French Artillery

In the German army of 1870 an artillery regiment was assigned to a corps in its entirety, complete with its regimental organisation. For example, the First Artillery Regiment was assigned to First Corps, the Second to Second Corps and so on, so that not only was administration simplified, but an espirit de Corps was maintained amongst the various batteries of the regiment. It is also reasonable to assume that the closer association with other units in the regiment made for tighter operational cooperation.

By contrast the French artillery was less ordered. The regimental structure existed (there were 20 regiments - 1 to15 were line artillery, 17 to 20 horse artillery and the 16th was a pontonniers), but batteries were assigned to the corps and divisions from multiple regiments and the regimental administration remained at the depot. In the 2nd Corps, that I am modelling my collection on, the artillery contingent contained batteries from three different regiments, the 5th, 15th and 17th, while the 1st Corps drew from the 6th, 9th, 12th and 20th regiments.

Artillery was a great weakness in the French army in 1870 and contrary to popular opinion that it was the German use of rapid firing, steel breechloading Krupp guns that won the war, the reason for this weakness was more organisational and doctrinal that it was technical. There is no doubt that the guns were superb weapons for the time and they did have a theoretical rate of fire as high as ten rounds a minute, but the German doctrine was to focus on accuracy rather than rate of fire. The central difference between the two armies was that the French were outgunned at the divisional level. Each French infantry division had only 12 light field guns assigned to the German 24 guns - 12 light and 12 heavy - with another 36 guns in the corps reserve.  The French had between 36 and 48 guns in their Corps reserve, but where the Germans committed their reserve aggressively bringing them into action early in the fight, the French guns were held back ready to be deployed as the action developed and invariably came into action too late. The French were also short of heavy guns, with only twelve guns in the corps to the German's 36. Thus tactically the Germans could mass more guns (with a heavier throw weight) against single points more rapidly than the French, and were able to beat a path for infantry that were frequently pinned down by the superior range of the French Chassepôt rifle.

In technical terms the French were less hampered by their use of bronze muzzle loading guns than by their shell fuses. The French continued to use airburst shells with timed fuses whereas the German used impact fuses that were made more practical by the breechloading gun. The result was that the German shells arrived amongst its target with a bang whereas the French gunner had to estimate the flight time of the shell to burst overhead. The impact fuses also meant that the fall of shot was more easily observed and allowed the Germans to find the range quickly. What made it even worse for the poor French gunner was that in 1859 in an effort to simplify his task the Artillery Committee reduced the number of settings of the fuses from six to two meaning that shells were timed to explode in two range brackets; one at between 1,500 and 1,700 yards, and the other between 2,900 and 3,100 yards. If the enemy was obliging enough to stand still at those brackets all was well and good, but otherwise the shells either exploded short of their target or screamed past to explode beyond.

Louis Napoleon was well aware of the shortage of field guns with the divisions, but could not convince the Assembly to provide the funds for an expansion. Instead he privately funded the development of the mitrailleuse a rapid firing volley gun, often referred to as a machine gun, with 190 being available in July 1870. In an infantry support role the weapon might have had some success, but with a barrel weight of 340kg it had to be mounted on a gun trail that took its total weight to 855kg, which meant that it needed a limber to bring it into action and as a result it was massed in batteries and assigned to the divisional artillery. The inclusion of these six relatively untested and largely unsuccessful weapons in no way rectified the shortage of guns with the divisions.

And now onto the figures and what is presented here is the first battery of the divisional artillery for Verge's First Infantry Division, commanded by Commandant Rey: Captain Maréchal's 5th Battery, 5th Regiment of canon de campagne de 4 La Hitte.