Contents:
The regiment is headed by Colonel Baron Piat. He has been in charge of the regiment since 1809. Piat wants the regiment to continue its excellent reputation as a first class, well organized and disciplined regiment. One of the many jobs Piat has to do, is to communicate with his various superiors - General de Brigade Frederichs, commanding the Brigade that the 85ème is attached to, General Dessaix commanding the 3ème Division and finally Maréchal Davout, who is renowned throughout the Army for his eye for detail. In addition to this Piat has to liaise with the other regiments in his brigade and in the Division. These the include the 108ème de Ligne, and elements of the 7th Artillery Regiment (9th Company), 3rd Horse Artillery (5th company) and 5th Horse Artillery (2nd company), the engineers and train troops all under the command of Colonel Pelgrin. An officer has also recently arrived at brigade headquarters bringing news that a batallion from Hessen is on the way to join the brigade for the coming campaign.
In addition to this, Piat, with the assistance of his major and the various department staff officers, has to maintain the regiment. It is a big task. Piat does have some help however. He has at his headquarters one officer overseeing the pay and financial records (Officier Payeur). The regiment is also receiving new uniforms which require the careful attention of the Quartermaster (Quartier-Maître-Trésorier). The symbol of the regiment - the Eagle - is looked after by a Porte-aigle with his own group of Eagle Guards (Gardes-aigle). The Colonel also has a small regimental medical staff of a Surgeon Major (Chirurgien-Major) and his aide - in battle they will create a small dressing station, probably with the assistance of the band. The rest of the functional staff comprises 4 maîtres-ouvriers (master artisans), a cobbler, a tailor, a gaiter maker and the armourer. Each of these men will direct a number of troops to help them, effectively creating schools within the regiment - the aim to become as self sufficient as feasibly possible. The master armourer will for example review each company's musket maintenance, guiding the companies' corporals and sergeants when his specialist assistance is required. The remainder of the staff at regimental headquarters comprise the corporal of sapeurs, who commands the regiment's squad of 16 sapeurs, used for basic field fortifications, pioneer support as well as headquarter guard duty, and the band.
Because day to day organization of such a large regiment as the 85ème is so complex, each battalion of the 85ème also has its own headquarters reporting directly to Piat. Each battalion of the 85ème has its own commander - the battalion Chief (Chef de Bataillon). Each of these men has his own staff to administer all the companies in his unit. These staffs comprise an adjutant-major (a Captain), a sous-adjutant (a subaltern), a battalion sergeant major (the adjutant sous-officier), and a surgeon.
Each battalion has
six companies. In the first 4, the oldest battalions, there are a company of grenadiers,
a company of voltigeurs and 4 companies of fusiliers. Each of the
companies is organised with 1 captain, a lieutenant, a sub-lieutenant, a sergeant major, 4
sergeants, a staff corporal (caporal-fourrier), 8 corporals (caporaux),
2 drummers, 1 military servant (the philistine), and 120 privates (and
semi-officially 2 enfants de troupe used as fifers).
The company itself splits further into 3 parts: a company HQ with the captain, the sergeant major with the company
flag, the fourrier, the philistine and the 2 drummers (and unofficial fifers); the other 2
elements - platoons (sections) each have one subaltern, and 2 demi-sections each
with a sergeant and 2 squads (escouades) of one corporal (caporal) and
15 men.
The 5th battalion has its own unique organization and essentially is there to support all the others and the Head Quarters. The 6th battalion has just been formed around a core of volunteers from the Imperial Guard and graduates from St. Cyr, commanding a rag tag collection of recent conscripts and reformed soldiers from the various discipline units. Because this unit is new and has not faced battle the Emperor has not allowed flank companies to be formed so unlike all the other battalions the 6th has just 6 fusilier companies.
