Yet More (and the last) Franco-Prussian Thoughts.

Having discussed how infantry was employed in my last post, this post will discuss the way artillery and cavalry were employed by the French and German armies in 1870.

Performing poorly in 1866 the German artillery was reformed prior to 1870 into a highly efficient arm. Central to that efficiency was the organisation that saw one regiment attached to each army corps. Each regiment consisted of three field and one horse divisions. In general terms this placed fourteen batteries each of six guns in each corps – the numbers of batteries varied in some formations, especially within the South German States.  The field divisions comprised of two heavy (6lb) and two light (4lb) batteries and the horse division of two light batteries. Each division was commanded by a major and the regiment by a colonel. A field division was assigned to each of the two infantry divisions in the corps, while the third field and the horse divisions formed the corps reserve. While guns accompanied the division, they fell under the direct control of the corps chief of artillery, who held a general’s rank, and by doing so raised the status of the artillery within the corps.

 

In 1866 the artillery was held too far back in the order of march leaving the infantry in want of support when the action opened. This was rectified in 1870 by bringing the batteries forward in the line of march, frequently the second or third unit in the order – maybe preceded by a squadron of cavalry and an infantry battalion. The artillery also abandoned the age old dishonour of losing guns in action, not that they lost many (or even any) in 1870.

 

French artillery organisation was nowhere nearly as neat and tidy as the Germans. Each infantry division was assigned two light field and one mitrailleuse battery, each of six weapons. Each corps then had a reserve of six batteries, each grouped into sub units of two batteries: one of 12lb one of 4lb guns and one of horse artillery. This gave the field strength of 12 batteries and 3 mitrailieuses in most divisions, but in 1^st and 3^rd Corps which contained an additional infantry division and an additional horse artillery unit in the reserve, the count raised to 16 field and 4 mitrailleuse batteries. While the number of guns with the corps were roughly equal to those of the Germans, the distribution was weaker with only 12 guns with the division compared to 24 and with too many guns in the reserve that was always held too far to the rear and always brought into the action too late.

 

To cite some examples of how the Germans brought guns into action and then how they sustained the infantry in action:

 

At Wissembourg the action was opened by the 4^th Bavarian Division and two batteries were brought into the action early. However these two batteries struggled to find positions in and among the vineyards and were subjected to long range Chassepôt fire that drove them out of the action. About an hour later eight batteries from V Corps  were brought forward, but only five could find firing positions. In a short time these batteries silenced the French guns and blasted a way for the Bavarian infantry to gain access to the town. They then turned their attention to the French troops on the heights above the town and when the infantry advance against the final French stronghold, the Chateau Giessberg, was held in check batteries were brought up to close range to blast the French into submission.

 

In this same action the German gunners quickly determined where the French mitrailleuse battery was and silenced it promptly. In fact they hit the battery ammunition supply and the resulting explosion killed the French general commanding.

 

Two days later, at Froeschwiller, the Bavarians were again into the action quickly and again their artillery struggled to gain good firing positions. Not so, however, for the batteries of V Corps that came into action on the heights opposite the French, behind the Sauerbach stream. The ground here was so favourable that all fourteen batteries were deployed, and they utterly swamped the three French batteries opposite them, driving them to silence in a very short time. This artillery mass was joined by four batteries from XI Corps and throughout the whole of the morning and much of the early afternoon dominated forward slope of the Froeschwiller ridge, breaking up French counter attacks and preventing the destruction of their own dangerously exposed infantry on the opposite bank. 

 

In the morning in this action some batteries encountered difficulties when their impact fused shells struck ground made soft by the previous night’s rain and failed to explode.

 

When the infantry were established on the other side of the stream and began to mask the guns, the batteries from both V and XI Corps were brought across the stream and established positions to beat a path for the stalled infantry advance. No clearer example how the German batteries could be grouped into different groups to deal with a tactical situation can be given than of the XI Corps guns. When the infantry of the Corps halted in a disorganised state around the village of Elsasshausen seven batteries from the corps, 42 guns in all, from different commands were gathered together by the corps artillery chief and formed up along the road to the village and dominated the open ground between that position and Froeschwiller, helping to break up the charges of the French cuirassiers and enabling V corps to continue its advance.

 

On the same day at Spicheren the attack of the 14^th Division on the Rotherberg was covered by the fire of four batteries which blasted the only visible French units on the Rotherberg. At first the batteries could not gain good effect because they were firing from a lower elevation to the French, with a vertical deficit of some 60 feet, and their impact shells could not gain effect: they either burst in front of the French works or screamed past to the rear – it was perhaps one time the German gunners wished they had access to airburst shells. When the batteries relocated to a higher position their fire had immediate effect. These 24 guns rained as many as 96 shells per minute into an area not much larger than two football fields that was occupied by a battalion of chasseurs and a battery. The actual casualties suffered by the French was small because both were dug in, but the gunners found it impossible to engage the German guns effectively because the range was too short for their pre-set fuses and they withdrew several hundred yards to the rear where the range was better. The chasseurs meanwhile were compelled to keep their heads down allowing the German infantry to gain the base of the hill with only minimal loss.

