The Cavalry was always clearly separated and segregated into 3 very different species: Heavy Cavalry (Cuirassiers and Carabiniers) Dragoons, and Light Cavalry (hussars and Chasseurs à Cheval) During the Empire, mixed brigades or Divisions of Light Cavalry, Dragoons or Cuirassiers were not to be found and were expressively forbidden. However, beside the Guard Lancers introduced in 1809, more Lancers, (also called Chevau-Légers) were introduced in June 1811 in the French army by converting 6 regiments of Dragoons and adding 2 regiments of Polish Lancers. Lancers Lancers were to introduce an exception to the rule. For the Campaign of 1812, to each Division of Cuirassiers was added 1 squadron of lancers as advance-guard for the Heavy Divisions. (Lancers were no longer attributed to Cuirassiers Divisions in the following campaigns.) The very same principle was applied to the 13th Cuirassiers in Spain which was brigaded with the Napolitan Chasseurs à Cheval due to a lack of available lancers. It is important to realize that the autonomy of each cavalry type was raised to an important principle of the Emperor; in his mind there were clearly 3 different arms and Napoleon made clear his thoughts on the matter when he wrote to the War Minister on 30th Frimaire Year XII: I want you to consider the Cuirassiers, the Dragoons and the Light Cavalry as forming three different arms, and that you never ask me to transfer officers from one arm to the other. Not only Napoleon professed the segregation of the 3 types of cavalry in separate units but also enforced it! Murat’s Advance guard after the capture of Vienna - was a large task force - organized to pursue Kutusov’s Russians. On 21 Brumaire Year XIV (November 12, 1805), it included the 1st Heavy Cavalry Division (Nansouty), 2nd Heavy Cavalry Division (d’Hautpoul) and the 2nd Dragoon Divisions (Walther). In addition, the Light Cavalry of the 5th Corps (Lannes) was temporarily assigned to the Reserve cavalry and operated under Murat: Light Cavalry Division of the 5th Corps (General de Division) General de Bde Treillard 9th Hussars 10th Hussars General de Bde Fauconnet 13th Chasseurs à Cheval Rgt. 21st Chasseurs à Cheval Rgt 1st Division of Heavy Cavalry (General de Division Nansouty) General de Bde Piston Bde of Carabiniers 1st Carabinier Rgt. 2nd Carabinier Rgt General of Bde Lahoussaye 1st Bde 2nd Cuirassier Rgt 9th Cuirassier Rgt General de Bde St-Germain 2nd Bde 3rd Cuirassier Rgt 12th Cuirassier Rgt Detachment of 2nd regiment of Horse artillery 2nd Division of Heavy Cavalry (General de Division d’Hautpoul) Colonel Noirot 1st Bde 1st Cuirassier Rgt 5th Cuirassier Rgt General de bde St. Sulpice 2nd Bde 10th Cuirassier Rgt 11th Cuirassier Rgt Detachment of 2nd regiment of Horse artillery 2nd Dragoon Division and of Lt Cavalry (General de Division Walther) General of Bde Milhaud 16th Chasseurs à Cheval Rgt (temporarily -- taken away from 3rd Corps) 22nd Chasseurs à Cheval Rgt General of Bde Sébastiani 1st Chasseurs à Cheval Rgt (detached from 3rd Corps) 3rd Dragoon Rgt 11th Dragoon Rgt General de Bde Roget 6th Dragoon Rgt 13th Dragoon Rgt General de Bde Boussard 10th Dragoon Rgt 22nd Dragoon Rgt Detachment of 2nd regiment of Horse artillery The total present for the 3 Divisions is 409 officers, 5,162 men, and 5,973 horses. Each of the Division has 2 8-pdrs and 1 howitzer. The Light Cavalry of the 5th Corps added 75 officers, 932 men, and 1,081 horses. Hence, the number of horsemen directly operating under Murat consisted of 484 officers, 6,094 men, 7,054 horses, without including the artillery which had a strength of 300 to 400, including the train. Napoleon quickly reacted and sent to Murat the following dispatch: "I see with sorrow that the Light Cavalry and the Dragoons are mixed together; there are two different arms." That was quite clear and to the point. Murat never again mixed Light Cavalry with Dragoons. When I first presented this paper, one attendee contested that fact and contended that cavalry types were certainly mixed together at one time to another. So we made a fairly detailed analysis of the French orders of battle. Were they exceptions? We did not find any in the French army during the Campaigns of 1805 (beside the above exception), 1806 and 1807, 1809, 1811, 1812, 1813 and 1815. None of the cavalry types were mixed. In Spain in 1808, where there were an abundance of provisional regiments, there were some exceptions: a close examination show the Army of Spain organized in 8 Corps. They were: 3rd Corps (Moncey) Brigade Wathier: 4th Hussars, 3rd Provisoire (i.e. provisional regiment, future 13th Cuirassiers). 