Another fairly recent addition to the regiment has been the regimental artillery with 4 three pounder cannon. This was the result of the Emperor issuing a decree on 11 February 1811. This has actually helped Piat as now this company looks after the regiment's baggage train. Piat examines the establishment of the company and sees how crucial it will be for him as the company provides each of his field battalions with its own magazine wagon, and forage wagon. The company also has a special wagon carrying the regimental papers and documentation. The officer commanding the company has an extremely responsible job yet is only a lieutenant. The lieutenant is aided by a junior sub lieutenant, a sergeant major responsible for discipline, a quartermaster corporal (fourrier) with keys to all the locks on the wagons, 4 artisans (ouvriers), and finally 3 sections. The first section are volunteers from the flank companies and man the guns. There are 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, and 32 gunners, this allows 8 gunners and 1 NCO to each of the light 3 pounder guns. The second section has the job of looking after the horses and wagons that support the guns. They have 1 sergeant, 1 corporal and 24 conductors. They have 48 horses, 4 limbers and 6 ammunition wagons. The final section looks after the regimental wagons and has 5 cartridge magazine wagons, 5 forage wagons, 1 document wagon, 1 wheeled forge, 1 ambulance and is manned by 1 sergeant, 1 corporal, 26 conductors and 52 horses.
The 5th battalion had a special role and Piat needed this to be especially well run. That is why the second in command of the regiment, the Major, commanded it rather than a Chef de battalion. This battalion in 1812 had 1 staff adjutant, a Quarter Master, another Captain responsible for clothing (Capitaine d’habillement) and a surgeon (Chirgeon-Aide-Major). Again there was one battalion sergeant major, but also 2 chief artisans. The battalion also held the regimental drummer school with the corporal or master drummer and 12 student drummers. The rest of the battalion comprised 4 companies, each essentially with the same organization as any other company but with very different roles. The 1st and 3rd Companies each provided a home for basic trained soldiers prior to them joining their new field battalion, the 2nd Company provided guards and sentries around the French coast and also acted as marines, and the 4th Company served at the depôt, training new conscrits in the basic drill (école de soldat), looking after the younger enfants de troupe who are just too young to join a company and fife, and holding veterans prior to discharge.
It's quite probable that the Captain commanding the 4th Company also doubled as a Capitaine de Recrutement. One such officer was assigned from each regiment in order to fulfill the requirements of the Decree of 31 July 1806 which allowed 1 captain per Départment, with a number of subalterns reporting to him (one per Arrondisment), with 1 sergeant looking after 4 cantons and 1 corporal with every 2 cantons. The 85ème depot, as with all other infantry regiments, is based in it's depot town
More about the 5th battalion in this separate article.
Now we’ve had an overview of some of the tasks faced by Colonel Piat, so lets examine the life of one of his men - one of the faceless thousands forgotten by history, yet now remembered by the our reenactment unit. Our soldier (fantassin) is a member of the 1st Fusilier Company in the 1st battalion of the regiment. He was called up last year and has gone through all his basic training and all the various field exercises that the regiment practices - through to brigade drill with all the other battalions of the 85ème and the gunners of the Horse and Foot artillery. There’s talk that the brigade is soon to be joined by a batallion from Hessen, but there is a common belief that these Germans aren’t very good, so your escouade is sure that it cannot be true.
Our fusilier has a fairly busy and hard life. When he’s not drilling
he has to clean, repair and mend clothing, belts and shoes. He has to regularly clean his
musket or face being punished. He also has to help cook for the fellow members of his
escouade. If he gets very good he might become the philistine and cook for the captain of
the company and be left out of the action at the rear. When he isn’t cleaning his
kit, he likes to join in learning the latest songs from the theatres, adding new verses
that the composers had probably never intended.
If he can read or has a desire to learn to read -(most likely at least one member of his
escouade can read) he will probably read one of the scandal sheets, perhaps one of the cheap novellas that gets circulated throughout the
regiment, or if he is feeling patriotic and diligent perhaps one of the latest Le
Moniteurs posted in the guard house and in the town square.
Perhaps if he develops his writing and maths skills he could aim to enter the favor of his officer and become a
fourrier, and then aim for the stars.
