Tag: Battle of Friedland
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Recollections on the battle of Salamanca, 1812 …
Alphonse d’Hautpoul was born at Versailles on 4 January 1789. He was a cousin of the cavalry general of the same name, who lost his life at the battle at Eylau. Alphonse’s brother, Amand, served in the horse artillery of the Imperial Guard. Attending the Military School at Fontainebleau, Alphonse departed there as a second…
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Captain Puffeney’s recollections of the 1806-1807 Campaigns …
The son of humble farmers from the Franche-Comté region, Captain Pierre-François Puffeney was born in Les Planches, near Arbois, on 5 December 1772. He was not yet twenty when he enlisted as a volunteer in the 2nd Battalion of the Jura, to fly, as it was then called, to the defence of the Fatherland. A…
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A dragoon under Marshal Murat – Letters of the 1806-1807 Campaigns (III)
The troops were beginning to grow, if not discouraged, at least weary of being beset day and night by Cossacks. Therefore the cavalry, charged with chasing down this troublesome and devious enemy, hardly rested. Until 15 March, Murat covered the line of the outposts: Luiduwo, near Gigenburg, 17 March 1807. Looking at the date of…
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Letters of Désiré Trefcon, quartermaster in the 22nd Dragoons – 1806-1807
Désiré Trefcon was conscripted in Year VII and initially served with his brothers Pierre-Antoine and Toussaint-Jean in the 15th Demi-Brigade. Due to his frail health and poor tolerance of arduous stages, he was almost constantly assigned to the depot companies. He had therefore remained in Bitche (Moselle Department) during the brilliant campaign of 1800. Eager…
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A letter on the Chasseurs à Cheval of the Guard, after Friedland …
Here we present an unpublished letter from Colonel Claude-Étienne Guyot (1768-1837) to Viceroy Eugène de Beauharnais about the plight of the Chasseurs à Cheval of the Imperial Guard after the battle of Friedland. We learn that Guyot regularly kept Eugène informed about the state of the regiment (Eugène having served in the prestigious unit) and…
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Some remarks of a cuirassier officer, 1806-1807 …
Jean de Gouttes recounts his experiences of the Prussian and Polish surroundings and battlefields in his correspondence with his parents … Schwarzach, 17 August 1806. Although I cannot put much structure into the details I have provided about Bavaria, I will continue to give you some as they are of interest to you. The predominant…
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Colonel Raymond Guiraud’s war journal (II) …
… On 21 May, the assault (on Danzig) was to take place. The enormous palisades of the bastion moat had resisted the effects of the gunpowder. The guns that raked them only tore them apart, and they had to be knocked down by digging up the earth beside them. A wide passage was opened, but…
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Second Lieutenant Zickel’s letters from Spain, 1808-1809 …
Here we have François-Joseph Zickel, an officer in the 10th Regiment of Chasseurs à Cheval, after nine years’ service and almost as many campaigns. His ‘new epaulette’ received its baptism of fire at Friedland on 14 June 1807. Then, after the peace of Tilsit and a few months’ well-earned rest, the two Zickel brothers moved…