5e Régiment de Tirailleurs de la Garde Impériale
The Young Guard infantry appeared in 1809 with the organization of two regiments each of Tiraileurs-Grenadiers and Tirailleurs-Chasseurs.
Their Officers came from the Old Guard; their privates were the strongest and best educated men from the current class of conscripts.
There were also two regiments each of Conscrits-Grenadiers and Conscrits-Chasseurs, likewise taken directly from the newly summoned conscripts.
Their NCO’s was from the Middle Guard; their lieutenants were students from the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de St. Cyr.
Napoleon gave seasoned officers of the Old Guard the command the Young Guard.
These veterans forged their men into a superbly drilled and disciplined force.
The martial air of the first regiments of Young Guard astonished everyone.
The men of Young Guard were healthy and with stamina (in 1812 two regiments of Young Guard marched 468 miles in 23 days!)
The Young Guard also fought hard in the battle of Aspern-Essling.
Henri Lachoque writes:
"A desperate struggle commenced during which Marshal Lannes was mortally wounded.
Massena held the village of Aspern with admirable tenacity while the Austrian grenadiers wrested Essling from Boudet's division.
Then the Emperor's aides, Generals Mouton and Rapp, recaptured it with troops from Curial's Guard division.
'Forward in column! Keep your heads down and don't bother about the number of enemies' the Emperor ordered.
The Guard batteries supported the attack, firing at top speed. Captain Bizard had his arm shot off.
Some of the gun crews were reduced to 2 men.
Durosnel, Drouot, Curial, and Gros were all wounded, as was Mouton who was created Count of Lobau after the battle.
The Tirailleurs drove the enemy out of Gross-Aspern. In its baptism of fire the Young Guard lost a quarter of its effectives.
Lieutenant-Colonels Lanabere and Lonchamp as well as Rousseau, Secretan, Labusquette, and Ciceron were all wounded more or less severely."
The Young Guard were so enraged at their casualties that they bayoneted and shot wounded and surrendered Austrian Grenadiers.
During the campaign in Russia in 1812 the Young Guard fought at Smolensk.
Delaborde's division fought its way into the suburbs with difficulty.
Voltigeurs and Tirailleurs, parched by the heat, devoured green apples they found in the orchards.
Amid toppling houses, screaming wounded roasting in the flames they penetrated to the center of the burning city which lay under an immense pall of flame-colored smoke.
The Russian infantry fought from house to house.
At last, near the burned bridge, the Young Guard joined the Polish infantry of the Vistula Legion under Clapared who were firing on the retreating Russians.
Smolensk was in French hands.
The epic events of 1813 saw the emergence of the Young Guard as Napoleon's effective shock troops.
Men who made up for what they may have lacked in the pomp and foppery of parade-ground ceremony with awe-inspiring, sledgehammer blows on the battlefield.
March or die was the Napoleonic formula.
In Dresden the Young Guard spearheaded the French onlsaught, smashing through the stubborn Allies line and assuring victory one of the largest engagements of Napoleonic Wars.
The Tirallieurs charged six Prussian battalions at bayonet point, taking several hundred prisoners, General Gros' Voltigeurs captured the trenches at Freiberg.
The 3rd Voltigeurs led by Cambronne captured a whole battalion.
Hilaire writes:
"Already, in the center, the Hungarians of Colloredo had removed the redoubt of the barrier at Dippodiswalde.
On the right, the Austrian artillery had extinguished the fire of our batteries at the gate of Freyberg.
And on the left, the Russians and the Prussians penetrated in the suburb of Pirma…
the inhabitants, dismayed, barricaded themselves in their houses; the women and the children sought refuge in the cellars: the enemy believed himself sure of victory.
It was while shouting: To Paris! to Paris! that its first columns tried to force the gate of Plauen. The door opened… it finally was like the eruption of a volcano.
The battalions of the Young Guard, commanded by Tyndal, Cambronne, and Dumoustier, sprang; the fire from the crenellated walls supported their exit.
The redoubt was abandoned with the retreat of the Austrian columns, on all sides a hailstorm of bullets and cannon balls covers the plain.
