Tag: Cossacks
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Eyewitness accounts of the campaign in Russia, 1812 (II) …
TO COUNT DE LAVALETTE, DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE EMPIRE’S POSTAL SERVICES, IN PARIS. Moscow, 16 October 1812. My dear Count, I have the honour of informing you that the Intendant General has ordered me to bring down the postal service between France and Gumbinnen to one courier every two days, and the one between the…
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Captain Sibelet’s 1813 experiences …
Here we have an excerpt of the unpublished military memoirs of Jean-Pierre Sibelet, Officer of the Legion of Honour, retired captain of the 11th Regiment of Chasseurs à Cheval. He returned to the service in 1812 in the 25th Cohort and became a grenadier captain for the 145th Line Regiment on 18 February 1813. Readers…
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General Doumerc and his cuirassiers at the Berezina …
This report contains details on General Jean-Pierre Doumerc’s (1767-1847) role and his cavalry’s actions during the battle of the Berezina … I CAVALRY CORPS 3RD CUIRASSIER DIVISION SIRE, In the thirty years I have been serving (the army), I have never been reproached for my military conduct. Your Imperial Majesty told me yesterday, after the…
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An Imperial Guard commander and the 1813 Campaign (IV) …
… The tremendous enthusiasm that had always motivated our battalions was shattered. Ambition had replaced emulation; the army was now commanded only by officers who were brave to the point of recklessness, but without experience or instruction. Soldiers were only looking for the opportunity to leave their corps, to enter hospitals, to flee from danger.…
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An Imperial Guard commander and the 1813 Campaign (I) …
We follow Louis-Joseph Vionnet, Viscount of Maringoné, and his soldiers of the Imperial Guard throughout the 1813 campaign in Germany. … On 30 March at four in the morning, I received the order to depart the next day before daylight. I hastily arranged my affairs and those of the regiment and spent the whole night…
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Cossacks at Borodino, an unpublished report by General Pajol …
In 1841, Marshal Soult, Minister of War, dispatched Staff Captain Ch. Pajol, son of the illustrious cavalry general of the First Empire, to the camp of Krasnoye Selo under the command of the Russian Emperor Nicholas himself, with a mission to travel through Russia, Poland, Prussia, Saxony and Germany. This mission was not merely of…
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The plight of a Belgian Guard of Honour, 1813 …
Here we have a lengthy letter of a Belgian Garde d’Honneur, Ferdinand de Caigny (1794-1848), recounting in detail the events he and his fellow soldiers of the 1st Regiment experienced in the autumn months of the year 1813 … Gruinestadt, 19 November 1813, three leagues from Worms and Frankenthal. My dear Parents, We left Frankenthal…
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The plight of an officer in the train (transport logistics), 1812-1813
Here are the ‘Recollections’ of Nicolas Nottat, brigadier in the Train Regiment. This account was published the first time in June 1939 in the ‘Revue d’Histoire’, by the Reserve Captain Pierre Arnoult. A second publication dates from October 1953 in the ‘Revue du Train’ at the initiative of Mr. Péchon, President of the Train Cadets…