Our fusilier and Colonel Piat enjoy all that Germany has to offer - its
wines, its beers, Frauleins, cheeses and meats. Their billets could not be more
different. Piat along with most other officers enjoys the comforts of being billeted on
a private family. In Piat’s case and benefiting a Knight and Baron of the Empire he
lodges in considerable comfort, our fusilier, like many others, finds he shares a farmhouse
or barn with the rest of his escouade - his billet allocated to him by the company
fourrier.
Occasionally the regiment is billeted in barracks where two or even three fusiliers will
share one bed.
One activity our fusilier indulges in is gambling- cards or dice - or
occasionally lotto. He has managed to make some dice from a couple of spent musket balls
that the regiment used for a rare live fire practice, although others have carved theirs
from old meat bones - one saying that it was the first time he had got anything decent from
the company canteen. Others have made their dice from wood. The cards are jealously
guarded by one of the corporals and are plain cards with colorful prints. The games played
include twenty one, the officers and some of the more educated men are fond of games such
as whist, but twenty one will do.
Lotto is one of the main activities amongst all ranks, with the numbers called, selected from a bag or shako. At times, especially when money
gets involved, it ends in blows but that’s fairly rare.
When there’s time he might go to one of the regimental bars set up by entrepreneurial traders including the
cantinières and vivandières.
Of course outside the regiment there are all the other traditional and more salubrious attractions that all soldiers have faced through time.
Prostitution was an accepted state of affairs in the 1800’s, although everything has to be paid for, as Elézar Blazé wrote in his entertaining
memoires:
‘The soldiers pay is 52 centimes a day, 10 centimes go to the linen and shoe fund, 32 or 35 centimes to the mess fund. The 7 or 10 centimes remaining serve to play the boy after the laundress and hairdresser have been paid.’
If the fusilier gets ill, and in this period, and well up the the Great War, most casualties to any regiment were caused
by sickness and fatigue, medical science being in its infancy has little to offer. The
hospitals, despite the attentions of such men as Larrey and Percy, are often unsanitary. The
main killers are dysentery (from drinking tainted water - remember that the concept of
bacteria had yet to be understood and that developed sewerage systems are still over 30
years away), various diseases such as pox, measles and malaria, and secondary conditions
such as gangrene and lockjaw.
Medical treatments include bandages, usually repeatedly used, just boil washed between patients, leaches and scarification to draw blood, and various
medicines. Some of the period medicines included substances such as arsenic, lead and other harmful toxins. Laudanum is also popular, but medicines are usually the preserve of
the rich and the officers, with lower ranks resorting to herbs, various tree barks (one tree
bark contains one of the main ingredients in aspirin), and other more natural
remedies, that usually proved as equally harmful or ineffective.
The concept of drawing blood, including scarification and vacuum jars, along with many of the medicines
(even the bandages), and the method of stitching wounds are based upon the idea of laudable pus and
the humors, although this pre-scientific attitude was beginning to be addressed.
If he is wounded in battle the soldier knows his chances are limited. If
his limbs are shattered, cut, lacerated, or pierced by a bullet wound, the surgeon will probably carry
out an amputation. The amputation skills of the nineteenth century surgeons are only now
becoming to be understood and realized, as many could remove a limb in under 30
seconds - that is, before shock and excessive bleeding could occur.
Larrey for one had realized that quick, rapid, even aggressive, amputation was the key to patient recovery. If amputation was
delayed from the time of injury, recovery would be delayed or totally impaired. He also
developed the technique of a clean cut above the injury site on healthy tissue, this
allowed him to cover the stump with a healthy flap of skin which would be closed by
sutures which would be gradually tightened until they pulled free indicating that the
wound had healed.
Wounds in the body were considerably more traumatic. Wounds to the stomach usually meant a slow, lingering and painful death, unless it could be
sealed. Deep wounds however were effectively untreatable, certainly if the wound was caused by a bullet
that could be removed by using a probe as medical instruments were rarely disinfected. The
wound being sealed with sutures, recovery was always problematical with patients often
dying from blood poisoning, not as the result of the wound but of the treatment!
