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.

Battle of Rossbach: 5th November, 1757

Map of Rossbach from-Rossbach and Leuthen: Prussia's Eagle Resurgent

Dear Readers,

When we last left our heroes, the Prussian army was shadowing a larger French and Reichsarmee force. (The Reichsarmee was made up of troops from a motley collection of small German states.) While the French and Reichsarmee had the advantage in terms of number of soldiers, (about 40,000 to 22,000) the Prussians indisputably outmatched the allies in terms of quality.

On the morning of November 5th,  the allies began a wide flanking move in an effort to get around the Prussian army, and potentially destroy it with a flank attack. The supposedly "Great" king, Frederick, failed to notice this movement on the part of the enemy, he was busy having lunch.  The first Prussian to notice the movements of the enemy was Frederick's young Flügeladjutant, Captain Friedrich Wilhelm Ersnt von Gaudi. According to historian Christopher Duffy, Gaudi reported to the king, "who was lunching with Prince Henry (his royal brother) Seydlitz, and a number of officers in the chamber below. If there was anything Frederick disliked more than having his monologues interrupted, it was signs of panic in a junior officer." Frederick told Gaudi that he was wrong about the flanking movement. Later, when the commander of a Frei-Battalion charged with watching the French, (the same Frei-Battalion a certain young Baron von Steuben was serving in...) reported the same, he was met with similar disdain from the great king.

Frederick dismisses Gaudi's (on right) report

However, Frederick is not, as historian Franz Szabo claims, totally at fault. After all, he had created a system in which these younger officers could report to him, and encouraged initiative among his advisers.  While I agree with Szabo that Frederick was in the wrong in this instance, I can not share his opinion on the Prussian military, which encouraged initiative, so that the army would not be destroyed if the king was at fault.

In time, when the movements of the enemy became more clear, subordinate Prussian officers made plans for movement in spite of the king's indifference, a move which undoubtedly saved the Prussian army. Frederick, finally awakening to the danger, moved prepared his infantry to move, and instructed General Seydlitz to take command of the Prussian cavalry.

The map of the Battle of Rossbach, from Christopher Duffy's: Prussia's Glory, pg 67.

Seydlitz immediately sprang into action, and his cavalry attack shattered the allies advanced guard. Young Fahnen-Cadet von Barsewisch, who we heard from in the last post, described the battle from his place with Prussian Regiment von Meyerinck (IR 26), on the map, von Meyerinck is right by the box which reads, "Final Attack."  Barsewisch describes the battle:

"To that end, His Majesty had re-positioned eight Battalions, of which our regiment was one, because of the re-positioning of the enemy.  There we stood, calmly, and went about our lunch, while awaiting further orders.  At roughly 2 O’clock in the afternoon, the enemy suddenly shifted their march left towards Rossbach, in an effort to turn our left flank, and began to march up. The speed with which we broke down the camp, formed battle array, and began to march up was indescribable. About 3 O’clock in the afternoon, a cannonade began, and the army stood in battle order. Our cavalry on the left wing, under the command of General Seydlitz crashed into the enemy cavalry, and on the second shock, the enemy cavalry took flight, and threw many of the infantry behind them wholly into ruin.
 Our infantry battalions from the left wing appeared from under our cannon, and engaged the French Swiss corps in such a way that they were still in columns. These columns were in the form of an ancient Phalanx, and through want of time and space to deploy, they were situated in rows of men a hundred deep. In this manner, they attempt to charge. This unstoppable Swiss Phalanx of left thousands of dead behind, and the whole of the French army was in such confusion, that they attempted to escape and flee, and by nightfall, they had left their cannons behind and were totally defeated by our left wing."

In essence, the Prussian cavalry attacked, defeated the enemy cavalry, and then reformed. The Prussian infantry regiments advanced on the allies, who were still in marching columns. Desperately, these marching columns attempted to charge and break the Prussian infantry through force of shock. The incredible firepower of the Prussian infantry and artillery stopped this attack, which developed into a firefight. This phase of the battle is artistically represented below:

Painting from- Rossbach and Leuthen: Prussia's Eagle Resurgent 

 However, by this point in the battle, General Seydlitz had reformed the Prussian cavalry, and they attacked the flank of the allies, throwing their army into a total rout.  The Prussian's lost 548 men, while the allies lost 5,000 dead and wounded, and 5,000 prisoners. Franz Szabo deliberately misrepresents these casualty figures, stating that the allies only lost 5,000 total men.

 While Frederick may have been slow to recognize the danger, and even slower to accept the advice of his subordinates, his handling of the main infantry line enabled the allies to be caught between the anvil of the Prussian infantry, and the hammer of Seydlitz and Prussian cavalry.

Why is Rossbach important? Why should we "remember remember," THIS 5th of November?

Remember in the last post when I was talking about how the English had been basically knocked out of the war, and the French were going to be able to send more troops to North America? Rossbach changed all that. This Prussian victory gave the British an excuse to get back into the war in Europe, where they were able to prevent French expansion into western Germany. It also tied down French forces in Europe, which allowed the British to conquer Canada, which retains ties with the British to this day. If this battle had not happened, the Seven Years' War would have been much shorter than seven years, with a different victor.

If this 5th of November had not occurred, the whole geopolitics of the Atlantic world could be radically different than it is today. That is why you should remember the 5th of November, 1757.

Thanks for reading,

Alex Burns

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