The enemy moved back terrified."
General Dumoustier was charging the enemy at the Pirna Gate when suddenly, as the Young Guard emerged from the city, the drums of the Tirailleurs stopped beating.
Who gave the orders to halt? No one. A burst of a grapeshot had simply mown down all the drummers
At the review after battle Napoleon took off his hat to the Young Guard.
He said: "There go the brave Tirailleurs. Order 100 out of ranks so that I may award them the cross of the Legion."
The Young Guard were in the forefront of Emperor's juggernaut, surging on to the bullet-swept fields of Lutzen and Leipzig, and wreaking havoc on every enemy that tried to stand before them.
"More and more battalions arrived in our front line, and the Emperor ordered them to direct all their fire at the village.
... the Emperor drew his sword, placed himself between the two columns of Young Guard, and advanced through the resulting gap toward Kaja.
The Young Guard stormed the vilage without firing a shot and ejected all the enemy with the bayonet." – Chlapowski, a Guard Lancer
In Leipzig, Marshal Oudinot turned to his generals and said: "Take your division Decouz, and that of Pacthod and drive away these guys with a kick in the rear, so that they then will only flee."
They cheered their Emperor as they marched past him. The drummers, tediously beating the rhythm of the march, broke into flurries when they realized He was so close.
Napoleon and his staff watched their advance. Oudinot's troops passed by Wachau and in frontal assault captured Auenhain sheep-farm.
Mortier's troops drove into University Wood sweeping away all before them.
At La Rothiere Marshall Ney was in charge of the Young Guards Corps and he sent forward the 2nd Young Guard Division.
Within said Division were the 5e Tirailleurs who charged the village of La Rothiere and pushed out the stubborn Russians with their bayonets and bullets.
However General Decouz sustained a mortal wound.
During the battle of Paris a regiment of Young Guard made a gallant charge to rescue Marmont's infantrymen, hard pressed in the woods of Romainville.
Together they cleared the Russians from the outskirts of Pantin. The Young Guard met the Russian grenadiers head on and exchanged volleys before falling back.
Suisse led the Young Guard out at bayonet point and had his jaw smashed in the process.
In Soissons were - among others - 1,160 Voltigeurs and Tirailleurs. They had been besieged since 20 March by Prussians.
They withstood bombardement, mines and repeated ultimatums and they refused every summons to surrender.
Every salvo they fired on the night of 29/30 March was accompanied by shouts Vive l'Empereur!
Major Braun led 500 of them down the Crouy road and attacked the Prussian outposts as they were making their soup.
The Young Guard brought the half-cooked meat back to Soissons, but left one of its captains dead on the field.
On the 7th a peasant bringing letters from the Prussian general was run out of town without ceremony.
An ADC of the war minister wearing a white cockade was obliged to retreat in the face of threats from the young soldiers whose officers had the greatest difficulty in controlling them.
The Young Guard took part in the tenacious defense of Plancenoit against the Prussian at the battle of Waterloo.
Despite being outnumbered by 2-1 the Young Guards held out all day until the attack of the Middle Guard was beaten back and were thus forced to retreat.
During the epic fight for Plancenoit the Tirailleurs lost over 90% of its rank and file, but 6 000 Prussians had died fighting these youngsters.
Short history of the 5e Tirailleurs: - 1811 – Created and named the 5e Régiment de Tirailleurs de la Garde Impériale
- 1814 – Disbanded as the King regained power in France
- 1815 – Reformed back into the 5e Régiment de Tirailleurs de la Garde Impériale.
- 1811 : Jean-François Hennequin
- Louis-André Dupré
- 1815 : Edmé-Charles-Louis Lepaige-Dorsenne
Battles:- 1812 : Smolensk, Krasne, Borisow, Berezina, Smorgoni, Wilna and Kowno
- 1813 : Dresden, Leipzig, Eisenach and Frabcfort
- 1814 : Bar-sur-Aube, Brienne, La Rothière, Rosnay, Montmirail, Arcis-sur-Aube and Paris
- 1815 : Waterloo
