12. The Hussar and Chasseur Regiments (7)
To pass on from the dragoons to the light cavalry, there was no essential difference save in the way of costume between the chasseurs and the hussars, so far as their drill or their tactical employment went. The latter category of cavalry had possessed a certain individuality in the old army of the French monarchy, before the Revolution began, all the hussar regiments having been originally foreign troops. As every one knows, the hussar equipment was originally of Hungarian origin, though by the XVIIIth century the Prussian and other German governments raised hussar regiments, who were at first intended to be the lightest of light cavalry, and were to find their proper sphere in raids and reconnaissances rather than in pitched battles. Copying Frederick the Great, whose hussars had taught them, in the Seven Years War, many lessons of mobility and enterprise, the ministers of Louis XV thought that they must raise light cavalry of this type, over and above their own existing chevaux légers. They were originally all foreigners, in some small degree Hungarians borrowed from the Austrian ally, but mainly miscellaneous Germans, who had served in other armies before joining the French. But by 1789 there was a certain proportion of Frenchmen mixed among them, but in a small minority. Altogether there were only six regiments of them.
The foreign recruiting mainly ceased when the great war of 1792 broke out, though the German character of the hussar regiments was partly kept up by allowing them to enlist foreign adventurers, and partly by encouraging their recruiting in the German-speaking Alsace. But by Napoleon’s accession to power in 1800 the hussars were practically national troops, and no longer essentially the foreign mercenaries that they had once been. In the general reorganization of the French cavalry that followed the Peace of Lunéville, Napoleon kept or created 10 regiments of them, as against 26 of the other category of light cavalry, the chasseurs à cheval, so that the hussars were in a small minority. The number of their regiments afterwards rose to 13, mainly from the taking into the French army of already existing foreign hussar regiments, when Holland and part of Westphalia were annexed to the French Empire in 1810 and 1811. By the time that the hussars rose to 13 regiments the chasseurs had been raised to 31, so that the former always remained in their proportional strength of less than one-half of the chasseurs.
There was no essential difference between them so far as employment went, only the hussars retained the original Hungarian dress, with high cap with aigrette, and furred pelisse, while the chasseurs had the tall plumed felt shako, and green, close-fitting single-breasted coat, crossed with much braiding, and long pantaloons. Both carried a very broad and much curved sabre. These two classes of light cavalry were brigaded indifferently with each other; there was never any attempt to make separate hussar brigades and chasseur brigades, as was always done with the cuirassiers and dragoons. I cannot find that there was any choice between the two sorts of regiment when detachments for exploration, raiding work, or rapid pursuits were made. They worked together indifferently.
The bulk of the hussar and chasseur regiments in one of Napoleon’s armies were utilized to furnish the army corps cavalry. Each corps had two or three, occasionally four, of them attached to it. When they were less than four, the corps cavalry were generally called a brigade; when more, a division. An army of eight corps, therefore, would absorb some twenty or twenty-five of the light cavalry regiments for its corps-cavalry. The remainder were formed into three or four brigades attached to the so-called reserve cavalry, of which the nucleus was always formed by the sixteen cuirassier and carabineer regiments, and to which the larger part of the dragoons were also added. For dragoon regiments were seldom used as corps cavalry, being nearly always placed in the reserve. When this central cavalry reserve was divided into sections, called originally divisions but in 1812 and 1813 “corps” of cavalry, the usual system was to attach about an equal number of light and heavy brigades to each unit. In all cases the chasseurs and hussar brigades were supposed to take up the advanced-guard work and reconnaissance duty for the whole corps, while the cuirassier regiments were held back for the engagements on a large scale and pitched battles.
To obtain a deluxe leatherbound edition of STUDIES ON THE NAPOLEONIC WARS, subscribe to Castalia History.
