NOTE FROM EDITOR: As mentioned in past issues of EEL, my wife helps me in my research and has come with an large amount of data (like some of the regimental histories used in our Ebelsberg article in EEL 78, furthermore, being fluent in both French and German is of great help) which, I feel, should be published in EEL after proper editing.
The data used here has been found in the Ann S.K. Brown Collection at the Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island; and at the Library of the Princeton University. At Providence, we found a huge book (it could not fit the copy machine, so the pertinent parts had to be copied by hand) Esquisse Historique de l'Artillerie Francaise Depuis le Moyen Age Jusqu'a Nos Jours, authored by A, de Moltzheim, Strasbourel (Simon), 1868. (ie "Historical Outline of the French Artilery from time Middle Ages to Our Times"). It contains a great deal of information on French artillery.
"The (French) company of artillery is, usually, made of 4 (or 5, JAL) cannons of 8 and 2 6-inche howitzers; sometimes of two cannos of 12, 2 of 8 or of 4 and 2 howitzers, It was nor unusual in a company to substitutes 12, 8 or 4 guns for one another according to the circumstances or the desire of the General- then, later, when the 4-pounders were taken away from the regiments, they were qiven more specially to the horse artillery; they were also used in the divisional artillery batteries orqanized with 4 and 8-pounder guns, the 12-pounder exclusively used in the reserve batteries batteries using the guns of the same caliber were to-pied: 4-pdr given to the vanguards and to the batteries were attached to the with the 6-inch howitzers were used in the reserve battieries. But since the foreign armies used the 6-pdrs, our 4-pdrs, too weak, was almost abandoned by the Divisional artillery, and the idea to replace the 4 and 8-pounders with a 6-pounder took place, a measure that was implemented in the Year XI, in the Year XI (18Q3), a new system the YEAR XI system (see note 1), was substitued for the Gribeaucal's system, but it was short lived.
At first, a few improvements were introduced only to be found futile, and some of them even discarded before they were reduced to practice. That was the introduction of a new moble siege artillery park which included 12 and 24-pounders siege guns; the 24-prds having a length of 16 calibers. The 8 and 4-pounders and the 6-inch howitzers (15 cm) of the field artillery were replaced by the 6-pdr and the 24-pdr howitzer (5 pouces 7 lignes, or 15 cm). Of the original YEAR XI system only the last two pieces of ordnance were used (see note 2). Later on, a 6-inch mortar (16 cm) and a long range 6-inch howitzer, called "a la Prussienne" were introduced. The 6-pdr remained in usage until 1818 and the 24-pdr (15cm) howitzer was kept in the French atrillery until it was replaced by longer howitzers in 1828.
Because of the replacement of the 4 and 8 -pdrs by the 6-pdr, the artillery now had only two types of field guns, the 6 and 12 pounders. The 6-pounders were attached exclusively to the vanguards and the Divisions, and the 12-pounders to the reserves, which were composed of approximately of one half 6-pounders and one half 12 pounders."
Notes
(1). The Year XI system, when first introduced, included:
- (1) short 24-pounders, long 12-pounders, short 12-pounders, long 6 pounders, short 6-pounders, mountain 6-pounders, mountain 3-pounders
(2) 24-pounders howitzers, (or 5 inches, 7 lignes, 15 cms)
(3) 10 and 12-inches mortars "a la gomer" (27 and 32 centimeters) were kept."
(2). That is somewhat incorrect since, according to General Allix "Systeme d'Artillery de Campagne du Lt. General Allix, Paris, 1827, (and other authoritative sources like Gigendi s official "Aide-Memoire a 1'Usage des Officiers d'Artillerie" ) the short 12-pounder - 16 caliber long - called Year XI 12-pounder, some 160 pounds lighter than the Gribeauval 12-pounder, was also introduced in the YEAR XI system. As previously mentioned in several past issues of EEL, with the exception of Spain where the Gribeauval system was used until 1814, the Year XI system slowly replaced the Gribeauval ordnance, partially for the Campaign of 1809 and fully for the Campaigns of 18'12, 1813, 1814 and 1815. According to irrefutable French archives material (and also to British archives material, see EEL 42,.pp.13-5) and contrary to what has been published by many English language sources, after the huge ordnance losses of the Campaign of Russia, the Gribeauval system was not reintroduced in the French artillery in 1812-13. For instance, at Waterloo, the ordnance of the Year XI system was used exclusively. (see also the newly published Armies at Waterloo by Scott Bowden, Empires Games Press, 1984.)
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