The Last Full Measure (17 page)
Read The Last Full Measure Online
Authors: Michael Stephenson
But even if, to correct this, we allow that half of all men killed in action (who seldom amounted to more than one-fifth of all casualties) fell to artillery fire, this still means that only just over 20 per cent of all casualties were the result of artillery.
… It can however be argued that the figures would be higher for the Napoleonic period. Infantry firefights were less common and intense than during the Seven Years War; while compared to the American Civil War troops
manoeuvred in close formations taking little cover, which made them very vulnerable to artillery fire. Although these arguments smack of special pleading, we might give them sufficient credence to consider a figure of between 20 and 25 per cent as being the maximum normal proportions of casualties caused by the fire of artillery.… The most we can say is that where we have evidence of the ammunition consumed and the losses suffered by the opposing army, it took, on average, a number of rounds of artillery fire to inflict one enemy casualty.
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Other modern historians credit the artillery of the period with a much more effective lethality: “On average, well-sighted and well-handled artillery [firing case] could expect to inflict between one and 1½ casualties per shot.”
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But as with musketry, the generalization of statistics can mask the horror of localized actions in which artillery could play a devastating part. Captain Kincaid at Waterloo records that “the 27th Regiment were lying literally dead, in square,” mainly killed by artillery. In addition, the question has to be asked about the basis of statistical evidence in this period. There was no bureaucratic or forensic capability within any army to record the causes of death in action. The dead were usually dumped unceremoniously into mass graves pretty quickly after the fighting had ended. No one was about to catalog their individual fates. It seems true, however, that artillery became increasingly decisive in the great Napoleonic battles against continental enemies (unlike the fighting in the Peninsular War, which was more infantry-based). Concentrations of cannon could be very large indeed, with batteries of up to a hundred guns, and the French memoirist Sergeant Burgoyne claims that Borodino “like all our great battles was won by the artillery.”
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THE COMBAT OFFICER
throughout history has a double-edged intimacy with death in battle. Officers in the field, particularly junior grades, are expected to lead in combat, which, inevitably, increases their risk of being killed. They also send men to their deaths. A bad officer can get his men killed; a good officer will try to minimize the risk to his men if it can be done without compromising the mission. But sometimes it cannot, and so “good” and dedicated officers also get their men killed.
The officer was bound by a code of honor designed to ensure that he would willingly, often passionately, accept his obligation and the death it might bring. Social class still determined almost without exception who would lead and how they were expected to fight and die. The common soldier, it was thought, may well have had an animal vitality, but he lacked the higher qualities that were the inheritance of the officer. The French aristocrat Turpin de Crissé outlined the distinction: “Bravery is in the blood, but courage is in the soul. Bravery is instinctive, almost a mechanical reaction. Courage is a virtue, and a lofty and noble sentiment.”
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A token of that noble inheritance was a casual disregard for personal safety, the more flamboyantly expressed the better. Death was to be sneered at as though it were a vulgarity. Sangfroid was an expression of the languid disdain a gentleman offered impending oblivion. Alessandro Farnese, the Duke of Parma, was taking his luncheon while besieging the city of Oudenaarde in 1582:
Hardly had the repast commenced, when a ball came flying over the table, taking off the head of a young Walloon officer who was sitting near Parma.… A portion of his skull struck out the eye of another gentleman present. A second ball … destroyed two more of the guests as they sat at the banquet.… The blood and the brains of these unfortunate
individuals were strewn over the festive board, and the others all started to their feet, having little appetite left for their dinner. Alexander alone remained in his seat.… Quietly ordering the attendants to remove the dead bodies, and to bring a clean tablecloth, he insisted that his guests should resume their places.
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Parma’s reaction may strike us as deranged, but it was meant to demonstrate a degree of self-control thought to be the exclusive preserve of the aristocrat-officer. George Napier recalled, with astonishing detachment, having his arm amputated during the Napoleonic Wars: “I must confess that I did not bear the amputation of my arm as well as I ought to have done, for I made noise enough when the knife cut through my skin and flesh. It is no joke I assure you, but still it was a shame to say a word.… Staff Surgeon Guthrie cut it off. However, from want of light, and from the number of amputations he had already performed … his instruments were blunted, so it was a long time before the thing was finished, at least twenty minutes, and the pain was great. I then thanked him for his kindness.”
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George Washington at Yorktown exhibited more of the “right stuff”:
During the assault, the British kept up an incessant firing of cannon and musketry from their whole line. His Excellency General Washington, Generals Lincoln and Knox, with their aides, having dismounted, were standing in an exposed situation waiting the result.
Colonel Cobb, one of General Washington’s aides, solicitous for his safety, said to His Excellency, “Sir, you are too much exposed here. Had you not step a little back?”
“Colonel Cobb,” replied His Excellency, “if you are afraid, you have the liberty to step back.”
