Tag: Alsace

• 1813-14 letters from Cuirassier Brigadier Pilloy

  

  The following letters are drawn from a voluminous register which also contains copies of the Emperor’s proclamations, accounts of our narrator’s travels and more or less unusual recipes. The author in question is Étienne-Nicolas Pilloy, born in Santeau, canton of Pithiviers (Loiret), a farmer by trade. Here are his service records: 13th Cuirassier Regiment. Entered…

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  April 18, 2024

  1813 Campaign, 1814 Campaign, Anecdotes, Cavalry, Letters – Correspondence, Soldier

  Alsace, Battle of Waterloo, Bivouac, Blockade, Blois, Brigadier, Caen, Colmar, Conscription, Cossacks, Cuirassier, Daily life, Discharge, Discipline, Equipment, Fortifications, France, General Lemarois, Germany, Hospital, Illness, Labour, Laon, Lieutenant, Loiret, Louvain, Lusignan, Magdeburg, Melun, Metz, Money, Mounted Carabiniers, Mounts, Noirt, Normandy, Orléans, Poitiers, Poitou, Pontoon, Prussia, River, Siege, Supplies, Thionville, Tours, Wesel, Westphalia

• Some notes of a grenadier of the Imperial Guard, 1813 …

  

  A couple of passages of a journal kept by Philippe Ballut, a soldier serving in the 2nd Grenadier Regiment of the Guard, related to the early stages of the 1813 Campaign … Thursday, 29 April. – The Old Guard arrived at Naumburg before noon and we lit our fires at the foot of the tower,…

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  January 29, 2024

  1813 Campaign, Anecdotes, Artillery, Battle, Cavalry, Engineers, General staff, Generals, Imperial Guard, Infantry, Memoirs, Officer, Soldier

  Accomodation, Alsace, Billet, Bivouac, Chasseur à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, Colonel, Conscript, Corporal, Cossacks, Daily life, Dresden, Emperor, Equipment, Erfurt, Espionage, Fatigue, General Berthezène, General Souham, Grand Marshal Duroc, Grenadiers, Hussars, Imperial Guard, Jena, Leipzig, Locals, Mamelukes, Marshal Berthier, Marshal Bessières, Marshal Marmont, Marshal Ney, Napoleon, Naumburg, Old Guard, Paris, Peace, Pillage, Prussia, Rain, Russia, Saale, Sappers, Saxony, Tsar Alexander, Weimar, Weissenfels, Young Guard

• Correspondence of grognard Jean-Henry Rattier (I) …

  

  The author of these letters, Jean-Henry Rattier, was born in Val-Chambre (Ardèche) on 1 June 1775, the fifth child of a farmer whose four other sons served in the French army during the campaigns of the Revolution. Henry Rattier, employed as a miller in a silk factory in Privas, joined the National Guard when he…

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  November 30, 2023

  1809 Campaign, Anecdotes, Artillery, Battle, Cavalry, General staff, Generals, Imperial Guard, Infantry, Letters – Correspondence, Logistics – War Commissionary – Intendancy, Officer

  Accident, Accomodation, Adjudant Major, Administration, Alsace, Austria, Battle of Wagram, Billet, Bivouac, Captain, Chasseur, Clothing, Compiègne, Conscript, Daily life, Drill, Emperor, Equipment, Erfurt, Family, Fatigue, Flemish, General Curial, General Junot, General Rampon, General Soulès, Grants, Illness, Imperial Guard, Injuries, Inspection, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Colonel, Light Infantry, Metz, Moral, Napoleon, NCO, Parades, Paris, Pay, Piedmontese, Police, Polish Lancers, Promotion, Regiment of Tirailleurs, Retirement, Schönbrunn, Spain, Strasbourg, Tsar Alexander, Versailles, Voltigeurs, Wine, Winter

• Letters of Marshal Berthier from the 1814 Campaign …

  

  In the following four letters (dated 8 to 15 March 1814), Berthier seems to share the Emperor’s hopes and illusions; he reports the battle of Craonne which, Napoleon said, was glorious. He heralded the recapture of Soissons and Rheims; he even suggested that the enemy was troubled, threatened on all sides by the levée en…

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  May 4, 2023

  1814 Campaign, Artillery, Battle, Cavalry, General staff, Generals, Imperial Guard, Infantry, Letters – Correspondence, Logistics – War Commissionary – Intendancy, Marshals, Officer, Reports

  Alsace, Austria, Bashkirs, Captivity, Chavignon, Châlons, Count de Langeron, Craonne, Epernay, General Corbineau, General Gérard, General Saint-Priest, General Yorck, Guards of Honour, Imprisonment, Insurgency, Kalmyks, L'Ange-Gardien, Laon, Levée en masse, Marshal Augereau, Marshal Berthier, Marshal Macdonald, Marshal Marmont, Marshal Mortier, Marshal Ney, Marshal Oudinot, National Guard, Prussia, Rheims, Russia, Soissons

• An officer reporting for duty in 1815 …

  

  Christ was an aging captain from Alsace, retired from military service. The letter he sent to General Bertrand, written in a naïve style and with a multitude of spelling mistakes which we have thoughtfully removed, well represents the enthusiasm and joy felt by a great number of soldiers when they learned of Napoleon’s return from…

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  March 20, 2023

  1815 Campaign, General staff, Infantry, Letters – Correspondence, Officer

  Alsace, Elba, First Restauration, General Bertrand, Napoleon, Retirement, Schlestadt, Service

• A dragoon and the campaign for France, 1814 …

  

  Louis-Antoine Gougeat (1788-1865) enrolled in a cavalry regiment in 1806. He took part in the campaigns in Spain in the ranks of the 20th Dragoon Regiment. On his return from the Iberian peninsula, he spent some time in Westphalia. In 1814, Gougeat travelled to the Alsace region, to Strasbourg, then to Schlestadt (Sélestat) and continued…

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  February 20, 2023

  1814 Campaign, Artillery, Battle, Cavalry, Infantry, Memoirs, Officer

  Abdication, Alsace, Arcis, Austria, Bar-sur-Seine, Brienne, Colmar, Cossacks, Cuirassier, Daily life, Dragoons, Emperor, Essoyes, Fontainebleau, Looting, Marne, Montereau, Napoleon, Paris, Pillage, Polish Lancers, Prussia, Russia, Saint-Aubin, Saint-Dizier, Seine, Strasbourg, Troyes, Vitry, Westphalia