In AoN23, Dr. Charles Esdaille of the University of Liverpool compared two recent books: George Nafziger's Imperial Bayonets and Brent Nosworthy's Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies. It had been my intention to publish the author's comments to accompany the article, but one did not arrive in time, and I decided to hold them over. (That way, if this is the first AoN you have read, you'll have to get a back issue to see what I'm talking about!). Response to Comments by Dr. Esdaille from Captain G. F. Nafziger, USNR-Ret First, let me say that I am well acquainted with Brent Nosworthy and our friendship goes back many years. I should share a story with you on Brent relating to these two books and I'm sure he won't mind. When Brent first learned that I was about to or had self published a work on Napoleonic tactics he panicked, fearing that the market was not big enough to absorb both books. However, when he saw the prototype of Imperial Bayonets he laughed because we had taken two entirely different approaches to the same topic. In an analogy, imagine three blind men examining their first automobile. One walks up to the front, touches the cool chrome grill and bumper, caressing the silky smooth surface of the large round headlights. He thinks the car is a great beast with huge round eyes and a mouth full of cool teeth. The second walks up to the side of the car and feels the broad expanse of sheet metal, glass and the rubber wheels. The third walks up to the back, falls into the open trunk (boot if you prefer) and thinks he's being eaten alive. Each of these men has a different idea of what the car is, but they 'see' only parts of the car. None is wholly wrong and none is wholly correct. In much the same way Brent and I have examined tactics from different perspectives. In the whole, neither is completely wrong and neither presents a complete picture of the topic. I'm told this multiplicity of perspectives is how professional academics believe that one can see the "big picture." Now I suspect that Dr. Esdaille thinks that I'm the blind man floundering in the trunk (boot). Personally, I think I'm the one fondling the headlights, but enough of that. I have known Dr. Esdaille for several years, though our acquaintance is not great. We have met on one occasion. I greatly respect his knowledge of the Spanish army and its institutions during the Napoleonic wars. That he participates in 17th century re-enactments is laudable. And I presume his PhD is in history. Allow me to provide a personal vitae relevant to the issues at hand. I am: Captain USNR-Retired. Two combat tours in Vietnam. Repeatedly under hostile fire. Thirteen decorations, 4 for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 23 1/2 years military service Completed half of a PhD in military history. I believe that I need to address some of the differences between my approach and that taken by Brent. First, Brent is interested in a very broad, philosophical approach to drill. He has written one work on 18th century drill prior to this one and advised me that he is working on a similar work on tactics of the American Civil War. He is a generalist with a good depth of knowledge on the topic of tactics in several periods. In developing his work he examined 278 works, of which 26 are drill regulations from the late 18th and early 19th century, though he makes few references to them in his text. There are perhaps another 30 which might be considered period primary sources. The remainder are secondary, though frequently very scholarly sources. The bulk of these works is not, however, devoted to the topic of tactics or drill and fall into the category of providing bits of operational details rather than examinations of tactics, per se. He takes a high level philosophical approach to the topic. Many of his essays are exceptional and well illustrated with examples from his secondary sources. His approach is very similar to that of Chandler's short tactical essay and Quimby's more substantial book on the topic. In contrast, I climb down into the trenches, taking a very objective and mechanical approach. I reviewed 56 period drill regulations, nearly all of which are addressed in detail in the text. I examined another 61 works, some 22 of which were written by professional military participants in the Napoleonic wars or are modern compilations of their works. The remainder are sources of examples of the tactics being employed. I take a totally different and new approach to the topic of tactics and do so from the perspective of a professional military officer who brings to the topic practical first hand knowledge of the combat environment as well as the military mind set. Dr. Esdaille's first point is that there are serious problems with my work. As I read his commentary, however, I find only one problem enumerated and that is that the book is purely theoretical. Well, a large portion of the work is purely theoretical and was intended to be so. I developed the manoeuvre times on a billiard table because that was the only fair way to provide a balanced comparison of the various national systems. So, in response to Dr. Esdaille's concern, let me quote page 54 of my book: "In order to do this (provide a comparison of manoeuvring rates) it is necessary that the battalion of each nation be examined on a uniform basis. As a result, some artificial, universal assumptions (underlining not in text) must be made. The first is that the human body either conformed to the regulated width or that it was of a consistent and uniform width. Obviously it is not, but if one assumes the regulated widths are reasonable averages the impact of this should not significantly bias the analysis." "The second assumption is that people are capable of marching like machines, with an absolutely standardized pace. In the short term this is not true, but over the long run, with an eye to the statistical mean of all normally distributed events, the marching will distill down to an average probably very close to the regulated cadence and length of pace." "The third assumption is that the condition of the marching field is smooth and uniform. This is absolutely unrealistic, (underlining not in text) but it is necessary in order to provide a uniform comparison between the systems. In battle there would be bodies, plowed fields, ditches and a thousand other impediments to slow down any given maneuver, but there would also be some motivational aspects of combat, such as live shot whirling overhead to add wings to men's feet. Unfortunately, none of this is easily quantifiable and must be ignored." "Any attempt to consider the influence of these aspects of the battlefield would not assist in a uniform and even analysis of the tactical systems and has been eliminated. The goal is to provide a uniform analysis. It should be assumed that under actual combat situations anything could happen, but it would also be reasonable to presume that any relationships established in this study would be relatively unchanged." I believe this demonstrates that I had already addressed Dr. Esdaille's concerns in the book. I suspect that, in his eagerness to get to the meat of the book, he probably skipped past these four critical paragraphs. As for incorporating the impact