Netherlands Artillery
in the Waterloo Campaign
Part I: Equipment
and The Train
by Geert van Uythoven, The Netherlands
 |
Equipment As has been explained, after a while there was relatively enough artillery personnel available. Equipment and horses however was an entirely other story, as has also been pointed out already, and the biggest problem the Netherlands had to cope with. There was enough material available: on 21 January 1815, the Netherlands had 72 short bronze 12-pdr cannon; 114 6-pdr cannon; 83 3-pdr cannon; 124 16-pdr (stone) howitzers (20 cm); 87 24-pdr (iron) howitzer (15 cm); 315 gun-carriages; 238 limbers with ammunition chests; and 144 caissons. 15
In addition, there was more then enough ammunition available. However, the material was of mixed origin. There were bronze guns of the year 1794 (a modified model of guns designed in 1770 and
cast in The Hague in 1773); guns cast in The Hague before 1810, mostly based on the same principles as the modified 1770 model already mentioned; finally French guns of the Gribeauval system and guns of the year XI of the French Republic. Overall, the guns itself were of a good quality. Limbers and gun carriages were a mixture of the French and Dutch model. So interchange ability between gun carriages and other material was seldom achieved. As an example, an artillery battery had seven different kinds of wheels in use!
In addition, the carriages and caissons were badly constructed, heavy and cumbersome. The gun carriages were partially old and worn out; many of them still had wooden axles. The remaining gun carriages were new but constructed from wet wood. Equipment for the horse teams and other artillery equipment was totally lacking for the greater part. Something which understandably was totally no issue at this time was the colour of gun carriages, etc. And although details are not known, one can safely assume that the Netherlands artillery presented a mixture of gun and equipment models, with varying colours, mostly different shades of brown, or with the odd French olive green. It is clear however that before the year 1826, the Netherlands army used no British material and guns.
A 6-pdr foot artillery battery was armed with six short 6-pdr bronze cannon, and two 24-pdr (iron) bronze howitzers. It had 17 ammunition caissons; 12 for the 6-pdr ammunition, the remaining 5 for the howitzers. In addition, there were 12 caissons loaded with infantry and cavalry cartridges; 3 spare carriages; 2 baggage wagons; and a mobile forge. This gave a total of 43 vehicles, which needed 232 horses for its horse teams.
A 12-pdr foot artillery battery had short 12-pdr bronze cannon instead of the 6-pdr cannon. 6-pdr horse artillery batteries had more ammunition caissons but only 4 caissons with infantry or cavalry
cartridges, giving them a total of 38 vehicles. So horse artillery batteries needed less train horses as the foot artillery batteries. Batteries that took the field later during the campaign however sometimes had less caissons with them.
Not surprisingly, although the personnel were present, the Netherlands had many problems to be able to field even the ten batteries mentioned. On 20 January 1815, General Du Pont had already reported to the Ministry of War that for these ten batteries he was still short 788 horses. He had guns and carriages for eleven batteries, but for ten batteries he was for example still 14 artillery caissons, and 71 infantry caissons short. Regarding the horse teams: 6-pdr cannon, howitzers and caissons were pulled by teams of six horses each; 12-pdr cannon by a team of eight; and all other wagons by a team of four horses. Within the horse artillery all gunners were mounted. Within the foot artillery only the officers were mounted; the others walking alongside the guns and limbers. This made movement of course very slow, and explains why the various commanders used the horse artillery more often, first, and in forward positions when they had the choice. As is illustrated by the use of the Netherlands horse
artillery during the Waterloo campaign. 16
The Train
The train detachments were a separate entity, and there was no formal combination of certain companies or detachments to certain batteries. In many cases the train detachments were even billeted in other villages as the artillery battery they belonged to. For example during the months August to November 1815, in Chassé’s Division distance between the batteries and their train detachments was about 3.0 to 3.5 kilometres! Except for having the task of delivering the horse teams to pull the guns, the commanding officer of the train detachment command the eight ammunition caissons of the first line, which followed the guns. The remaining ‘wagons of the second line’; the ammunition train consisting of the remaining artillery ammunition caissons, the caissons with the infantry and cavalry cartridges, and all other wagons, were commanded by the second officer of the train, out of firing range of the enemy. The train was the biggest problem to cope with by making mobile the batteries.
As we have seen, initially there were only two battalions of train soldiers, each of six companies. However, the one in the south, built from two under strength companies, was still virtually non-existing, while the northern one was also much understrength. Only as late as 14 April 1815 it was decided to bring these battalions on a war footing, i.e. expanding them to eight companies each! That this happened so late was caused by the fact that there were just not enough train soldiers available to form even the peacetime organisation! To cope with this problem three measures were taken.
