Infantry officers 18th Century

Thank you! All clear now.

Would you say that the reasoning behind this was tactical, financial, or just plain common sense? Being on horseback made you an obvious target for skirmishes, if you lost the horse in battle it was obviously difficult and expensive to replace, but operationally was there an advantage to being on foot in the battlefield?

@Zack White

Tactical common sense, dismounted subaltern officers were also common in the 7YW and earlier, mounted battalion commanders as well, the battalion commanders place was at the rear in the center of his battalion to be able to command - being on horse back he had a better view on his command, skirmishers as such - as tirailleurs de combat - non existent.

A battalion commander and more superior officers would have of course more than one horse.

The dismounted officer was of equal importance for the company, he was standing in rank and file, or file closer - by that supervising his company and here he didn't need to be mounted.

In the 7YW the mounted battalion commander wasn't of such key importance than later, there his battalion war part of a battle line, itself commanded by a mounted superior officer, the Prussian regimental commander in fact had to dismount before battle and lead the battalion from the front, the majors however remained mounted to be able to have a better supervision on the battalion.

The Austrian Freikorps included three Jaeger battalions - Tyrolean, German (d’Aspre) and Walloon (Le Loup). The first two at this time were rifle-armed, the Le Loup more likely to be a mix of rifles and carbines. It was only when the regular Jaeger battalions were formed in 1808 that they went to a standard two companies of rifles and four of carbines.

Arcole features a lot of Greenberg’s, but they were all armed with muskets, aside from the Sharpshooters, who used the Doppelstutz with one rifled and one smooth barrel. However, by this stage, the Austrians were throwing scratch and reserve battalions into the fight, so don’t think there were too many rifled barrels around.

@val230967 It is not really long distance, more close quarters, but the officer casualties at Marengo are named and the number of staff rank casualties is disproportionately high. I think there was actually a Specific French instruction to do this.

@val230967

As already written you had rifles (which the French hardly used) which were pretty accurate on single individual targets up to 300 m, but also skirmishers with smooth bore muskets could inflict casualties on officers - as David Hollins did describe, skirmishers were quite renowned to pick officers as targets because they knew this would disrupt the chain of command.

I really find it difficult to comprehend - when a mounted battalion commander went down, how well he could be replaced from a company commander on foot, this chap had a lot of difficulties to over come.

Am Tage der Bataille, als am 14ten Oktober, wurde das Bataillon gegen 3 Uhr Nachmittags durch Annäherung der französischen Kolonne mit Angriff bedrohet und einige Tirailleurs schossen gegen 500 Schritt 2 Unteroffiziere von meinem Fahnen Peleton tot.“

That quote above was from a battalion of regiment von Low at the battle of Jena, where French skirmishers killed at a distance of 500 paces 2 NCOs of his colour guard section.

So most likely the French skirmishers did know that colours, as in their army, were usually protected by NCOs, so most likely they pointed their muskets in the direction of the colours.

@Hans - Karl Weiß There is an interesting memoir I found by Hauptmann Marx leading a battalion of IR53 at Marengo after the battalion commander had been hit. It was tough for him, especially amidst the Italian vegetation.

Please open new thread

Definitely worth a fresh feed, simply so that more people will see the question, but please do fire away - this is precisely what I built the forum and website for!

To the best of my knowledge, and @Robert Burnham may be able to correct me on this, horses were preferred, but it all came down to availability and expense. Certainly during the Peninsular War (obviously outside your period) majors were meant to have horses, and Captains and Lieutenants tried to own them if they could afford them, but feeding was difficult, supplies were not always available, and of course the army needed them for transportation, so at times horses were requisitioned, or taken for use as cavalry remounts.

@Zack White Great! I couldn't find any writings that covered this aspect. It was probably the same in the austrian army. Thank you, will browse through the forum, as I need some more infos on the Napoleonic Wars.

For the British Army in the Peninsula the officers it depended on their rank and position. In combat, the senior officers and staff were mounted while the company grade officers were on foot. Otherwise the infantry junior officers, if they could afford it, were authorized a horse. By this I mean that the army would provide money or forage to to feed their mounts. The link below is from my book The British Army against Napoleon and shows the amount of bat and forage money each rank received. For example a battalion commander was authorized ten forage rations, a company commander five forage rations, a subaltern only one forage ration. So if the lieutenant had a horse plus a mule to carry his baggage, he only received food one of them. He had to pay for the other out of his own pocket.

https://books.google.com/books?id=-wGSAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=bat+and+forage+napoleon+series&source=bl&ots=Auzywak7_v&sig=ACfU3U0fslU4y3WW25sv8mZuAT67InMhGg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiOuo3B6NbnAhVBMH0KHaYoCgQQ6AEwAXoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=bat%20and%20forage%20napoleon%20series&f=false

The number of animals authorized changed due to the year. In the early years of the Peninsular War the junior officers had to share a baggage animal with another officer and was not authorized a mount. The following is from my article "The British Regimental Mess in the Peninsular War" https://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/c_mess.html

"Regulations only authorized one mule for every two subalterns and one for a captain. Furthermore, some commanders placed a restriction on the amount of baggage that an officer could bring with him. Ensign John Aitchison, of the 3d Foot Guards, proudly wrote home in late 1808, that General John Moore had ordered that all servants who were serving soldiers in the officers' regiment had to rejoin the ranks. "... in consequence the officers have provided themselves with knapsacks to carry their necessaries themselves... I have weighed what I have to carry and find it amounts to 27 pounds." Neither the restriction on the number of baggage animals nor the requirement for junior officers to carry their own equipment appeared to be followed too closely. Most officers, who could afford them, immediately bought themselves a horse to ride and a mule to carry their personal items."