The History Files: Learn How History Has Shaped The World

Reinventing Infantry

The Germans had already noted the Russian success with machine pistols (submachine guns). The major shortcoming of the machine pistol was that it was, in fact, a pistol with a longer barrel and a larger magazine (thirty or more rounds). Despite the longer barrel, the pistol cartridge lacked accuracy, even when fired from the hip in bursts of automatic fire. The pistol cartridge also lacked punch. Where a rifle bullet would kill a man, a pistol round would only wound. And the wounded soldier would often keep firing back. The assault rifle round (beginning with the MP-43/StG-44) was not quite as powerful as the standard rifle round, but more powerful than a pistol round. This made a big difference for the infantry, as the assault rifle could be fired at longer ranges with more accuracy and stopping power.

***An action during the British fleet’s blockade of the French port of Toulon between 1810 and 1814, depicted by Thomas Luny***

Fog could cover French movements, as when the Brest fleet sailed in April 1799. Once it had sailed, the British were unsure whether the French would head for Ireland or the Mediterranean. Concern about the safety of Minorca handicapped the subsequent British pursuit in the Mediterranean, and the French were able to sail to Toulon, and eventually back to Brest, without being intercepted. In January 1808 the French Rochefort squadron evaded the British blockaders in bad weather and poor visibility and sailed to Toulon. Fog was also a hazard to British warships. The 74-gun Venerable, part of the squadron covering Brest, sank on the Devon coast in 1804 after running ashore in a thick fog.

Europe nursed bitter memories of the severe depredations carried out by French armies in the Spanish Netherlands and of the bombardment of Luxembourg during the War of the Reunions (1683-1684). Great and lesser powers alike did not accept as more than temporary the peace with Louis XIV agreed at Ratisbon in 1684. However, no plans were afoot to reverse these French gains. Austria and its south German allies were preoccupied with an ongoing war with the Ottoman Empire, while the Netherlands and north German states fixed their attention on a building succession crisis in England, where a new Catholic king, James II, was at odds with a restless Protestant people. In 1686 representatives of Austria, Spain, and Sweden met with those from several minor German powers, including Bavaria and the Palatinate, in the Imperial city of Augsburg. They agreed to a vague defensive alliance, the League of Augsburg, against further French aggression in Germany. The Germans were frightened by Louis’ longstanding policy of expansion along his Rhine frontier, and his disrespect for the legal and religious rights of free Imperial cities guaranteed by France in the Peace of Westphalia (1648).

British Naval strength Late 18th-Early 19th Centuries

British naval hegemony rested on a sophisticated and well-financed administrative structure, a large fleet drawing on the manpower resources of a substantial mercantile marine, although there was never enough sailors, and an ability to win engagements that reflected widely diffused qualities of seamanship and gunnery, a skilled and determined corps of captains, and able leadership. This was true not only of command at sea, as with Nelson’s innovative tactics and ability to inspire his captains, his “band of brothers”, but also of effective leadership of the navy as an institution. Thus Jervis, created Earl St. Vincent after his great victory, was an energetic First Lord of the Admiralty in 1801-4, although his hostility to naval contractors and his campaign for economy in the naval dockyards limited the rate of construction and repair, placing the navy in a difficult position in 1804.

***Generalissimus, Erzherzog Karl von Habsburg at Aspern-Essling***

Heavily defeated in 1805 and subjected to a diet of constant humiliation thereafter, Austria had until 1808 maintained a low profile. Under the leadership of the Archduke Charles, the army was strengthened through military reforms, but Charles himself believed that Vienna should cut its losses in Germany and Italy, abandon all notion of fighting Napoleon, and seek compensation in the Balkans. As for Emperor Francis – since 6 August 1806 Francis I of Austria rather than Francis II of the now defunct Holy Roman Empire – he remained as cautious as ever, all the more so as Russia now appeared as a potential enemy. For a time, a consensus even emerged that Austria should seek an alliance with Napoleon. But it soon became clear that the emperor was simply not interested in such a deal.

