Urban Warfare in the Eighteenth Century

Two members of HM 40th Foot / 2nd Battalion LI - "Bloodhounds" take cover
in Cliveden, photo credit Suzanne Shaw

Dear Reader,

Today, we are going to examine an understudied topic in eighteenth-century military history: urban warfare. Although the eighteenth century was an age where generals preferred to fight large field battles and conduct formal sieges, the century did indeed see its share of urban warfare, that is to say, troops fighting house to house in built-up areas. Troops would occasionally find themselves fighting in village houses during large field battles, but addressing that is not the main goal of my post today. Rather, I seek to understand what happened when armies clashed in actual urban environments, towns or cities as they would have been identified in the eighteenth century.

Encounters of this sort are rare, but not unheard of. Principally, in writing this post, I examined the fight at Preston in 1715, the Austrian attack on Velletri in 1744, and the American assault on Quebec in 1775. At Preston, the Hanoverians attacked a unfortified town that a small Jacobite army had hastily attempted to barricade. At Velletri, an Austrian army attempted to capture the entourage of the future King Charles III of Spain. At Quebec, an initially successful assault on a fortified city bogged down in heavy street fighting. These experiences will be supplements by descriptions of village fighting in larger field battles. With these sources of experience in mind, what common experiences can we identify between these actions?

When fighting in an urban environment, soldiers quickly sought out cover, usually by barricading themselves in houses. At Preston in 1715, when the Jacobite commander William  MacIntosh was asked why he chose to defend Preston rather than a nearby ridge, explained, "the body of the town was the security of the army."[1] At Velletri in 1744, civilians, seeing the fire that Austrian troops were spreading in the town, began firing at the troops in the street from barricaded houses. The Austrians soon followed suite, taking cover in whatever houses they could force open.[2] Events followed the same pattern at Quebec in 1775, when French civilians, loyal to the crown, opened fire on rebel troops marching through the lower town. In the words of a junior British officer observing the scene, "some of the French who took to the houses... ke[pt] gauling them so as obliged the rebels also to take to the houses... where they remained and returned our fire."[3] Larger buildings were valued as observation points and firing platforms.[4] At confused fighting at Leuthen and Hochkirch in the Seven Years War, Austrian and Prussian soldiers sought any cover they could find, and used a high churchyard walls in these villages as miniature fortresses.[5] At the Battle of Blenheim/Höchstadt in 1704, the French attempted to use the village of Blenheim (Blindheim) itself as a strongpoint.[6]

Schlacht bei Hochkirch, Carl Röchling

In addition to houses, soldiers constructed street barricades and fighting positions. Searching for cover, soldiers used whatever they could find in order to provide cover for themselves. John Deane helpfully lists the materials used for the construction of street barricades at Blenheim: "trees, planks, coffers, chests, wagons, carts and palisades[.]"[7] At Leuthen in 1757, Austrians troops were told off, in the midst of battle, to construct fighting positions in the village.[8] At Preston in 1715, the Jacobites constructed numerous barricades across the streets, encompassing multiple lines of defense. In a running battle that lasted for days, the Hanoverians followed suit by building trenches and barricades of their own.[9] At Preston, some of these barricades were large enough for hundreds of men to take shelter behind.

In the course of the natural use of houses as cover by soldiers, structures were almost always burned. Fire had important tactical uses in the eighteenth century. Obviously, only immobile and suicidal men would remain in a burning structure during a fight, and many wounded men burned to death in these horrible encounters.[10] Soldiers set buildings on fire intentionally, in order to drive out defenders, at Preston and Velletri.[11] Fire, of course, spread unintentionally from there. Soldiers also believed that the smoke that fires generated could be employed as cover, essentially as a smoke screen. At Blenheim in 1704, and Preston in 1715, fires were intentionally set to give concealment to friendly forces. At Blenheim, John Deane relates that, "The village was sett on fire before we came to it by the enemy whereby they though to have blinded our gunners[.]"[12] At Preston, both the Hanoverians and the Jacobites used the smoke of burning buildings as cover, and may have set fire intentionally for that purpose.[13]