7th Corps (Cavalry brigade: 24th Dragoons, Italian Dragoons Napoleon, 2 squadrons of Neapolitan Chasseurs à Cheval. Cavalry Reserve: Light Cavalry Brigade (Lasalle): 10th, 22nd, 26th Chasseurs à Cheval, 1 Provisional Dragoon Regiment. In 1809: the army of Portugal, included 3 cavalry Divisions, 2 of Dragoons, and a Division of cavalry, including 1st Hussars, 22nd Chasseurs à Cheval, 8th Dragoons and Hanoverian Chasseurs à Cheval. In 1810, the army of Portugal we find again in the Ornano brigade the 8th Dragoons and Hanoverian Chasseurs à Cheval brigaded together. In Spain, as previously mentioned the 13th Cuirassiers formed a brigade with the Neapolitan Chasseurs à Cheval. The Distribution of Cavalry in the Grande Armée Only Light Cavalry was attributed to each army Corps, which does not mean that from time to time the Light cavalry was not reinforced with Dragoons brigades or Divisions. As a general rule, at the beginning of each campaign, the initial attribution of Light Cavalry force to each Army Corps was a function of the immediate mission to be fulfilled. Thus the distribution of the Light Cavalry at the beginning of each campaign was not equal or permanent. It also changed quite often during the course of a given campaign (as seen above). These changes were dictated by strategic (and occasionally by tactical) developments. Hence Light Cavalry was a variable force in each Corps. When we say variable forces of Light Cavalry in the different army corps, that means that the Cavalry ranged from one half regiment to a full Division that is from 2 to 20 squadrons (and, on some occasions, even more). On several occasions, entire Dragoon Divisions were temporarily assigned to some Corps. For instance in 1805, the 5th and 7th Corps (Lannes and Augereau) each had only 1 Light Cavalry regiment, while the 2nd and 3rd (Marmont and Davout) had 4. Masséna who commanded the Army of Italy had for his 5 infantry Divisions an important mass of no less than 68 squadrons. D’Espagne’s Light Cavalry Division formed his vanguard with 5 regiments and a battalion of converged grenadiers. In 1806, before the beginning of the campaign, a dispatch sent by Napoleon to Berthier on September 20, reorganized the cavalry of the Grande Armée, by creating 2 brigades of Light Cavalry in the Reserve Cavalry. The text of that dispatch was: "There will be in the Reserve Cavalry, under the command of Prince Murat, 2 brigades of Hussars and Chasseurs à Cheval. One will be under the command of General Lasalle and the other by General Milhaud. That of General Lasalle shall include the 5th and 7th Hussars and that of General Milhaud the 11th and 13th Chasseurs à Cheval." Hence, the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Corps d’Armée shall have only 3 regiments of Light Cavalry each and the 7th Corps d’Armée shall have only two. The newly created Light Cavalry Division of the Reserve Cavalry formed the vanguard of the Grande Armée as it debouched from the Thuringerwald in 3 columns. That reorganization of the Grande Armée cavalry in 1806 was done to eliminate the problem encountered with the lack of Light Cavalry in the Reserve Cavalry in 1805, when, as seen previously, Murat formed a large Cavalry task force with the Reserve Cavalry to pursue Kutusov’s Russians. Note: the additional segregation of Light Cavalry by Napoleon: "That of General Lasalle shall include the 5th and 7th Hussars and that of General Milhaud the 11th and 13th Chasseurs à Cheval." The rest of the Cavalry (Dragoons and Cuirassiers and Carabiniers) was concentrated in the Cavalry Reserve. In 1805, Murat controlled 128 squadrons. In 1809, the Grande Armée Cavalry Reserve numbered 170 squadrons. Then, in 1812, as the Grande Armée had grown much larger, the Emperor reorganized his Cavalry Reserve in Cavalry Corps, which up to that time had been formed in Divisions. Each new Cavalry Corps generally included 3 Divisions, 2 of Cuirassiers or Dragoons, and 1 of Light Cavalry. At the beginning of the Campaign of Russia in 1812, the Cavalry Reserve formed no less than 4 Corps at 2 to 3 Divisions each and included no less that the impressive total of 200 squadrons. French Cavalry Reforms 1803 The Three Types of Cavalry Cavalry Segregation and Distribution Reserve Cavalry, Cavalry Missions, and Bibliography Related Napoleonic French Cavalry Combat Tactics [Courier 88] Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #87 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb.com Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com