Battalion Field Strengths during the Napoleonic Wars

Throughout history, infantry have been organised into battalion sized formations of between 500 to 1200 men. Both human dynamics and possible spans of command of one individual tend to lead to optimum structures of this size.  This, combined with a sensible number of tiers of command levels and, in the period in question, tempered by the realistic distance over which direct orders could be issued by voice, drumbeat or bugle, indicated an appropriate size for any infantry battalion. Roman Cohorts, Marlborough’s Regiments, and Napoleon’s multi-national Grande Armee all operated in battalions within this range. Interestingly, but outside the scope of this study, even modern soldiers in their Armoured Personnel Carriers also operate in similar sized battalions.  As General Emanuel von Warnery, the famous Prussian military commentator of the 18th Century, stated:

“a battalion is from 500 to 1,000 men” [i]

During the Napoleonic wars most nations had battalions whose established strength was between 700 to 1200 men, although the Austrians had some battalions which were slightly larger than this range.  In practice however strength fell in the field so that the average effective battlefield strength of most battalions was some 600 men, although there were some significant variations.  The battalion was the primary tactical unit in that although several battalions would co-operate in Brigades or Divisions, each battalion would normally manoeuvre and change formation separately.  Establishments did vary from time to time during the Napoleonic wars but typical established battalion strengths are shown in table 1.

table-1

The battalion internally comprised a number of tactical sub-units, based on companies or half companies, and although it was possible to detach one or more of these, the range of tactical manoeuvres available to such small elements was more limited than that possible with a full battalion.The number of officers in a British battalion looks high but this results from their being mini-Regiments, with a full complement of headquarters staff, that in other nations would have been part of the Regimental headquarters, as well as having more companies per battalion than other nations

In the 18th century battalions normally formed line of battle as part of a closely integrated structure for the entire army.  By the Napoleonic wars such tactics had evolved so that such tight formal linking of battalions was the exception rather than the rule.  On some occasions battalions were amalgamated into multi-battalion structures but these took longer to change formation, tended to suffer heavy casualties and were generally not successful.

A prime example of the folly of using dense formations was MacDonald’s Corps at Wagram which was organised as a single multi-battalion square.  The result was fatal:

“Macdonald moved forward in a huge hollow square of 21 battalions with 8,000 men, supported by heavy cavalry on each flank.  The dense mass suffered enormous casualties and by the time it reached the Austrian line it had slowed to a crawl, reduced to 1,500 men.”  [ii]

Similarly D’Erlons Corps at Waterloo, advancing in massive Divisional columns, was torn apart by British cavalry charges because they lacked the manoeuvrability to form square quickly.  As Jac Weller relates:

“Ponsonby’s Union Brigade not only completely broke Donzelot’s division, but also smashed Marcognet’s.  In both cases the carnage was awful.  Two eagles were taken and upwards of 3,000 prisoners actually secured.” [iii]

A British example from that same battle was the fate of the 3rd Division, who initially deployed in composite columns each of two battalions, and later formed composite squares, each again of two battalions, and suffered 31% casualties, the highest rate of any Division, compared to the 1st (Guards) Division 24% or the 5th (Picton’s) Division 19%. [iv]

Very large battalions also took longer to change formation and were more prone to disorder when moving.  Napoleonic battalions of more than 1,000 men were particularly ponderous when changing formation.  Nations with such large battalion organisations (eg British Guards) sometimes split them into two half battalions (wings) and then manoeuvred much faster by using half companies as the internal “building blocks” for formation changing.  The 42nd (Black Watch) with a high strength of between 800-1,000 men during the Peninsular campaign did this frequently as recorded by its anonymous diarist:

“General Pack came up to our commanding officer, Colonel Maccara, as soon as we were to attack, and ordered him to form the regiment by wings, or half battalions.”  [v]

The 52nd Light Infantry, with a strength of over 1,000 men was one of several regiments who operated by wings at Waterloo, in the words of Lieutenant Gawler :

“The 52nd halted in close or quarter-distance columns of wings….It then proceeded in wing squares by the track on the exterior slope of the British position.”  [vi]

