I’ve become very interested in the napoleonic wars, and I was wondering about the specifics of the combat. I found plenty of information on long range fights, but Couldn’t find out how long Bayonet fights lasted.
In the early years 1792-1793 this could be explained by the inability of the French conscripts to take much punishment or the small size of the coalition forces but it does seem that especially in the War of the First Coalition, there were few bloodbaths resulting in tens of thousands of losses like in the wars of the 18th century or in the wars to follow. I very well might be wrong on this but it seems that on the coalition side in the First Coalition, the armies engaged in the larger field battles were comparatively smaller than those in the War of Louis XIV and that it was unusual for either side to take the type of punishment that characterized these battles with some notable exceptions like Marengo
I had someone tell me that with during the age of the revolutionary war that the guns were still so bad that the majority of casualties were still caused by melee fighting, and I really am having difficulty finding evidence to confirm or deny this. I can see the logic of it somewhat, very large battles with several thousand men and entire regiments of men firing 160 shots about every minute with most of those shots missing seem like it would indeed be a very slow and inefficient way to kill a bunch of people.
The napoleonic wars from my understanding would have incredible increases in scale with hundreds of thousands of men involved in combat but there were some slight improvements to the technology, were most of those casualties caused from melee combat or ranged combat?
I saw the video of Oversimplified on the Napoleonic Wars and what I kept noticing was how Austria kept getting beaten again and again by Revolutionary France/Napoleon and having harsh treaties imposed on them, and yet always seemed ready to fight again in a few years time in another coalition. How was Austria able to keep doing this without collapsing from lack of manpower or internal dissent? How was Emperor Francis able to keep his throne after all his defeats?
Hello! I was watching the History Matters video on the Swedish-Norwegian breakup. When Denmark lost Norway, it negotiated to keep Greenland and Iceland in exchange for giving up Norway peacefully. What strategic value did Greenland and Iceland have for the Danish? And why did Great Britain approve of a fellow naval power keeping two big islands to its North?
This takes place when Spain had allied with France in the Napoleonic wars before they were invaded so how would it have gone down would britan be able to take the colonies or would or somthing else
I've been working my way through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series and both the English and French characters have a high regard for Spanish built ships and a low regard for how the Spanish Navy fights them.
Am I supposed to read this as a bias held by the characters or was the Spanish Navy truly less competent in comparison? If so, why?
Hi everyone! I'm doing a bit of gunpowder fantasy writing, and I'm trying to get a handle on casualty rates suffered by the armies involved. Obviously its fiction, and fantasy to boot, so I've got some wiggle room, but I'd like to start from a historical baseline in terms of how many soldiers an army might reasonably lose in a campaign.
It's quite easy to find figures for individual battles, but I'm struggling a bit to get figures for campaigns involving several actions, skirmishes, straggling, desertion and so on. I'm especially interested in finding casualties as a percentage of the original armies fielded (i.e. not including replacements and reinforcing formations). I know this is a big ask, but any help or pointers would be much appreciated!
PS: I say Napoleonic, but anything from the 1790s to the 1860s would be really useful - I know the character of war, lethality of combat etc. changes quite significantly, but it'd still be a great indicator!
I was listening to an episode of the BBC Radio 4 show "In Our Time," and I heard this from James Davey, a lecturer on naval and maritime history. He's comparing the reaction to the victory from the British public (sorrow over Nelson's death, displays of patriotism) with the government's (cynicism), and he says this:
"I think the (British) government knows full well that Trafalgar has done very little to shape the course of the war. As reports come back, as Vice-Admiral Collingwood's dispatches arrive, it's pretty clear that whilst Britain has captured and sunk a number of enemy ships, a lot have escaped. And of course the admiralty and the British government would have known that there were plenty of other French fleets stationed around Europe."
This surprised me, as it contradicts my own conception of Trafalgar as a major turning point not only in the Napoleonic Wars, but also in world history. Is my impression the result of a successful British propaganda campaign around Trafalgar? Was it really not that materially consequential?
Like I heard that it might do stat boosts or something but is there any real point in playing bagpipes when I can be shooting people instead?
*Holy Roman Emperor
For my university course I have to write an essay about a classical piece that reflects some aspect of the Napoleonic Wars in it. Do any of you maybe have an idea? I'm quite lost
For the purposes of this “challenge,” when I’m transported back I somehow gain the knowledge necessary to be a soldier, and I don’t have to attend training. I’m also thrust immediately into a direct combat role. There’s no chance I somehow get lucky in a rear support role.
Possible, but not necessary follow up. While I don’t get to choose the exact role, is there a specific role I’m hoping for, such as artillery? Is there any role I’m scared of, such as cavalry? My first instinct is that being on an artillery crew would be relatively safer, especially during the Napoleonic Wars where to my understanding counter-battery fire wasn’t preferred to just pounding the enemy infantry. On the other hand, being a member of the cavalry in the Franco-Prussian sounds particularly terrifying especially as a cuirassier, charging at infantry firing back at me with long-range, accurate, bolt action rifles.
My inspiration for this post came from reading some online articles on Napoleonic casualties, one of which claimed of the 2.8 million French soldiers who fought in the wars, up to 1.4 million were killed in action, which is a staggering 50%. Reading some online articles on WW1, the fatality rates seem to be as low as possibly 10%. To me this makes the Napoleonic Wars seems much more to be the meat grinder that WW1 is often depicted as. Then I threw in the Franco-Prussian War to see how that may have compared as a decent “halfway point” in terms of both time and also technological development.
It feels like even modest artillery should shred such tight formations leading to something more akin to trench warfare as armies seek covee
If anyone can point me to the direction of where I can find a regiment, I would greatly appreciated.
