THE YOUNG GUARD

Recruits for Napoleon's Young Guard were selected from volunteers and the biggest, strongest and best educated men from the current class of conscripts. Needless to say, volunteers, by definition, were generally better motivated than most of the conscripts and despite the strength of feeling against the later levies there were many who were prepared to volunteer for the defence of La Fatrie, irrespective of their personal attitude to Napoleon. By having the luxury of being selective the Guard 'was able to choose those conscripts who by age or physique were best able to withstand the rigours, of campaign. The building up of the Guard may be seen as a deliberate, Attempt to throw a more glamorous light onto the hated duties of compulsory service but there is no evidence to support this, Napoleon: never clearly stated his purpose in establishing, the Young Guard, but there is no doubt that if the Old Guard was raised as the ultimate reserve to be committed only at the critical moment I of battle, the Young Guard was raised to fight:.Napoleon wrote of his Guard; "in war I profit more from the fusillers and conscripts than from the grenadiers and chasseurs". [30]

Although their mental and physical maturity were likely to improve their combat effectiveness, their greatest advantage the high quality of the officer and NCO cadres that Were provided for them by, the Old and Middle Guards. With these veterans to guide them and inculcate the best traditions of the Guard into them, their battlefield performance exceeded all expectations. Another spin off from "the, building, up of this esprit de corps" was the reducing of the chances that the conscripts would desert. Of the 43,000 conscripts who were accepted for the Young Guard, Lachouque reports that fewer than 100 had deserted from the Young Guard. [31]

Napoleon clearly realised that an elite Young Guard of mature, well led conscripts with high morale would be the most combat effective part of his army. He therefore went to much trouble to increase their strength by exploiting all available resources and took great personal interest in their raising and organisation. By the end of the campaign there were 19 regiments each of Voltigeurs and Tirailleurs and he had increased the establishment of many of these from two battalions to three. As the campaign went on 'processed' conscripts were sent to the new regiments and divisions rather than to reinforce those already organised and at the front. The result was that the front line divisions continually shrunk in size whilst entirely new and untried divisions were hastily organised and sent forward to join the fighting. Ultimately, when these older divisions became non- effective due to their losses they were merely merged with another in a similar situation.

It is worth briefly following one of these divisions to illustrate this: the 1st Voltigeur Division commanded by General de Division Meunier was one of the first to be raised after Leipzig and was thus reasonably well equipped, armed and organised with "excellent cadres". In December 1813 it numbered 117 officers and 4,700 men and in the first skirmishes with the allies one of the brigade commanders (Rousseau) reported; "I have nothing but praise for our youngsters; they fought well." [32]

By the 26th January when the army concentrated at Chalons, before any battle had been fought, their strength was down to 3,830. Having fought at Brienne and then La Rothiere, the first major engagements of the campaign, they were reduced to a strength of approximately 3,000. After the terrible retreat that followed that defeat they fought again at Montmirail, were present but saw little or no fighting at Vauchamps and Montereau, by which time they mustered hardly 2,000 men. By the time of the battle at Craonne (7 Mar) the division was only about 1,000 strong: involved in heavy fighting, that day cost them over 50% of their remaining strength, 540 men becoming casualties (including the colonel of the 1st Voltigeurs, six out of the eight unit commanding officers and 30 other officers)!

With the division reduced to the strength of a single battalion they fought again at Laon two days later. It is little surprise that Napoleon wrote after this battle; "The Young Guard is melting like snow in the sun". [33] After Laon, Meunier's division was merged into the 2nd Voltigeur Division in the reorganisation that saw four Young Guard divisions amalgamated into two.

A total of nine Young Guard divisions were raised for this campaign, but although those raised early on were filled with the right calibre of men, reasonably well equipped and with a strong cadre this was not true of all of them. The Guard began to suffer the same sort of shortages of equipment and uniforms as the line troops, General d'Ornano writing; "we have no credit". [34] The Guard's funds were exhausted. Despite this Napoleon continued to write optimistic letters to d'Ornano "You must have at least twenty battalion cadres ... when filled up these will make a fine reserve of 16,000 men ... announce these divisions today and organise them tomorrow". [35]

But cadres became increasingly hard to find even for the Guard and a number of sources had to be used; officers were appointed from the Royal Guards of Naples and Spain and retired veterans were recalled - two NCOs posted to the 9th Tirailleurs, had each lost an arm! Even the quality of the conscripts sent to the Guard fell: Napoleon had some that were allocated to VI Corps (and had therefore originally missed selection to the Guard) sent to Curial's 2nd Young Guard Division because he "would make better use of them than Marmont." [36]

The fact of the matter was that whatever handicaps the Young Guard were working under, as the campaign progressed they became the principle component of the army and Napoleon relied on them to do the lion's share of the fighting, supported increasingly by the Old Guard. As the Emperor advanced against Blucher with nearly 40,000 men in March, 27,000 were of the Guard and at Craorme they accounted for 90% of the French troops present at that bloody battle.

FOOTNOTES