Austrians had similarly large battalions, established at some 1,200 men and normally fielding an average of over 800.  They sometimes therefore adopted the practice of splitting them into three divisions, each of two companies, which operated as close columns known as “divisionsmasse” and could manoeuvre faster individually than would be possible if formed as a complete battalion.  At the battle of Liebertwolkwitz in October 1813 :

“The situation was worse for Major Stiller and the 2nd battalion of the Würzburg Regiment….Stiller formed his forces into “divisionsmasse” and drove off two attacks.” [vii]

Very small battalions were also undesirable.  In the 18th century the major constraint was the need for a battalion to have a sufficient number of firing platoons to generate a high volume of fire consistent with reloading time.  These firing platoons bore little or no relationship to the administrative company structure of the battalion.  Sixteen platoons were desirable and twelve was considered to be the minimum.  An optimum platoon size for best fire control was considered to be some 40 men, although it is clear that many platoons were smaller than this.  Platoons of 30 men would give a battalion minimum of 360 men, plus officers, NCOs etc.

In the Napoleonic era a further complication arose due to the complex evolutions resulting from more flexible tactics.  Very small battalions were incapable of conducting the full range of manoeuvres within their drill regulations.  Some drills, particularly those to form square from column, required manoeuvring by quarter-companies, which regulations (based on practical spatial considerations) specified could not have a frontage of less than 4 men.   Depending upon the number of companies in the battalion such considerations would indicate minimum battalion strengths of between 300 to 500 men plus officers, NCOs etc.  As will be explored in more depth in later articles, battalions smaller than these desired strengths would be constrained in their tactics, having to operate in close columns rather than any other column structure.

The proportionate effect of casualties on small battalions was also greater, and battalions weaker than 300 men suffered battlefield attrition at a rate which rapidly made them ineffective.  Most nations had multi-battalion Regiments so if strength diminished during a campaign they simply reduced the number of battalions in the Regiment to maintain reasonable battalion sizes.

Oman records several examples of French armies in the Peninsula demonstrating this in practice:

In February 1809 Soult’s 2nd Corps had 20,069 men in 49 battalions, an average of 410 men per battalion.  These battalions were considerably understrength and Oman records Soult’s actions to remedy this in May 1809 as follows:

“The 3rd, or 3rd and 4th, battalions turned over their effective rank and file to the others, while the officers and non-commissioned officers were sent home to their depots to organise new units.”  [viii]

After this restructuring 2nd Corps would have had a similar number of men (less the cadres sent back) but an analysis of their strength returns would suggest that such a reduction would have enabled the remaining battalions to be reinforced to approximately 600 men each.

This same process was carried out several times in respect of the Army of Portugal in 1811 and 1812:

April 1811. “Massena took out of the 9th Corps the battalions belonging to regiments of which the main bodies were already in the old Army of Portugal, and sent them to join their comrades.  The cadres of one battalion in each regiment were then sent home to France, and the other three raised to something like their original war strength.”  [ix]

May 1811. “A few small abnormal units, such as the Légion du Midi and the Hanoverian Legion were disbanded and ceased to exist.  All the isolated fourth battalions of the old 8th Corps had gone down to skeleton units of 200 or 300 strong – their rank and file were drafted into other regiments, their cadres sent home to recruit.  In each Line Regiment Marmont reduced the number of field battalions to three or two, and, having filled them up to a strength of 700 men each, sent back the cadres and the small remainder of rank and file from the junior battalions to their depots.”  [x]

August 1812. (Clausel reorganises his Army after Salamanca). “The 2nd, 4th 6th, and 25th Léger,  the 1st, 15th, 36th, 50th, 62nd, 65th, 118th, 119th, 120th Line had to cut themselves down by a battalion each; the 22nd and 101st, which had been the heaviest sufferers of all, and had each lost their eagle, were reduced from three to one battalion each.  There had been seventy-four battalions in the Army of Portugal on July 1st; on August 1st there were only fifty-seven.”  [xi]

This cycle of battalion strength falling and being restored by battalion amalgamations can be seen in table 2.

table-2

As seen in the table, average battalion strength fell between September 1810 and March 1811, the reorganisation in April 1811 restoring it to close to 600 per battalion.  The strength of battalions then dropped off again to the low point in June 1811, after Albuera and Fuentes de Onoro, when a further reorganisation pushed it back towards the optimum 600 level.  By July 1812 the average strength had dropped back to 568, falling still further to 449 after Salamanca.  The subsequent reorganisation restored average strength to almost 600.

