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The French CavalryAfter the defeat of the much-vaunted Prussian Army at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt (14th October 1806), Napoleon was able to replenish his cavalry horses at Prussian expense, and established a large depot at Potsdam. Here, and throughout Prussian conquered territory he was able to raise some 44,555 horses. These together with the mounts that had not been worn out or killed during the previous campaign gave the French a total of 60,000 comparatively fresh horses ([Petre pp26], [Rodgers pp35-52]). It must be remembered that a constant flow of remounts were always being supplied to the French army from depots in France, as well as captured horses and those requisitioned during a campaign in enemy territory. The overall total amount of horses that were supplied to the cavalry is impossible to calculate. The various specialized units such as Hussars, Cuirassiers, Dragoons and Chasseurs would each require different types of horses to fit their needs; also we must not forget that the French artillery required over 5,000 horses to pull their guns, limbers and ammunition wagons, as well as for field forges, forage and food wagons. There are also the staff officers and ADC mounts to be considered, these might number somewhere in the region of 1,500-2,000, depending on how many spare horses each officer could afford [Bowden pp27-31]. Most sources agree that Murat assembled over 10,000 cavalry for his attack at Eylau, these consisted of:
A total of 10,700 men [Murat]. The reason for the parenthesized question concerning the horses is due to the fact that during the week preceding the battle of Eylau the French cavalry had been engaged in a number of heavy engagements as well as having to manoeuvre in conditions which would cause many of their mounts to become unserviceable. I cite here two examples of how these figures do not tally with Murat's estimates of the cavalry he led at Eylau. On 6th February Murat's heavy cavalry were engaged with the Russians at Hof,
Since no information is forthcoming on the strength of Murat's cavalry before the engagement at Hof, then we must rely on the figures given by Petre for 24th November 1806. Here he quotes from Corr.11, 302 of the French Archives, which give a figure of 9,200 for the combined Divisions of Beaumont, Kline, Becker, Milhaud (Dragoons) and Nansouty (Cuirassiers). Beaumont and Becker's Dragoon Divisions were with Bernadotte and Savary respectively, while Grouchy's Dragoon Division had been recalled from Ney's command to join Murat [Epostio et al pp72]. General Nansouty seems to have disappeared into the ether as neither Petre nor Esposito and Elting mention him again; indeed Petre although mentioning his name in the text does not even give him a credit in his index, and we may therefore consider only the Cuirassier Division of General d'Hautpoult. Not knowing the exact strength of the French Dragoons at Hof, we have to come to the conclusion that only one division was present, say 2000 troopers, but since this type of cavalry also fought on foot, they may not have been included in the correspondence because they fought dismounted [Chandler pp352]. The numbers of the French Cuirassiers engaged at Hof is also speculative, though the figure of between 1,000-1,200 seems to be a fair estimate; once again allowing for losses incurred on the march and in previous engagements. Only three Cuirassier regiments fought at Hof, 1st, 5thand 10th. The 11th regiment was not engaged [Bukhari pp41], but may have been held back as a result of the lack of horses, the remaining mounts going to fill-up the other three regiments. I can find no details for the French Heavy Cavalry losses at Hof, but considering the severity of the weather and the fact that the losses given by Marshal Soult for his corps were 1,960 [Petre pp159] then a conservative estimate would be 150-200 men and horses. There is also another consideration to take into account here, the fact that no army or portion thereof would attack an enemy in a prepared position without artillery support; therefore we must consider whether many of the French cavalry horses were used to haul their cannon onto the battlefield? Given the conditions under which this campaign was fought, we must definitely take into account the intensive labour involved in bringing these necessities of war, and their ancillary equipment to the right place at the right time; it is therefore quite possible that many of the heavy cavalry horses (being stronger) were used to double the team's of the artillery to allow them to reach the battlefield. The second argument against Murat's figures on cavalry strengths comes from an examination of individual regiments, both light and heavy, that were on the field of Eylau.As an example I will use the Lasalle's Light Cavalry Division. General Lasalle's division covered the French left flank, and contained the brigades of Colbert, Guyot, Dorosnel and Bruyere. Although the exact figures for these units will never be known, we can still arrive at a rough estimate of their strengths. The combined division was made up from:
If we allow for an average strength of 80 men and horses per squadron, then we arrive at the figure of 2,560 for this division alone. This will enable us to use a rough rule of thumb in determining the strengths of other units on the field. Next we have to consider the Guard cavalry whom Murat includes in his total figures for the charge. These troops would not have constituted the whole of the Imperial Guard cavalry, as we may be sure that Napoleon would have kept one or two "duty squadrons" of his Guard Chasseurs a Cheval with him in the event of a misfortune. The main units of the Guard involved were the Guard Grenadiers a Cheval, and these numbered six squadrons (The original total for the Grenadiers a Cheval was four squadrons, but another two were added in 1805. See [Bukhari pp203]). As these were elite troops, then we can say that they would have been kept up to strength, even to the detriment of other units, and so we should put a figure of 100-150 men per squadron, giving them 600-800 engaged. The Guard Chasseurs a Cheval numbered five squadrons [Bukhari pp210]but whether or not all of these took part in the charge is debatable; therefore we should allow a conservative estimate of between 300-400 for this formation. As we have seen, the Dragoon and Cuirassier divisions suffered losses during the engagement at Hof, and it is most probable that they also incurred a substantial loss of horses in each unit owing to the lack of forage, and the general hardships of the campaign (just how they were re-shod under these conditions would be an interesting paper in itself). If we allow the same numbers per squadron for each regiment in each division as we gave to the light cavalry division under General Lasalle, we arrive at the following:
Again allowing for each squadron 80 men and horses, which is a good allowance under the circumstances, then we arrive at the figure of 7,280 for the combined Dragoon and Cuirassier Divisions. If we now add the Guard cavalry to this total, and add in the possibility of the Guard Chasseurs a Cheval also contributing one or two squadrons to the charge, then we have an overall count of approximately 8,300. Next we must take off the numbers killed or wounded at Hof, and also, and this is a crucial factor, the loss of horses and reallocation of same to other tasks as well as those unfit from pure exhaustion, this leaves us with no more than 7,000-7,500 men and horses engaged, a far cry from the 10,000 plus quoted in the sources. Of course the latter number was estimated on the "full" squadron strengths, and not on how these strengths would have been eroded during a campaign.  |
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