Food was often scarce in civilian life but at least in the Army there was every intention to try and give a daily meat ration to even the lowest of ranks (An army marches on its stomach), although the soldier had to pay for this privilege. "The government furnishes firewood and bread to the soldier who must pay for all the rest of his food. Those 32 centimes deducted from his pay for the mess fund, when combined with those of his comrades, furnish money enough to have a piece of beef or mutton, flanked with vegetables." (Blazé, Elting edition, page 12)
One of the first lessons our fusilier had to learn was how to make the
‘soup’, the main meal when campaigning. The soup was more of a greasy stew made
from beef, available vegetables, water and, if they had a seasoned veteran, maybe some
seasoning. Cooking was done in turns between the 15 men of the escouade, everyone taking it
in turns to collect wood for the fire, carrying the cooking pot (the marmite), or
doing the cooking itself. The fifteen further subdivided into teams of 3 who would each
congregate round the canteen (bidon) eating from that. Only the caporal and those above him
were issued a plate.
The stew was accompanied by army bread, the quality of which would vary considerably. Each man would receive every day 2 and a half pounds of bread. If you
were unlucky the bread would not only be tough and hard but also grainy, with occasionally
sand substituted for some of the flour in order for suppliers to increase their
profits. Either that or it could be stale. The only other option was biscuit -
imagine cream crackers only twice the size, twice the thickness and often with a non-paying guest inside to
add an extra piquancy.
In the field, starting a fire was of the greatest importance. Without a fire the fusilier and his escouade might not survive. A fire would usually be lit using a tinder box which included a flint, a hard piece of metal (the striker) and some charred cloth (the tinder). Therefore it is the first thing the men will do when they are dismissed. They will then prepare the soup, or at least eat their dry rations.
If there is enough light after the march, the escouade will try to fashion bivouacs from any materials to hand, green wood and undergrowth such as bracken would most commonly be used. More often though, all they can do at night is to sleep around the fire wrapping their greatcoats around them, with the forage cap pulled tight around the ears. In the morning stretch cold limbs, possibly wash the face and brush hair. They would then eat a breakfast of the remaining soup, drink some wine or beer and chew some bread or biscuit, perhaps chatting about how life used to be at home working in the fields.
Looking at Piat, his servant will have prepared his quarters, if there has been enough time to bring his personal baggage forward. He may have had his tent put up along with a folding camp bed, living in considerably greater luxury than his men, although he too would often sleep under the stars, whether rain, hail, snow or shine. Piat would turn in late. He would have needed to check late orders and reports, and feel confident that the regiment was ready for tomorrow before he could countenance sleep.
Before sleep the cook would prepare a meal, probably also for one or more guests such as one of the battalion commanders or perhaps a member of the Brigade or Divisional staff. The meals, although not as grand as those in the lodgings, would still be fine meals including chicken dishes such as Poulêt Marengo. Various other meat dishes would also be served, possibly with a bottle of claret. Desert would be simple, perhaps a selection of seasonal fruit and cheeses. As a senior officer Piat would also enjoy eating white bread made from refined flour. To finish he might possibly have coffee or tea (both expensive and considered a luxury at the time) and perhaps a glass of cognac.
Of course, once the regiment did enter Russia, and later still commence the
retreat, many found that normal campaign life with the frugal diet of stew and biscuit
would have been a feast to look forward to or one that could only be dreamt of. Men would
be reduced to making bread from snow and stale flour, cooked in the embers of a dying
fire. They would also slice raw flesh from the carcasses of dead animals, whether horses, dogs,
oxen, or mules. Some would even resort to the horrors of cannibalism in the fight for
survival.
Men would sleep marching or fight to stay awake in fear that they would either succumb
in the night or be robbed of what little they had. Men would be killed over the
possession of a bag of flour, even for a crust. Such horrors were unimagined by even the
most imaginative of those beginning that epic march. There were some who could see that
all that lay ahead would be disaster, but none that could imagine a regiment like the
85ème, which Piat proudly lead into Russia, of some 3742 officers and men,
returning with less than one hundred.
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