The final substantial reorganisation of French armies in the Peninsula took place in 1813 when Napoleon’s edict of 4th January 1813

“ordered that each infantry regiment should send back to France the full cadre of officers and non-commissioned officers for one battalion, with a skeleton cadre of men, cutting down the number of battalions present with the eagle by one, and drafting the surplus rank and file of the subtracted battalion into those remaining in Spain.”  [xii]

The reason behind this last reduction was more to raise new battalions to reinforce Napoleon’s depleted armies in Northern Europe, than to improve strengths in his peninsular battalions, which latter effect was however achieved. Nevertheless, the result was that French regiments in the Peninsula, most of whom had four battalions in 1810, had no more than two per regiment by 1813.

Other nations followed the same practice of maintaining average battalion strength by reducing the number of battalions per regiment where necessary.  In January 1808 the Spanish did so as follows:

“Infantado…proceeded to reorganise his army; the three weakened battalions of the old line regiments were consolidated into two or often into one.”  [xiii]

According to Oman, [xiv] Spanish line infantry regiments should have had 70 officers and 2,186 men, an average of 752 per battalion.   However an analysis of the tables in Oman shows that shortly after this reorganisation only four of the 35 Spanish line infantry regiments had strengths approaching these establishment figures and that all four of these were those serving in Denmark (Asturias, Guadalajara, Princesa and Zamora).  Of the remainder, 20 regiments were between half to two-thirds of established strength and 11 regiments were between one-third to half of established strength.  The implication is that few if any of the regiments in Spain had three battalions.  It would appear likely that two-thirds of the regiments had only two battalions and the remaining one-third only one battalion.

The 35 Spanish line regiments should have fielded 105 battalions each of some 752 personnel.  If they had not been reduced their average strength would however have only been 423.  The reductions indicate that there were now only 63 line battalions but these averaged 704 men.

The Spanish carried out a further fundamental reduction in January 1813 when

“A new army regulation cut down all regimental formations to a single battalion of very heavy strength (1,200 bayonets). [xv]

In practice field strengths were considerably below this as is shown in table 3 in an analysis of various returns in Oman.table-3

It can be seen that prior to 1813 Spanish battalion strengths in regiments nominally of three battalions, but often reduced to two or even one, were very similar to the Napoleonic era optimum of 600.   Following the reduction to one battalion per regiment in January 1813, average strengths did rise to over 800, but this was not sustained and by the end of the war in the Peninsula Spanish single battalion Regiments were again of similar size to everyone else.

The British army had a different structure to other nations, in that most regiments comprised two battalions, one of which served abroad whilst the other was kept at home.  The home battalion then fed drafts of trained men to the overseas battalion to maintain its strength.  This one to one system enabled the majority of British battalions in Wellington’s Peninsular army to maintain their average strength better than other European armies who were relying on one depot battalion, normally smaller than the line battalions, to feed three or four field battalions.  The British command of the sea also helped the efficiency of their system.

The British however had a rather idiosyncratic structure of different battalion strengths depending on the role of the battalion.  British establishments were by individual battalions, not complete regiments, so it was possible for battalions of the same regiment to be on similar or quite different establishments.  Battalions were reckoned by their nominal rank & file strength (corporals and privates) not counting officers, sergeants and drummers.  Prior to 1803 most regiments only had one battalion each and these were on a common structure of 750 rank & file, apart from slightly larger battalions of 1,000 rank and file in India.  With the expansion of the Army, mainly by forming large numbers of 2nd or even 3rd battalions, this common structure ceased.  The new structure adopted from December 1803, and fully implemented by December 1805, abandoned the 750 strong battalion and had 5 possible battalion rank & file sizes: 400, 600, 800, 1,000 or 1,200.  Battalions in the home defence role in Great Britain and Ireland tended to be of 400 or 600 with a few of higher establishments as an immediate reserve for overseas duty.  Those in static garrisons overseas tended to be 800, whilst those with the field army were mainly of 1,000, rising to 1,200 later in the wars.  This pragmatic structure enabled the field army to comprise battalions of reasonable strengths, whilst keeping the overall size, and therefore cost, of the army within limits agreed by parliament.  This subject is explored in depth in a pair of articles by the author in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research.[xvi], and also reproduced in simplified form (based on a PowerPoint presentation) on this website in one of the other papers in this Military Historical Research Section (Authorised Establishments of the British Army 1802-1815).