The Battle of Quebec, F. H. Wellington

In this urban setting, artillery played the role of supporting weapons, clearing streets, and demolishing enemy strongpoints.  Thomas Ainslee, a British officer at Quebec in 1775, described the process of taking a large house on a city street with American rebel troops inside:

Capt. Nairn...had by this time run up a ladder and entered a window at the end of the corner house where the enemy were posted, there they killed one and took another prisoner and my detachment in the other street having by my direction enlarged the post of one of the guns... brought it to bear on the house where most of them were. I ordered it to be fired and as it was loaded with canister and grape shott, it killed Capt. Hendrick of the Rifllers, wounded Capt. Lamb... and several others in the room all of these circumstances together... obliged them to lay down their arms and surrender.[14]

At Trenton in 1776, the American continental army used artillery to stop enemy movement on village streets, this tactic was also used by the Austrians at Hochkirch in 1758.[15] At Preston in 1715, cannons were used extensively to sweep streets of enemy forces, as well as fire on and demolish enemy strong points.[16] Henry Knox's suggestion to use artillery on the Cliveden at Germantown in 1777 may fit into this type of tactical thinking.

Heavy fighting in an urban setting usually led to a high number of enemy troops surrendering, when cover and dense terrain meant that flight was impossible. At Preston in 1715, the battle ended when after four days of resistance, the entirety of the Jacobite Army surrendered.[17] At Velletri, the fighting in the town netted the Austrians almost 600 prisoners. [18] At Quebec in 1775, more than one third of Montgomery's initial force, over 400 men, were captured by the British and their Canadian allies.[19]

Finally, the consequences for the urban environment involved in the fighting were usually severe. At Velletri in 1744, civilians were accidentally shot on one occasion, and looting by Austrian Grenzer was widespread.[20] In Preston, the prolonged nature of the fighting caused widespread destruction, and a commission for civilian relief set up after the end of hostilities received 226 requests from the inhabitants of Preston for relief, totalling sums of approximately £6,500, or approximately $850,000 today.[21]

Fighting in an urban environment was provided eighteenth-century soldiers with an odd mix of contradictions. In dense terrain, soldiers were more likely to have an abundance of cover, and use that cover effectively. Fire was used both offensively and defensively, to provide cover from the enemy, and drive the enemy from buildings. Artillery was employed with an impressive degree of tactical flexibility,  to control enemy movement and reduce enemy strong points. Finally, despite the greater cover afforded by urban environments, soldiers were much more likely to be captured by the enemy in large numbers if they lost the engagement. Fighting in urban environments also had the possibility of causing great damage to civilian property.  By and large, eighteenth-century warfare in an urban environment possess more than a passing continuity to the experiences of urban warfare in the modern world.

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Thanks for Reading, 

Alex Burns

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[1] Charles Hardwick, History of the Borough of Preston and Its Environs, 224.
[2] Christopher Duffy, The Wild Goose and the Eagle, (2019 edition), 85-6.
[3] MSS L2019F60, Society of the Cincinnati Library, (Thomas Ainslee's account of the Siege of Quebec)
[4]Charles Hardwick, History of the Borough of Preston and Its Environs, 225-6.
[5] Christopher Duffy, Army of Frederick the Great, (1996 edition) 272, 284.
[6] John Deane, A Journal of Marlborough's Campaigns, 11.
[7] Ibid.
[8]Christopher Duffy, Prussia's Glory, 158.
[9] Charles Hardwick, History of the Borough of Preston and Its Environs, 224-228.
[10] John Deane, A Journal of Marlborough's Campaigns, 11.
[11]Charles Hardwick, History of the Borough of Preston and Its Environs, 229; Duffy, The Wild Goose and the Eagle, 85.
[12] John Deane, A Journal of Marlborough's Campaigns, 11.
[13]Charles Hardwick, History of the Borough of Preston and Its Environs, 229
[14]MSS L2019F60, Society of the Cincinnati Library, (Thomas Ainslee's account of the Siege of Quebec)
[15]Charles Hardwick, History of the Borough of Preston and Its Environs, 225, 227
[16] David Hackett Fisher, Washington's Crossing, 244; Christopher Duffy, Army of Frederick the Great, (1996 edition), 284.
[17] Ibid, 233.
[18]Christopher Duffy, The Wild Goose and the Eagle, (2019 edition), 87.
[19]MSS L2019F60, Society of the Cincinnati Library, (Thomas Ainslee's account of the Siege of Quebec)
[20] Christopher Duffy, The Wild Goose and the Eagle, (2019 edition), 86.
[21]Charles Hardwick, History of the Borough of Preston and Its Environs, 240