Although most of the contingents of the Peasants’ Crusade never reached Constantinople, those commanded by Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit did. The Byzantine emperor, Alexius, and his commanders were suspicious of these rag-tag troops and, rather than have them bivouac for a protracted length of time on the outskirts of the imperial capital, they transported them across the straits to Asia Minor on 6 August. There the crusaders split into several groups, largely along linguistic lines. A few early raids were successful, but a large band of German crusaders was isolated and defeated near Nicea and forced to convert to Islam and be deported eastwards or, if they refused, to die. By 21 October, the main body of crusaders, chastened by the slaughter of their comrades but still not coordinating their operations competently, and with relatively ineffective military intelligence, came face to face with overwhelming Turkish forces and were annihilated.

***A rare contemporary depiction from the Nine Years War (1689-1697), this painting has been hailed as Jan Wyck’s masterpiece.***

1688–1692

The opening land campaign of the war began with predictable sieges of key Rhine fortresses and punitive quartering of French troops that advanced against German lands and towns. The garrison defending Philippsburg resisted for a month, from September 27-October 30, in face of 30,000 enemy and the master of 17th-century siegecraft, Vauban. The fortress at Mainz fell thereafter. As had been done for the first time during the War of the Reunions, once again the French employed bombardment of fortified towns which would not yield as a tactic of terror and as a substitute for full siege. And yet again, French troops carried out the devastation of the Palatinate and scorched all other parts of Germany they reached.

***The Garde Impériale at Aspern-Essling***

The Austrian collapse was not quite the end of the story, even if what remained made depressing reading for Napoleon’s opponents. By the time of the battle of Wagram, Sweden was effectively out of the war: following a series of reverses, on 13 March Gustav IV had been overthrown by an aristocratic faction sickened by what they saw as the king’s mismanagement of the war effort and determined to put an end to enlightened absolutism and restore Sweden’s traditional alliance with France. As for the British, 1809 was marked by an episode that was virtually epic in its futility. Driven not so much by a desire to aid Austria as one to strike a further blow against French naval power and undo the damage to its prestige incurred by what appeared to have been its failure in Spain, the Portland administration decided to land a large army at the mouth of the Scheldt and seize Antwerp.

In support of Italy’s rising against Austria, King Charles Albert of Sardinia took command of the Allied forces and at Goito, on the Mincio east of Mantua, he defeated the Austrians under Marshal Josef Radetzky. While the Austrians were driven back across the Adige, they were victorious a few weeks later at Santa Lucia and in every other battle of the war (10 April 1848).

The princes of Parma and Modena succumbed to revolutionary threats and joined their states with Piedmont, which now included Lombardy. Tuscany remained aloof, but committed to the war. The initial support from Pope Pius IX and Ferdinand II waned through April. Pius IX tried to appease the population of Rome, but did not want to commit his forces to war against Austria. He ordered Durando not to advance beyond the Po River. The general argued with the Pontiff, and crossed the river into Venetia, seeking to separate Radetzky from Venice. Papal forces fanned out through Venetia. Guglielmo Pepe’s large Neapolitan army never made it across the Po. Despite the granting of a constitution, republican revolutionaries attempted a coup against Ferdinand II. The plot was crushed and the king abrogated the constitution. He then ordered Pepe to return to Naples. The old general refused, but much of his army deserted him. When Pepe finally reached the Po, he had no more than 2,000 men under his command. He joined his paltry forces with the Tuscan division observing Mantua.

(c) National Army Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Appointed to reorganize the Portuguese armed forces in 1809, Beresford commanded the Allied forces at the Battle of Albuera in 1811 and remained commander in chief and marshal general of all the Portuguese armies until 1820.

Beresford was born on 2 October 1768, the illegitimate son of the Marquis of Waterford. His younger brother became Rear Admiral Sir John Poo Beresford. He attended a French military academy in Strasbourg and was commissioned into the 6th Foot at the age of seventeen, serving with his regiment in Canada where he lost the use of an eye in a shooting accident in 1786. In 1789 he purchased a lieutenancy in the 16th Foot. He saw active service with Sir John Moore and Admiral Alexander Hood in Italy and at the siege of Toulon, respectively.

Reinventing Infantry

After Trafalgar II

The Nine Years’ War, 1688-97 Part I

British Naval strength Late 18th-Early 19th Centuries

Austria in Revolt and Aftermath I

Crusading

The Nine Years’ War, 1688-97 Part II

1688–1692

Austria in Revolt and Aftermath II

Battle of Di Goito, 30 May 1848

Sir William Carr Beresford, (1768-1854)