With natural attrition, British battalions in the field had reduced strengths.  Since these were almost entirely from different regiments and anyway had separate battalion establishments it was not normally possible to resolve inequalities which arose.  The strong regimental identity of British regiments meant that the government did not have the power to order transfers of men between regiments to equalise them, to the despair of military theorists such as Dundas who wrote:

“and could the battalions of a line also be equalised, the greatest advantages would arise; but though from the different strengths of battalions this cannot take place”[xvii]

British Guards battalions had similar established strengths to the largest line battalions.  Some line battalions had no problem in recruiting so were authorised several battalions of a higher strength than most other regiments.  Sometimes two battalions of the same regiment would be posted to the field army but their overlap invariably only lasted for a few months.  At the end of this time the one battalion posted men into the other to top it up and then, reduced to a cadre, returned home to recruit.   Very occasionally, and against resistance from the military hierarchy at home, weak battalions (particularly those from single battalion regiments) would be amalgamated into provisional battalions as recorded by Oman.

“What was to be done if a Peninsular battalion had got very low in numbers …and had few or no recruits at its British depot ready to be sent out ?   This was the case in December 1812 with twelve good old battalions of the Peninsular Army.  The Duke of York maintained that since they all showed under 350 effectives…they must come home at once.  But Wellington had other views.  He held that a well-tried battalion acclimatised to Peninsular service was such a precious thing…that it would be best to combine the wasted units in pairs as ‘Provisional battalions’ of 600 to 700 bayonets, each sending home the cadres of four or five companies to its depot, and keeping six or five at the front.”  [xviii]

An analysis of the changes in strength of Wellington’s Peninsular army throughout the duration of the war is at table 4.

table-4

An examination of this table shows that the Guards fielded battalions at high strengths throughout the war and that the large battalions of the 43rd and 52nd Light Infantry were not far behind them.  The three Highland regiments started off much the same but by the end of the war were not much larger than other battalions.  Most other battalions started with strengths of well over 600 and managed to maintain this order of figure throughout the war with the help of drafts from home depots or 2nd battalions.   The averages do conceal some variation but the majority of battalions operated within the range from 500 to 700 men throughout the war.  Some weak battalions failed to maintain their strength and eventually were amalgamated into good strength provisional battalions.

The Kings German Legion did drop to a low point in 1811 but, as the fortunes of war swung Britain’s way, a steady supply of recruits from deserters or prisoners from Napoleon’s German regiments helped to restore their strength.  The two foreign regiments of the Chasseurs Britanniques and Brunswick Oels followed a similar pattern to the KGL but suffered from their own desertion almost as much as they relied on that same source for recruitment.  Even so, they managed to maintain respectable battalion strengths.

The one element which is not covered in the table is the rifle regiments of the 5th Battalion 60th and the 95th.   Most of the former battalion was split up into independent companies attached to various brigades, as were the three independent companies of the Brunswick Oels Jäger (whose strengths do not appear in the main battalion totals).  For much of the war the three battalions of the 95th were also not fielded in complete battalions but split into half battalion wings attached to different brigades or in some cases supplemented by detachments of a few companies from another of their battalions.  This all makes comparisons difficult and in any case, the concept of an optimum battalion strength was less relevant to troops whose primary battle role was to operate as a skirmish screen rather than in close order formation.

 The Portuguese line regiments produce another interesting study.  Their establishment at 770 per battalion was rather less than that of the British, French or Spanish.  Initially however the Portuguese managed to field battalions which were proportionately closer to established strength than those of the other Peninsular combatants, undoubtedly because they were close to their recruiting grounds.  It has been suggested by some modern enthusiasts that the Portuguese always operated by merging their two battalion regiments into a single tactical formation so as to use British drill.  This is not borne out by the facts, nor would there have been any difficulty in a five company battalion using British regulations.  Such a suggestion misunderstands both the nature of the company as a sub-unit of the battalion and the inherent flexibility of the regulations.  All they had to do was to operate by half companies, and the same drill could be used.  Oman makes it clear that in September 1809 some Portuguese regiments were sufficiently understrength that they could only produce a single battalion.