How Rapidly Could Soldiers Load in the Mid-Eighteenth Century?

Just how quickly could these soldiers reload?

Dear Reader,


How many rounds could eighteenth-century soldiers fire a minute? This is a question which has long preoccupied military enthusiasts of the era, and many feel quite strongly on this question. From the sequence in the (in?)famous Sharpe series depicting the training of the South Essex Regiment, to many reenactors demonstrating their own skills, the desire to show that musket-armed troops could fire quickly dominates media produced regarding the era. Of course, as we might expect, such depictions are sometimes rather fanciful.

My favorite line from the Sharpe sequence is, "The trick is, to keep the muzzle up to stop the bloody bullet falling out. Of course, the muzzle needs to point up anyway, the frog coming towards you is high up on a horse." Because, as everyone knows, the French only sent cavalry to fight in the Peninsula. Somewhat ironically, many historical officers (correctly) encouraged their soldiers to aim low, at the knees of enemy troops, or the ground directly in front of the enemy. These officers believed that this compensated for the kick of the musket. Oh well.

But can ya stand?

This post attempts to examine how quickly soldiers could fire their muskets across mid-eighteenth-century European armies. It will address the importance of firepower, the abilities of troops to fire quickly in a drill square environment, speed of fire in combat, the disadvantages of "quick-fire mania", and how officers attempted to mitigate those disadvantages. Despite other parade ground or theoretical results, an average of approximately 2 rounds a minute was quite normal in combat conditions, when soldiers did not engage in "tap-loading". This is significant, as it helps explain the length of eighteenth-century battles, and the length of time needed for troops to run low on ammunition. 

A number of excellent historians have addressed this question, and once again, I am standing on the shoulders of giants. This list includes David Blackmore, Hugh Boscawen, Alexander Campbell, Christopher Duffy, John Houlding, Richard Holmes, and Matthew Spring. Usually, these authors are writing about the forces of an individual state, such as Austria, Britain, or Prussia. For more detailed information on specific national practices, I encourage you to read these historians' works.

An Austrian Fires with a conical touch-hole and cylindrical ram rod

Erik Lund, writing in an assessment of the Austrian officer corps in the Kabinettskriege era, argues that historians have, by and large, purchased into a myth regarding the importance of a high tactical rate of fire. Here, I disagree with Lund. Tactical rate of fire, and the superiority it granted in combat, was no myth.

 Oddly enough, Frederick II, "the Great" of Prussia, early in his career, seems to have ignored the importance of firepower. In 1748, he encouraged his infantry to attack without firing, and he knew generals would complain, "that I never employ my small arms."[1] Frederick, it seems, had taken the wrong lessons from the War of Austrian Succession. Shock tactics, not firepower, seemed to be the way forward. It was a much more experienced, seasoned, and defeated Frederick who wrote in 1768:

"The cannon does everything, and the infantry cannot get to grips with cold steel... battles are decided by the superiority of fire. Except in the attack of defended positions, a force of infantry which loads speedily will always get the better of a force which loads more slowly."[2]

Let those words sink in. Firepower and speed of loading decided eighteenth-century contests between infantry. Most generals understood this idea, and soldiers were relentlessly taught to fire quickly. Firepower, and sometimes the psychological threat of cold steel, not cold steel itself, won eighteenth-century combats.