First, the infantry and cavalry had to deliver men that had previous experience with train duty, or which could handle horses. But not surprisingly the commanders of those units were not happy to
lose good soldiers. As a result, only the weak, unhealthy, or undisciplined characters were handed over. Or men that were married and had brought their wife and even children with them. Taking this in account, what happened in the evening of 18 June can be no surprise anymore (see below).
Second, during the end of April 1815, a Bataljon Treinsoldaten nationale militie, a ‘train battalion of the militia’, of six companies was raised. Understandably, in June this battalion was still far from ready to take the field.
Thirdly, for a short time, troopers of the light dragoons were ‘borrowed’ and send to Mechelen, to attend the horse of the train that were present there, as there were no experienced train soldiers available.
Overall the quality of the train soldiers was low, illustrated by their weak discipline and bad behaviour. On 17 June, the day before the battle of Waterloo, the ‘great train’ consisting of all the baggage wagons, and for some Netherlands Divisions also their superfluous artillery vehicles, were send back through Brussels to Vilvoorde. In addition the reserve artillery under command of Lieutenant-Kolonel G.J. Holsman, because of the lack of horses in no state to take the field, was send back. Of the remaining vehicles, those of the 2nd and 3rd Division present at Waterloo were divided in the guns with their respective ammunition caissons(‘the first line’), and an ‘ammunition train’ consisting of the caissons with infantry and cavalry cartridges, the latter placed further back (‘wagons of the second line’).
Among the vehicles that had been sent back to Brussels, panic broke out in the evening of the 18th. Many soldiers of the train with their horses, sometimes including their vehicles, moved to Mechelen, Antwerpen, and even to Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom, and further, without any order. Captain Rochell of the 19th Militia Battalion in the 3rd Division wrote the following in his diary about this: “We had a very careful paymaster in 1st Lieutenant Bellard Lormer, who noticed the confusion in the supply train, and, for safety reasons started to retreat, and did not halt until he was in Antwerp. This was not
such a bad thing, because the baggage-wagon of the other [militia?] battalion in our brigade was plundered”.
Beside the lack of train soldiers the lack of horse teams was just as worse. This was caused directly by the 1812 debacle in Russia. In 1813, being part of the French Empire, the Netherlands also had to provide a huge amount of horses to rebuild the French army again. This had serious consequences for the events in 1814 and 1815. On 25 March 1815 for example, there were no horses available for the train, as discussed in several other places in this series. During their march to the southern Netherlands many batteries were pulled by requisitioned horses not suited for proper military use, finally taking the field with insufficient trained personnel, which had difficulties negotiating the ground they had to cover.
The lack of horses was the cause that at the time the battles of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo took place, only seven Netherlands batteries were operational; both Foot artillery batteries ‘Du Bois’ and ‘Kaempfer’, forming the reserve artillery, could not be brought into action by lack of horses alone.
To illustrate the slow building-up of the Netherlands train: on 19 March 1815, the (northern) Train battalion of the line had an effective strength of 430 men and 517 horses; on 6 May, this had been raised to only 679 men and 1,607 horse, while on paper a strength of 1,286 men and 2,117 horses was needed. The Train battalion of the militia had only a cadre of 36 men, and no horses present, of its paper strength of 1,286 men and 2,117 horses; on 30 June, nearly two weeks after the battle of Waterloo, the train battalion of the line had 1,140 men and 1,660 horses, while the militia had 628 men and 191 horses only. 17
And of those horses, many were those that were disapproved of by the cavalry, which in many cases mend they were no good for use in the field by the train either! The horses of the militia train were destined to form the train detachment (2nd company, 1st Lieutenant De Lignage) for the 12-pdr Foot artillery battery ‘Du Bois’, which was at Mons by now, but the arrival was delayed
for a couple of more days while the train soldiers of the militia were still not totally uniformed because of lack of clothing.
In addition, a 12-pdr Foot artillery battery (‘Severijns’) stood ready in ‘s Hertogenbosch, which was provided with the horses for a militia train detachment (8th company, 1st Lieutenant Vervoet) by taking away most of the 367 horses from two train companies that were with the pontoon train. Finally, the 6-pdr Foot artillery battalion ‘Spies’ received enough horse teams to take the field, giving the Netherlands mobile army a total of ten artillery batteries.
Due to the bad experiences with the train, on 27 October 1815 it was decreed that a third train battalion would be raised, consisting of national militia, each battalion 8 companies strong. Of the total of 24 train companies, 16 were destined to serve the field artillery, as it was planned to make mobile 14 artillery batteries in the future when necessary.
Next issue part 2: The Netherlands artillery- officers.
1 Note that what is mend with the ‘Vereenigde Nederlanden’ is the Northern Netherlands, roughly the same territory as the Netherlands are now, i.e. without present-day Belgium.
Netherlands Artillery in the Waterloo Campaign 1815 Part I
Netherlands Artillery in the Waterloo Campaign 1815 Part II: Artillery Officers
|