of terrain, combat, morale, etc., be my guest and pick a percentage by which to multiply my base figures. Because of my engineering background I chose to stay away from wild, unsubstantiated guesses and I have provided the theoretically optimal relationships. Every number I used comes right out of the official regulations. It is up to the game designers and those who play them to add the uncertainties of war to their scenarios. In reading Dr. Esdaille's commentary I find myself troubled by his apparent dismissive attitude towards drill regulations. I have encountered this phenomenon on several occasions among the non-professional military. Drill regulations were not written just to adorn a bookshelf, they are the foundations of how the military works. During my 23 1/2 years of service I probably spent 22 of them training for those notorious few seconds of panic. Regulations and their modern exercise equivalent are designed to be driven into the soldier's skull so deeply that he won't think, he will just react according to doctrine. The drill regulations I used were the "doctrine" of their day. For those of you who have never listened to small arms whistle over your head, felt the concussion of a 130mm shell close up, or seen what either can do to the human body, you will never, ever have any idea "what the elephant looks like." Combat is a terrifying place and you don't have time to think about what you should do. Your actions need to be practiced a thousand times over until purely instinctive and mechanical. Anything less will get you killed. To those of you who think that you have an understanding of real combat because you suit up on Saturday, go off to some park, and blast away at one another with blanks or beat on one another with padded sticks, I can only say that you are very sadly mistaken. I apologise if I offend avid re-enactors with this opinion. Before you totally dismiss me however, I ask that you find a real combat veteran you know and respect, then ask him how close the two experiences are. To return this to the world of a Napoleonic drill regulation, the soldiers were not expected to think. They were expected to march, wheel, load and fire in response to drum rolls, bugle calls, and verbal orders. Remember those 12 or 18 steps in loading a musket. Try to load a musket if you have to think about what to do when someone is shooting real bullets or cannon balls at you. Odds are that if you haven't had that pounded into your head to a reflexive level you're going to shot your ramrod at someone. We all know about that, eh? As we are all aware poorly or undertrained soldiers did that kind of thing regularly. These actions are what is laid out in the regulations. They were intended be instinctive. The officers were to do the thinking for the enlisted men which, as we all know, sometimes had disastrous results. However, lest I be accused of being completely dogmatic and insisting that everything was done according to the drill regulations, let me say that on page 153 I talk about unofficial regulations and non-regulation manoeuvres. In addition, many parts of Imperial Bayonets address generally unregulated tactical activities. However, these essays were developed using technically accurate, but non-officially sanctioned tactical discussions by such men as Maréchal Ney, Généraux de brigade Meunier and Duhesme, and others. I support these with numerous examples and diagrams of brigade and higher level manoeuvres that were actually used in the field. To summarise, Dr. Esdaille says that I do not present the clear picture I promised when I said that it was my intention to "push through the mountain of misconceptions held by modern readers... and provide them with a clear understanding of what transpired on the battlefield" (pg. 17). I beg to differ. First there are considerably more misconceptions held by wargamers than that it takes a full 15, 30, or 60 minute game turn to change any formation or facing. In fact, it was very quick and frequently took only a few minutes as I point out - killing that misconception. As for other myths, my text provides the first correct and complete discussion in English of the formation of the Austrian battalionsmasse and divisionsmasse. I debunk the misconception that there were only three bayonet charges against cavalry in history. I demonstrate with historical examples that squares could and did march as fast as columns. I show, with historical examples, where French horse artillery could be, and was, used as light cavalry, demonstrating that the Royal Horse Artillery was not the only artillery capable of such actions. I provide over 170 diagrams of manoeuvres and a large number of graphs and charts displaying the actual accuracy of muskets and cannons using period tests, that go far beyond simple tables. I can go on, but why give everything away? How many misconceptions make a mountain? I don't know, but I guarantee that after reading Imperial Bayonets you'll find that there are a bunch of dead ones lying at your feet. Oh, is Imperial Bayonets perfect? No, I know of at least one error that was missed and there may be more. No work is perfect, not even Brent's. Comments from Brent Nosworthy I had an extremely interesting long distance conversation with Brent over this article. The lengthy call did nothing for Brent's phone bill, but filled me with a great deal of enthusiasm for what he is trying to achieve in his series of related books. Brent was most appreciative of Dr. Esdaille's remarks and comments. The only point that he really felt bore repeating was over the effect of a continuous firefight. Whilst the first volley would tend to cause the heaviest casualties, the long term effect for all participants would be attritional. Neither force would be in a condition to bring the combat to an end, and it was in these circumstances that fresh units would be introduced in order to tip the balance. Brent is currently reading his way through some six hundred memoirs, autobiographies and unit histories from the American Civil War as part of his next project on the effect of technological change on warfare. This volume will include the Mexican-American War and the Crimean War, as well as the Wars of German Unification. Needless to say, I offered my services if he wanted to bounce ideas around! What interested me was that Brent's original field of study was World War Two. It has always intrigued me that if you want to find out the thickness of armour, or the penetration of a shell at a particular range the reference books are legion. If you want to compare small unit tactics down to squad or section level, however, all that's available are the official manuals and handbooks. The many autobiograhies available tell us little about what it was like up at the front end. This led on to a discussion on the supposedly superior Wehrmacht small unit tactics and how the Allies learnt to overcome them. Did the Germans become predictable and the Allies flexible, or was it a materialschlacht. Altogether, a fascinating Sunday afternoon! Back to Age of Napoleon No. 24 Table of Contents Back to Age of Napoleon List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines © Copyright 1998 by Partizan Press. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com