Friedrich II von Preussen

First, we need to examine how quickly a soldier could fire on the drill square in peacetime. Across most European nations, 4-5 rounds seems to have been quite normal.  By 1750, most European armies were fascinated with the speed of fire demonstrated by the Prussian troops in the War of Austrian Succession. Austrian military veterans and theorists saw that their troops could fire 4-5 rounds a minute on the drill square, basically matching the Prussian drill square ideal.[3] Prussian troops were capable of firing six rounds a minute, but could not maintain that pace for any length of time. Lossow comments, "Altogether, it would be too much to expect troops to maintain six rounds a minute for an extended time."[4]  The British achieved a similar level of drill-square proficiency in this regard, with veteran troops being able to fire four rounds a minute.[5] The Russians, too, used Prussian emphasis speed of fire when training their troops in the 1750s.[6]  Some sources think even this too ambitious. Prussian General Ludwig von Lossow argued that, "in ... European armies only the most practiced parts of them can fire four times in a minute's time. Usually, only three shots come are fired: watch and see!"[7] Regardless, by the 1780s, the cylindrical ramrod and the conical touch-hole (technological assists to loading) had increased the drill-square rate of fire to six rounds fired with a seventh-round loaded.
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British Soldiers in front of Ft. Niagara

However, as in almost all aspects of military life, there was a severe disparity between what soldiers could accomplish on the peacetime drill square and the battlefield. It seems that troops in combat fired more slowly. Two rounds a minute is a very believable figure for well-trained, veteran troops in combat.  Austrian army officer Jakob Cogniazzo gives us a window into this idea:

Now, how many rounds of rapid fire do you think he can loose off in a minute when he is in a minute when he is in this condition? At least five a minute? That is certainly the norm for fire on the drill square, which conjures up visions of enemy corpses by the thousand. But, when we consider all the encumbering burden of the soldier... taking everything into due account, it would be optimistic to suppose that he fires as many as one or at the most two rounds a minute [in combat].[8]

One of the differences between drill square "minute firing" and real combat was its duration. The real test was how long soldiers could keep firing at a high rate. It seems British troops could fire between 2-3 rounds a minute for a sustained amount of time.[9] Likewise, it seems that during combat the Prussians could fire three rounds per minute, and they could keep up this pace extended periods of time.[10] The Russians loaded slower, perhaps 1-2 shots a minute, as a result of the additional time it took to load their buckshot rounds.[11] With this in mind, it seems that troops carrying 30 rounds would run low on ammunition after 10-20 minutes, while troops carrying 60 rounds of ammunition would run low after 30-45 minutes. 

Reenactors portraying the 3rd New Jersey Regiment

More important than the actual number of shots was the ability to confer a comparative advantage to troops who could load and fire more quickly than their opponents. An Austrian officer noted that the Prussians had, "the important and extraordinarily, significant advantage of being able to get off three rounds to every one of the Austrian infantry. This is conceded by all impartial and well-informed men who have seen it with their own eyes."[12] Prussian officer Ernst von Barsewisch recalled of the Battle of Leignitz:

"Now I commanded, "platoon: ready!  present!  fire!" Then the remaining part of the battalion followed, whereupon we blasted away for a length of time. The enemy, however, did not withdraw, but also fired vigorously. But we loaded more speedily and had devastated the enemy with our first volley."[13]

The author prepares to fire

Instilling troops with the need to fire quickly at the expense of all other factors had a number of downsides. Again, General von Lossow comments that officers, "forget that the musket barrel becomes too hot to hold after two minutes... the soldiers inevitably acquired bad habits when they were put through the rapid-fire drill every day, like failing to ram the loads firmly home, neglecting to aim, raising the barrel too rapidly after they had loosed off, and so on."[14] It seems there might have been a downside to this "quick-fire mania."

