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French line infantry grenadier (left) and voltigeur (right) c. 1808 Cornet in imperial livery and officer of the line voltigeurs (1812). In 1804, each French Line (Ligne) and Light (Légère) infantry battalion was ordered to create one company of ninety of the best shots who would serve as elite skirmishers. [3]
The French "Levée en masse" method of conscription brought around 2,300,000 French men into the Army between the period of 1804 and 1813. [4] To give an estimate of how much of the population this was, modern estimates range from 7 to 8% of the population of France proper, while the First World War used around 20 to 21%.
By the afternoon, the entire French line was steadily forced back, though the Russians weren't able to chase them, exhausted, and now severely injured. According to their casualty return the French lost 1,391 killed, 10,059 wounded, and 864 captured. The IV Corps alone lost 8,286 men, several high-profile generals were also killed in this corps.
Infantry could be described as line infantry, guards, grenadiers, light infantry or skirmishers, but the roles and arms employed often overlapped between these. Line infantry Infantry of the line were so named for the dominant line combat formation used to deliver a volume of musket fire. Forming the bulk of the Napoleonic armies it was the ...
While the infantry of the line made up the majority of the Grande Armée ' s infantry, the Infanterie Légère (Light Infantry) also played an important role. The Légère regiments never numbered more than 36 (compared with the 133 of the Ligne regiments), and the Ligne could perform all the same manoeuvres, including skirmishes.
Line infantry mainly used three formations in its battles: the line, the square, and the column. With the universal adoption of small arms (firearms that could be carried by hand, as opposed to cannon) in infantry units from the mid-17th century, the battlefield was dominated by linear tactics, according to which the infantry was aligned into long thin lines, shoulder to shoulder, and fired ...
The 1st Swiss Regiment (French: 1ère Régiment Suisse) was a Swiss mercenary line infantry regiment in the French Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars.During the expansion of the Imperial Army in 1803, Napoleon decreed the formation of four Swiss mercenary regiments, one of these later becoming the famed 1st Swiss.
A well-disciplined soldier of the line infantry, Thurel was admonished only once during his entire career, during the 1747 siege of Bergen op Zoom as the French troops occupied the citadel. He was admonished because, the doors of the fortress being shut, he scaled its walls to gain entry so that he would not miss muster. [4]