“A good many of the regiments succeeded, so far as numbers went, in constituting their two battalions without much difficulty.  Others were less fortunate, and could raise only one; two were so hopelessly incomplete that Beresford distributed the few hundred men whom they could produce among other corps, and temporarily disbanded them”.[xix]

Footnotes to this section in Oman identify the five regiments which had not raised second battalions by September 1809, some of which were serving with the field army, and also identifies the two regiments temporarily disbanded.  It is also clear that the original order of battle of the Anglo-Portuguese army in April 1809 attached individual battalions of Portuguese to different brigades, splitting the two battalions of the regiment to do so.[xx]  It is obvious that Portuguese battalions could operate independently, since they were well within the size range of other nation’s battalions and nothing in their structure prevented them from doing so.  A couple of further quotes from Oman showing Portuguese battalions operating singly in action at Bussaco should serve to dispel any lingering doubts on this matter.

“The right wing of the 45th…and the Portuguese 8th of the Line …were soon afterwards joined by one battalion of the 9th Portuguese”. [xxi]

“Major-General Leith … ordering Colonel Douglas with the right battalion of the 8th Portuguese to support the point attacked”. [xxii]

Some Portuguese battalions fell to strengths which would have led to amalgamation in other armies.  The averages in the table disguise the extent of this because there were considerable variations between regiments, some of whose battalions had fallen to below half strength by 1813.  There is however no evidence of Portuguese battalions being amalgamated as their strength reduced.  Certainly some regiments took to the field at only single battalion strength in 1809 but this was a temporary measure.  Oman was meticulous in recording such amalgamations of French, British and Spanish battalions and since he did not mention similar Portuguese ones it seems safe to assume that this is because no such reductions took place.  This is not to say that battlefield linking of the two battalions in each regiment did not occur, because such temporary combinations were perfectly normal in all armies.  It is possible that the tactical need to keep the standard Portuguese brigade structure of four line battalions and a Caçadores battalion was more important than the need to achieve optimum battalion strengths.  The remedy for weak Portuguese battalions was to reinforce such battalions, rather than amalgamate them, and they were considerably closer to their recruiting grounds than either the British or the French.

It is easy to concentrate on the Peninsula because both strengths and battalion amalgamations are so well documented by Oman.  The same general pattern is however also true of other armies in other campaigns.  In 1813 the Württemberg contingent of Napoleon’s army carried out a substantial reorganisation with the effect of converting the 14 very weak battalions of its 7 regiments into the reduced number of 4 effective battalions.

“Franquemont’s 38th(Württemberg) Division….was in terrible condition after the battle of Dennewitz.  The 9th and 10th Infantry Regiments were merged into a Combined Light Infantry Battalion.  The 1st, 4th, and 6th Regiments were formed into the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd a Combined Infantry Battalions.  The 2nd and 7th Regiments were broken up and their forces distributed between the first three regiments.  The division had, as a result, a strength of four battalions and six guns.” [xxiii]

The Leipzig campaign provides a good illustration of the practice of reducing the number of battalions per regiment to maintain average battalion strengths.  Many of the participants in the campaign did so as is demonstrated in Table 5.

table-5

Very few French line regiments were in fact operating with their established four battalions per regiment, and the greatest number had been reduced to only one.  Similarly a large number of Russian regiments had amalgamated their two battalions into one, although a few had sent their depot battalions into the field as 3rd battalions.  In the Austrian army, Hungarian regiments were established with three battalions and German regiments with two, but the majority of the latter had landwehr battalions attached as 3rd battalions.  Despite this several regiments were operating with two battalions rather than three.  The Prussians equally had similar reductions to two or even one battalion per regiment to maintain battalion strengths.

After the battle of Leipzig the French carried out further significant reductions in the number of battalions in some regiments.

