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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%.
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 ...
In 1807, the Bourbon monarchs of Spain sent an expeditionary force from the regular Spanish Army to Northern Europe, to serve with the French La Grande Armée.The expeditionary force, the Division of the North, was commanded by Marquis de la Romana and consisted of four regiments of line infantry, five regiments of cavalry, two battalions of light infantry, and supporting artillery.
During the battle, Napoleon ordered Soult to attack the Pratzen Heights, from which the Allies had been attacking the French right wing. Repeated attacks from the Russians under General Kutuzov almost broke through the line of IV Corps, but aid from Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's I Corps allowed the French to maintain their control of the ...
Leaving 39,000 troops to watch the cautious Schwarzenberg, Napoleon assembled a strike force of 20,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry to deal with the more aggressive Blücher. [3] By the evening of 8 February, the Army of Silesia was spread along a line of march 44 miles (71 km) long.
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.
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 ...