

For pantalons, gaiters and fronts of vestes tricot was used. This is akin to an English milled kersey. Tricot was a lighter weight cloth than broadcloth.

For linings of vestes and habits, cadis was used. Cadis is milled serge. It was often known by the province or town it was made in. For example, blicourt is a type of milled serge made at Blicourt. For the back of vestes an un-milled serge was used, known as serge.

Hemp and flax fibre was spun into yard and made into various grades of linen. Cotton, used exclusively by the Imperial Guard, was imported from the Netherlands, where a factory had been established in 1801 using imported Arkwright spinning Jennies, and English technicians to work the looms and steam engines.

The French war ministry laid down clear regulations on cloth colour and cloth quality. This was introduced on 23 September 1807. Each mill/cloth supplier had to provide to the war ministry a length of cloth one aune (119 centimetres) wide by nineteen aunes (twenty metres) for the cloth quality, and quality of dyed colour to be checked over the entire length of the fabric before the war ministry would order the cloth. The war ministry had a list of approved contractors and set prices for cloth type and colour. This was adhered to throughout the empire. The colours of uniforms were confirmed again with the Bardin regulations of 1812. Some colours were obtained by mixes, notably beige, which was made from brown and white fibres, and iron grey from blue and white fibres. Napoleon’s famous greatcoat is not grey, but is actually a very fine quality beige.

This sample of Rose (pink) is a cloth sample from 1823 (Collection KM)

This sample of madder red or garance cloth is a cloth sample from 1823 (Collection KM)

Beige in 1815 was not natural wool colour, but instead brown. Beige was supplied in either grey or brown hues. The shade of the cloth varied, as the degree of brown probably varied according to where the cloth was made, and how carefully they selected and sorted their wools. The cloth was made from a mix of natural fleece fibres and black fibres. The cloth regulations specify the amount of black dyed fibre for a given quantity of undyed/natural wool. It doesn’t specify the amount of brown that was allowed in the quantity of natural fleece. In an area with more improved sheep, there’ll be less brown, thus the cloth would be grey beige, and in an area where they sort it more, there’ll be less too, hence the contemporary comments on the differences in shade. In areas of unimproved sheep, the natural fleeces would contain a higher proportion of brown and red fleeces, thus the resulting cloth would be of a browner hue.

White cloth was obtained by weaving fabric from natural fleeces, or by bleaching the woven cloth. Bleached, whiter broadcloth was reserved for the Imperial Guard; the line was allowed only ecru or natural fleece colour white cloth. We do note that on the backs of lining of garments of the Imperial Guard ecru cloth was used, no doubt as it was a lot cheaper.

Checking cloth quality was the role of inspectors of review, and war commissioners. Yes, colour could vary between batches of dye and mills, but overall the colour of cloth was very well regulated. With blue cloth and scarlet, the colours dyed in, say, 1811 are the same in 2018. Quality of finish of the cloth and the selection of wool fibres, and the way in which the cloth was dyed, affects colour. So, a lot of factors to consider when trying to recreate the colours of the period.

This sample of light green cloth, this cloth sample of 1823 (Collection KM)

All the blue colours were indigo derived. In the First Empire, woad (pastel in French) was mixed with a percentage of indigo of a ratio of 256 grams of indigo to one hundred kilograms of woad. Woad contains indigotin, but at a weaker concentration to indigotin derived from other plants. A variety of plants have provided indigo throughout history, but most natural indigo was obtained from those in the genus Indigofera. In Napoleonic France, woad was primarily grown around Albi, Turin and Florence, selling the dye at eighteen to twenty francs per kilogram under a set tariff introduced in 1791. The cost of obtaining indigo dye is why the French army became dressed in undyed cloth uniforms for a period in 1806 and 1807. For red colours, cochineal, kermes and galle were used; for yellows, gaude wood and sumac fustet were used. A dye book printed in 1811 says that the rose colour for facings was obtained by mixing sumac fustet and cochineal to make rose, capucine and aurore. Clearly, rose facings for some units were not pink as some artists and re-enactors make us believe.

The colour blue was created by the length of time the cloth or yarn was in the vat and how old the vat of dye was. Cloth was dyed in two ways. For high quality cloth used by the middle and upper classes, generals, and the Old Guard, the yarn was dyed to the required colour before the cloth was woven. This is listed as cloth dyed in the yarn in the various purchase accounts.

For the lower classes and the soldiers of the line, the cloth was dyed once it was made. This cloth is known as dyed in the piece. The wool would be made at a mill and the resulting ‘white cloth’ sold onto a dye works for the cloth to be dyed. This meant that a clothier could readily supply large lengths of cloth of different colours. Cloth woven with dyed thread had a longer production time. This method of production produced a much stronger and more consistent shade through the cloth. It was noticeably far costlier than cloth dyed in the piece, as the clothier had to buy the cloth ready dyed in far longer lengths than the cloth dyed once woven—it was, and is, easier to buy 1,000 metres of cloth and dye ten metres blue and the rest another colour than having to buy 1,000 metres of cloth and only needing ten metres initially in the chosen colour.

The only extant 1st Empire other ranks greatcoat is preserved in the Musée de l’Empéri. Here we see details of this garment. It is made from Beige cloth, which is light brown hue and not modern Beige as we understand it. (Musée de l’Empéri, Collections du Musée de l’Armée, Anciennes collections Jean et Raoul Brunon)

An extant cavalry manteaux-capote made from blanc picque de bleu broadcloth. We can discern the slight blue fleck against the white or undyed fibres, giving a mottled look. (Musée de l’Empéri, Collections du Musée de l’Armée, Anciennes collections Jean et Raoul Brunon)

The yarn used in this high-grade fabric contained a percentage of imported Spanish merino wool mixed with high-quality French-produced yarn. This high-grade cloth was produced in the Elbeuf region. Dyeing the yarn before weaving gave a better quality of colour, but it meant that a mill had to produce minimum quantities of cloths of different colours, whereas the mills producing cloth that was dyed later could produce a cheaper product, as the looms produced a natural cloth using yarn which was not as well sorted or selected as the higher-grade fabric. This coarser fabric was known as drap de Lodève and was, it seems, the ‘bog standard’ army cloth. The better-quality yarn and finish on the cloth would also reflect the way in which the dye was taken up into the yarn fibres, so the same dye on a high-grade superfine would look different to the same dye on a much lower-grade and coarser fabric.

In 1823 the French army produced a regulation colour book for cloth colours and types used by the army. This is our reference guide used throughout this text.

CHAPTER 2

REMOUNTING THE CAVALRY

In March 1815 Napoleon decreed that each regiment was to have six squadrons of 114 men; totalling 684 officers and men, less the staff. Under this reorganisation, each regiment was to have five war squadrons and a depot squadron. The former Royal Guard had 644 men in each regiment of dragoons and cuirassiers; the lancers and chasseurs each had 643 men. Napoleon increased each Guard cavalry regiment to 1,000 men, almost doubling the regiments then with the army.¹

A report dated 26 March 1815 notes that Napoleon inherited a mounted arm that was run down, ill-equipped and ill-clothed, as well as short of men and horses. On 26 March the cavalry possessed some 3,021 officers with 4,667 horses, 34,486 cavalry troopers and 23,709 riding horses. The horse artillery