"In battle," wrote Napoleon, "the Guard furnishes artillery to the whole field." Of all the Guard regiments it was the artillery which became Napoleon's most effective weapon. The Emperor, more than any other commander of his day, was conscious of the power of massed artillery and he always attempted to keep his Guard artillery concentrated in reserve.

At Austerlitz in 1805 the Guard artillery stabilised a dangerous position when it rushed forward with 24 guns to fill a gap in the French line that had developed between Lannes' and Soult's corps. From that battle onwards the Guard artillery became concentrated in ever greater numbers. At Jena, a year later, Napoleon kept all the Guard artillery under his own hand, ready to move at a moment's notice to decide the outcome of the battle. As it happened, the battle was won without the necessity of the Guard's involvement but it clearly indicated the direction in which Napoleon's tactics were leading.

In 1809, however, at Wagram, the massed batteries of the Guard played a crucial role in the battle. On the second day of the battle Napoleon found himself under attack and he had to rearrange his troops to meet this unexpected emergency. In the re-deployment of the various Corps a large gap developed in the very centre of the French line. The reserve cavalry bought valuable time by repeatedly charging the advancing Austrians. This allowed Napoleon to call up the 72 guns of the Guard artillery. Combined with the 40 guns from Eugene's corps they formed a massive battery of 112 pieces. Placed under the command of General Lauriston, the guns halted the Austrian attack and then in turn switched onto the offensive. The Artillerie a Cheval of the Guard was on the flanks with the heavy 12-pounders of the Artillerie a pied in the centre. The great battery - stretching over a mile in length successfully drove the Austrians back from all their forward positions.

Borodino

At Borodino in 1812 the opposing French and Russian armies had at their disposal very large numbers of cannon. The French had 587 assorted pieces and the Russians approximately 640 guns of which almost a quarter were 12-pounders. Both commanders adopted similar tactical dispositions. Napoleon drew up 120 guns in battery with the Guard artillery forming the reserve. Kutuzov had eighteen 12-pounders sited in a large redoubt at the heart of the Russian defence. A further 38 guns were in battery in earthworks on the flanks and another 150 pieces scattered along the Russian front. Twenty-six batteries totalling nearly 300 pieces were held in reserve to the rear of the southern defences.

Napoleon chose to direct his main thrust against the thinly held Russian flank from the redoubt southwards. The French attack was preceded by a fierce bombardment from the front line batteries of both armies. Led by Ney and Murat the attack met with stubborn resistance, but gradually the Russian's left wing was pushed back. Kutuzov's generals responded by despatching Tolstoy's Corps from the north, which Napoleon countered by releasing the 60 guns of the reserve Guard artillery. Shielded by Murat's cavalry the Guard unlimbered in the centre of the Russian positions and with roundshot and then canister they decimated Tolstoy's Corps as it tried to advance.

This settled the issue in the south and the Guard turned its guns upon the redoubt which now became the focal point of the French attack. General Kutaisov, the Russian artillery commander, ordered forward some of the reserve cannon until more than 300 were in action along this front. But around this stage of the battle he was killed and the movement of guns from the rear came to a halt. The French attacked the redoubt repeatedly, aided by the fire of 170 guns and the position eventually fell to the French cavalry and the Russian centre was broken.

Following the disastrous retreat from Moscow Napoleon was increasingly forced to depend upon the Guard artillery to support the raw recruits of his new armies. The Guard artillery was expanded and furnished with more of the heavier ordnance - the 12-pounder cannon and the 8-inch howitzers - which was used to blast holes in the enemy line. At Lutzen, seventy guns of the Guard were initially used defensively to halt the Allied attack and then offensively as they led the successful French counter-attack. At Dresden and Leipzig the artillery was again used as an offensive weapon, advancing against the enemy positions. At Hanau the guns of the Guard were used to clear a path for the retreating French army, and at Ligny sixty guns supported the attack of the Guard infantry that destroyed the Russian centre.

Such successes led Napoleon to claim, "It is the artillery of my Guard which decides my battles, for, as I have it always at hand, I can bring it to bear whenever it becomes necessary." Napoleon's enemies were never quite able to emulate his bold handling of massed artillery but they fully appreciated its effects and on numerous occasions the Allies fought with more guns than the French. As Blucher once observed, 'Against Napoleon you needed guns - and lots of them!"

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