French Wargames- Le Camp de Vaussieux 1778

Historians have long debated, proved, or debunked connections between the revolutions of the United States and of France. The societies which emerged from both upheavals created states which would dominate their spheres of influence in the foreseeable future. For our interests, militarily there are obvious connections between the conflicts in the American colonies and across Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Junior officers of the 1770s and 1780s would go on to become the generals of the early 19th century. In our minds today, the names of two great leaders dominate the conversation about military leadership and development during these two great conflicts, George Washington and Napoleon Boneparte.

The connections to the two are somewhat distant, yet at certain points, in both of their careers people, places, and events line up with for a connection. One which I aim to highlight today is that of the 1778 Camp de Vaussieux. The event in which the French Army prepared to fight alongside George Washington, and ended up forming the basis of the tactics Napoleon would use with the Grande Armée.

Plan du Camp de Vaussieux en Normandie. Aux ordres de M. le Duc de Broglio. Commencé dans les Premiers jours de Septembre et fini dans les Premiers jours d'Octobre 1778. Avec les Grandes Manoeuvres qu'on y a Exécutées pour l'Instruction des Troupes.https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84919125/f1.item

Located just outside of Bayeux in Normandy, this small farming area would witness forty battalions of infantry, along with cavalry and artillery, totaling close to 20,000 men converge in early September 1778 under the command of Maréchal Victor-François, duc de Broglie, a French hero of the Seven Years War. Broglie had three assignments from the Ministry of War. First, he must defend the Norman coast against British incursions. Second, he must himself prepare the troops under his command to invade Great Britain. Finally, he must conduct training exercises to determine the dominance of one of two main theories of land warfare in 1770s France, l'ordre profond (deep order) and l'ordre mince (thin order).

Le maréchal Victor-François de Broglie. Huile sur toile anonyme, château de Versailles.

Both doctrines had their champions and both had their detractors. l'ordre profond had recently been defended by François-Jean de Mesnil-Durand. To English speakers, l'ordre profond would come to be known as columns or attacking columns. These formations harken back to ancient warfare where thickly packed bodies of men used shock and power to punch through enemy formations. Support was felt by all ranks as masses of comrades could be seen in all directions. However, l'ordre profond faced limitations as it was hard for officers to handle large masses of men, who were large targets to enemy infantry and artillery. The French Army of the Seven Years War had seen large columns of men utilizing these deep order tactics be mowed down and routed by disciplined fire from Prussian and British infantry at Rossbach and Minden. The arguments for the continued development of this theory came from the more conservative and aristocratic side of the French Army. Many argued that l'ordre profond was an innately French skill, which utilized the elan possessed only by the soldiers of King Louis. To deviate from this would be treason to the culture and heritage of French arms, and even worse Germanic or even Prussian in nature.

Opposite l'ordre profond lay l'ordre mince. The experience of the Seven Years War had shown that Prussian lines, drawn three ranks deep, could deliver firepower that outweighed the shock of a French column attack. l'ordre mince called for French infantry to emulate the Prussians by forming the entire battalion into a three rank deep line, able to deliver all of its fire into an opponent. However, if the fire of the line was not controlled efficiently, or a massed attack drew too close, the line risked breaking apart. It was also much harder to command formations in l'ordre mince.

In this debate marched the soldiers of Marshal Broglie. Broglie himself was an ardent defender of l'ordre profond, and expected these exercises to help the Army move on to focus on its preparations for combat with the British. Training commenced early in September as units practiced basic maneuvers and large scale operations. Later in the month, the real tests began.

On one day, a brigade under the command of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, opposed an attack by a division. Rochambeau's brigade would utilize the tactics highlighted in the 1776 regulations which leaned heavily on the theories of l'ordre mince. The attacking division would use l'ordre profond. The results were decisive. Rochambeau and his smaller force quickly outmaneuvered and outgunned his opponents. Broglie responded on later days by following the advice of the late Marshal de Saxe, and utilized massive waves of chasseurs deployed as skirmishers to screen the advance. This time the attackers proved successful. Grenadiers and chasseurs were split into separate units to act as shock troops, artillery utilising the new Gribeuval system came into action, and 20,000 men were able to hone their newly introduced skills for the first time. These drills carried on for several days as the troops became drilled in the 1776 regulations, as well as the closed columns demanded by l'ordre profond. 

A Chasseur of the Régiment de Saintonge as they would have appeared during the Yorktown Campaign. The Régiment de Saintonge was present at Vaussieux and its chasseurs would have been separated into independent battalions. (Painting by Don Troiani)

By the time the camp had closed the failures of l'ordre profond had broken through to many. However, the old guard of French officers including Broglie remained convinced in the power of the column. Rochambeau had run circles around them utilising l'ordre mince, and yet the debate continued to rage on. It was not until a third option, thought up by philosophers such as Guibert which mixed both the attacking column, with the firepower of the line (unsurprisingly called l'ordre mixte) was adopted, that a solution came forward. Lines of French infantry advancing with protection on their flank by soldiers in closed columns and lines of skirmishers in front of them would be a hard tactic to master. Yet, this was exactly what the French army adopted. Utilizing l'ordre mixte the French soldier would drive countless enemies before it winning battles across Europe and even the world. Yet these soldiers were not the white-coated infantry of Marshals Broglie or rochambeau, these men wore blue. Their officers were not always aristocrats who had paid their way to high rank, as all had to earn the title. The armies of Revolutionary and later Napoleonic France dominated their battlefields. Yet it was the soldiers of Marshal Broglie, many of them preparing to sail to America to assist George Washington on his campaigns, who were beginning the process to move away from the feudal blocks of infantry, into a changing and thinking army. [1]

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Thanks for Reading,

James Taub

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[1] For further reading I highly suggest: Abel, Jonathan. Guibert: Father of Napoleons Grande Armée. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016.