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These are rhetorical gestures in the face of death, but not in the shallow sense of gesture as empty mimicry. It is uplifting theater, strengthening the primary actor and inspiring the onlooker. The actions of artillery captain Mercer at Waterloo illustrate something of this chutzpah, and also the price one of his men had to pay for it:
It was not without a little difficulty that I succeeded in restraining the people [his gunners] from firing, for they grew impatient.… Seeing some exertion beyond words necessary for this purpose, I leaped my horse up the little bank, and began a promenade (by no means agreeable) up and down our front, without even drawing my sword, though these fellows [the French] were within speaking distance of me. This quieted my men; but the tall blue gentlemen, seeing me thus dare them, immediately made a target of me, and commenced a very deliberate practice, to show us what very bad shots they were, and verify the old artillery proverb, “The nearer the target, the safer you are.” One fellow certainly made me flinch, but it was a miss; so I shook my finger at him.… The rogue grinned as he reloaded, and again took aim. I certainly felt rather foolish at that moment, but was ashamed after such bravado to let him see it, and therefore continued my promenade. As if to prolong my torment, he was a terrible time about it.… Whenever I turned, the muzzle of his infernal carbine still followed me. At length bang it went, and whiz came the ball close to the back of my neck, and at the same instant down dropped the leading driver of one of my guns (Miller), into whose forehead the cursed missile had penetrated.
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Death was to be accepted not only with a certain equanimity but also, if possible, with a memorable quip. On trumped-up
charges of having broken their parole (the word given by captured officers that if released, they would take no further part in the fighting), two Royalist officers during the English Civil War, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, who had been recaptured at Colchester, were condemned to be shot by their Parliamentarian captors: “Lucas was shot first and Lisle stood over his friend’s body as the firing party reloaded. Lisle called to them to come closer, to which one replied, ‘I’ll warrant you, sir, we’ll hit you’; with a smile Lisle said, ‘Friends, I have been nearer you when you have missed me!’ ”
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A young British officer, Major John André, was captured while spying during the American War of Independence and, because he had been instrumental in abetting General Benedict Arnold’s defection to the British, was condemned to hang. Alexander Hamilton described the scene:
In going to the place of execution, he bowed familiarly as he went along to all those with whom he had been acquainted in his confinement. A smile of complacency expressed the supreme fortitude of his mind. Arrived at the fatal spot, he asked with some emotion, must “I then die in this manner.” [He was to be hanged like a common criminal and not shot as would have befitted his rank and station, and although he had petitioned Washington twice, the decision remained.] He was told it had been unavoidable. “I am reconciled to my fate,” said he, “but not to the mode.” Soon however recollecting himself, he added, “it will be but a momentary pang,” and springing upon the cart performed the last offices to himself with a composure that excited the admiration and melted the hearts of the beholders. Upon being told the final moment was at hand, and asked if he had anything to say, he answered: “nothing, but to request you will witness to the world that I die like a brave man.”
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It was a composure that has always been the ideal of a noble officer: “He is patient, forebearing, and resigned on philosophical principles; he submits to pain because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny.”
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There was even a gaiety, a sharpened appreciation of life, when death was embraced: “It’s a lottery,” reflects Captain Bréaut des Marlots, “even if you get out of this, you’ll have to die someday. Do you prefer to live dishonored or to die with honor?” General Antoine Lasalle, one of the most intrepid of Napoleon’s cavalry commanders, told friends, “What’s the point of living? To earn a reputation, get ahead, make your fortune? Well, I’m general of division at 33, and last year the Emperor gave me an income of 50,000 francs.” To which a friend replied, “Then you must live to enjoy it.” “Not at all,” Lasalle responded. “To have achieved it, that’s satisfaction enough. I love battles, being in the noise, the smoke, the movement; so long as you’ve made your name, and you know your wife and children won’t want for anything, that’s all that matters. For myself, I’m ready to die tomorrow.” He was killed three months later, shot between the eyes on the second day of Wagram, 1809.
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Bad and arrogant officers were infected with a narcissistic sense of honor for which their men paid a terrible price. At Minden in 1759, Lieutenant General Saint Pern, “having seen the bloody losses sustained by his poor grenadiers, nevertheless kept them exposed to fire throughout the battle, instead of ordering them to sit on the ground, or descend a few paces to the rear, where they would have been covered by the crest of the hill on which they were standing.”
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Several factors increased the officers’ chances of being killed. One was that they dressed conspicuously and therefore attracted the attention of snipers. Marshal Soult in the Peninsular War complained that his own officers were especially targeted: “When senior officers go to the front, either to make observations or to encourage
their troops, they are almost always hit. We lose so many officers that after two consecutive actions the battalion is almost destitute of them. In our casualty lists the proportion is often one officer to eight men. I have seen units where there were only two or three officers left, though not one sixth of the rank and file were
hors de combat
.”
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Ironically, there is an account (perhaps apocryphal) that Soult himself was spotted reconnoitering the British lines at Alba de Tormes in November 1812 but that Lieutenant Colonel John Cameron of Fassiefern, commanding the Scottish Highlanders of the Ninety-Second ordered his men to withhold fire.
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Sniping officers was considered—by the officer class—to be bad form and a breach of military etiquette. The common soldier, however, saw it quite differently, as this incident during an action at Vimeiro, Portugal, in 1808 makes clear. A British officer asked a rifleman to take care of a French sharpshooter who was aiming at him. The soldier ignored the request, preferring to target a French officer:
“Why do you want to kill the officer,” cried I, “you rascal?” with as much vexation as he had manifested. “Pecaus ter pe more plunder [because there will be more plunder],” muttered the wretch, keeping his eyes fixed on the object of his ambition. It now immediately occurred to my mind, that, as we were rapidly driving back the enemy, this worthy had calculated on permitting the Voltigeur to pick me off, while he should return the compliment on the French officer; and thus secure the advantage of plundering me first, trusting to the almost certainty of getting up to the enemy before the French officer’s carcase should be stripped by his friends.
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