In addition to these bad qualities, soldiers might begin to "cheat" in other ways. Of these, the most infamous was the so-called, "tap-loading." In 1726, General Hawley complained that, "the German and Dutch foot might be brought to ram their cartridge every time on service, for ought I know, but by the nature of our men I believe it impossible to bring them to it."[15] The Austrians engaged in tap-loading at Mollwitz in 1741, where it robbed their musket discharges of lethal force, the French used tap-loading at Lauffeld in 1747,  and the British engaged in the practice at Hubbardton in 1777.[16]'

Reenactors representing HM 17th Regiment of Infantry in North America

Military authorities from various nations were aware of these problems and attempted to ensure that soldiers fired with speed AND accuracy on the day of battle. Soldiers in almost all European nations practiced firing at targets to ensure accuracy. Troops in Central European armies were carefully taught to aim their muskets with reference to their distance from the target.[17] British General Wolfe argued that, "[t]here is no necessity for firing very fast; a cool and well-leveled fire, with the pieces, carefully loaded, is much more destructive and formidable than the quickest fire in confusion."[18] Despite this, numerous military theorist believed that though disadvantageous, there were times when quick-fire and tap-loading outweighed these concerns.[19] Officers and military theorists attempted to carefully weigh and balance speed of fire with accuracy.

So, what can we assert regarding the rate of fire among regular troops in the mid-eighteenth century? These troops could fire at prodigious rates on the drill square but often fell short of this ideal on the battlefield. Sometimes, this led to the disadvantages associated with "quick-fire mania" or the dangerous of tap-loading. As a result, officers attempted to find a happy medium: soldiers who would fire at speed but retain accuracy.

If you enjoyed this post, or any of our other posts, please consider liking us on facebook,  or following us on twitter. Finally, we are dedicated to keeping Kabinettskriege ad-free. In order to assist with this, please consider supporting us via the donate button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. As always:

Thanks for Reading,



Alex Burns



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[1] Jay Luvaas, Frederick the Great on the Art of War, 143-145.; Vincent Rospond, Frederick's Orders, 112.
[2] Frederick II, Testament Politique, (1768) 146-148.
[3] Christopher Duffy, Instrument of War, 408.; Duffy, Army of Frederick the Great, 128.
[4]Ludwig von Lossow, Denkwürdigkeiten zur Charakteristik der preussischen Armee, 265.
[5] Richard Holmes, Redcoat, 199.
[6] Christopher Duffy, Russia's Military Way to the West, 62.
[7] Ludwig von Lossow, Denkwürdigkeiten zur Charakteristik der preussischen Armee, 264.
[8] Jakob Cogniazzo, Freymuethige Beytrag zur Geschichte, (1779), 147.
[9] John Houlding, Fit for Service, 194.
[10] Duffy, Army of Frederick the Great, 128.
[11] Anon, Besondere Merkwürdigkeiten und Anekdoten aus Neudam in der Neumark, 29.
[12] Vienna Kriegsarchiv, CA 1758 III 1, Lieutenant-Colonel Rebain, 10 May 1758.
[13] Ernst von Barsewisch, Meine Kriegs-Erlebnisse, 113.
[14] Ludwig von Lossow, Denkwürdigkeiten zur Charakteristik der preussischen Armee, 266.
[15] Quoted in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Volume 32 (1953), 88-89.
[16] Anonymous, Denckwüdiges Leben und Thaten Beruehmeten Herren Johaan Daniels von Menzel, 80.; David Blackmore, Destructive and Formidable, 104.; Thomas Anbury, Travels through the Interior Parts of America, 333.
[17] Christopher Duffy, Instrument of War, 409.; Duffy, Army of Frederick the Great, 129.
[18] Wolfe, Instructions to Young Officers, 49.
[19] David Blackmore, Destructive and Formidable, 104-105