 

A while later the French mitrailleuse battery came into action to the left of the Rotherberg opening on a German battery 2000 yards to its front. Here for the first time the difficulty in observing the fall of shot for this weapon was demonstrated – because it had no explosive round typically the gunners could only determine fall of shot by the dust thrown up when the shots hit the ground and on the night before it had rained heavily. At first the contest was relatively even but when three more German batteries joined the first they swamped the mitrailleuse battery and drove it from its position. The battery commander reported that an estimated 300 shells were unleashed on him in ten minutes, wounding a number of men and horses and temporarily dismounting two weapons.

 

Another example of the Germans forming temporary gun masses can be found later in the day. Those same four batteries from 14^th Division formed the core of the formation and were joined by batteries from a variety of other divisions that arrived piecemeal on the field. The guns were formed in a mass on high ground north of the Rotherberg and dominated the narrow passage to the south, preventing the French reserve artillery from effectively entering the battle. When a French attack late in the day threatened to drive in the German right flank, this gun mass broke it up.

 

By the time the armies met at Gravelotte-St Privat and at Sedan the German artillery was at its absolute peak. At the former they managed to deploy all their guns in vast gun lines. In front of the French right at Amanvilliers, for example,  the full strength of the of the IX, Guard and XII Corps , a total of 258 guns, swept the ridge. At Sedan for the first time the German artillery participated in a coordinated effort in which different batteries targeted a different sector of a target as though working to a grid.

 

The French guns were not totally ineffective. At Froeschwiller four batteries from the Corps reserve were brought into action against the German V Corps guns. These 24 guns managed to sustain themselves in action for 45 minutes by increasing the spacing between guns, but four batteries against eighteen could not gain any real advantage and they were eventually withdrawn from the action to preserve ammunition. Later in the day all eight batteries of the reserve were committed in a last ditch effort to hold back the final German assault, but to little avail as the Germans quickly overran their position capturing a number of guns.

 

Where they were able to gain good positions the French guns could be effective. At Spicheren the artillery of the First Division took post out of the line of fire of the German guns and played a significant role in turning back several German attacks. A similar situation occurred a little later in that day on the Spicheren heights. Here the French artillery retired to a position where the Germans were not able to bring guns to bear and from this new position were able to dominate the plateau and prevent any further advance by the German infantry. Similarly at Froesechwiller the two divisional batteries of Lartigue’s division were able to find shelter from the German artillery behind an outcropping and were able to briefly disrupt the advance of XI until the Germans found a covered approach.

 

While the German artillery had the technical advantage of a reliable gun firing reliable impact fused shells, it real success in action was realised by bringing guns into action early in the fight and from a flexible command structure that empowered junior officers to make good decisions that enabled them to bring together guns, frequently from different commands, to form adhoc formations that could deal with difficult pockets of resistance. 

 

The French artillery, on the other hand, suffered the technical disadvantage of a timed fuse for their airburst shells that was set for only two range bands. They also had a deficit of guns within the divisions and the divisional chief still had direct control of his batteries. Without a unity of command the French were never able to bring numbers of guns to bear and always lost the battle for fire superiority. The reserve batteries always came into action too late.

 

Neither side handled cavalry well. Looking at cavalry in combat,  the most famous episodes are the charges of the French cuirassiers at Froeschwiller, where six regiments were thrown against the Germans in desperate attempts to gain time for their beaten infantry and artillery to escape. The charges might have had some success had there been a better opportunity to reconnoitre the ground, but what was at first thought to open ground was discovered to be covered with concealed ditches and tree stumps. Not a single trooper clashed with an enemy. All the regiments were decimated and the German advance was not halted. A similar result came of the charges of the Chasseurs d’Afrique at Sedan.

 

Von Bredow’s death ride at Mars-la-Tour caused a temporary chaos in the French lines and created the distraction and doubt that was intended, allowing the German infantry and artillery to hold their position. Again it was made at a terrible loss. At that same battle the last great cavalry clash in the world ended inconclusively in the fields near between Mars-la-Tour and Yron.

 

In reconnaissance the German cavalry excelled and in the early stages of the war the regiments spread across the front of the armies and gained an accurate picture of French deployment. All cavalry types, including the battle cavalry (cuirassiers and uhlans), were involved and individual regiments squadrons and even individual troopers helped to feel the way forward for the armies. On occasions some cavalry leaders failed to act as they should have or misinterpreted the information coming back from the front and prior to Mars-la-Tour they completely lost contact with the French until they blundered into them near Rezonville.

 

The French attempts at reconnaissance were appalling. In part this was because of conflicting instructions between Napoleon and army chief of staff where one stated that the cavalry should not be placed at risk, whereas the other said they should push far forward, and in part because the French experience in Africa taught them small detached forces were vulnerable to attack and in 1870 they failed to adapt to the European theatre. The result was that reconnaissances were conducted by larger bodies that always shied away from a fight. The French reconnaissance in the early morning at Wissembourg was the worst example where a single regiment of rode across the front of the division but failed to press more the a few hundred yards ahead of the lines. As a result they failed to identify that 80,000 Germans were about to descent of a single French division of 4800 men.

 

Neither side trained their cavalry for sustained dismounted action, although two squadrons of dragoons fought dismounted briefly in the face of the advance of the German 13^th Division at Spicheren.