“All the regiments of the former III Corps, except for the 2nd Provisional Regiment, were reduced to a single battalion.  Those regiments which had more than one battalion absorbed those battalions into the one battalion that remained, except for the cadres, which were sent back to the depots.  …The 136th, 138th, 142nd, 144th and 145th Regiments, which were formed of National Guard Cohorts, were reduced to two battalions by this reorganisation.” [xxiv]

This tendency to maintain battalions at an optimum effective strength, by amalgamation where necessary is demonstrated in Table 6 (drawn from a variety of sources).

table-6table-6-notes

French Imperial Guard battalions went through several reorganisations but established strength was maintained at between 800 to 900 men per battalion.  In practice the Old Guard tended to field battalions close to the optimum 600 but Young and Middle Guard were more variable.  Napoleon normally kept his Old Guard as a reserve, only to be committed in extreme emergency, and this, plus their high morale and relatively good provisioning enabled them to maintain reasonably high battalion strengths.  Young and Middle Guard battalions were committed to battle far more frequently and often used in situations where high casualties might be expected, but it was assumed that their high morale would win through.  As result they had the same difficulty as all other French units in maintaining strengths, and this pushed the average overall strength of Guards units down in the various campaigns.

French line and light battalions were originally established at 1,130 men but in the Austerlitz and Jena campaigns fielded some 860 per battalion.  In 1808 established battalion sizes were reduced to 840 and in the 1809 campaign the French fielded battalions close to the 600 man optimum.  Average French battalion strengths fell off during the remainder of the wars and were particularly low, at approximately 400 per battalion, during the Leipzig campaign of 1813.  French allies, who were integrated into French orders of battle at Divisional, Brigade and sometimes even individual battalion level, tended to have lower strengths due to the difficulty of providing reinforcements to these many small contingents.

The average Russian battalion strength in the Austerlitz campaign was over 600 men but strengths fell dramatically during the 1812 campaign and did not recover to much more than just over 400 per battalion by the Leipzig campaign.  Austrian line battalions had higher established sizes than many other nations and thus most Austrian battalions had field strengths of between 700 to 900 men.  This made Austrian battalions inherently less manoeuvrable but the Austrians resolved this by frequently splitting their battalions into three divisions, each of two companies.  These still remained in a structured relationship to each other but could manoeuvre separately, thus removing the problem of the cumbersome size of the battalion. Prussian battalions were within the 500 to 700 man range for the majority of the Napoleonic wars.

The British at Waterloo continued the same pattern set in the Peninsula, with the Guards and certain light infantry regiments being close to established strengths and therefore quite frequently splitting into half battalion wings to facilitate faster manoeuvring.  The remainder of the army, and the allied Hanoverian and Netherlands contingents averaged close to 600 men per battalion.  The Kings German Legion were understrength at Waterloo as a result of the decision to reduce them from 10 companies per battalion to 6, posting a total of 91 officers and 104 sergeants to provide experienced training cadres for the Hanoverian Landwehr. [xxv]

In general, infantry battalions started campaigns with battalion strengths of 700-800 men but attrition during the campaign reduced these.  Once battalions fell below some 300 men there was a tendency to amalgamate them, maintaining battalion strength at 500-600 men.  Austrian line and Grenzer, as well as British guards were the exception to the general pattern since they started with higher than average battalion strengths.

 

Sources

[i] Remarks on Cavalry.  Emanuel von Warnery. P8

[ii] Napoleons Great Adversary – Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army  1792-1814.  Gunter E Rothenberg.  P214

[iii] Wellington at Waterloo.  Jac Weller.  P103

[iv] Based on casualty tables from” History of the Waterloo Campaign”. Captain W Siborne

[v] The Personal Narrative of a Private Soldier in the 42nd Highlanders.  Anonymous.  P249

[vi] Waterloo Letters.  Major General H T Siborne.  No 124 (Lieutenant Gawler).  P288

[vii] Napoleon at Leipzig.  George Nafziger.  P75

[viii] A History of the Peninsular War. Sir Charles Oman. Volume II.  P391

[ix] A History of the Peninsular War. Sir Charles Oman. Volume IV.  P300

[x] A History of the Peninsular War. Sir Charles Oman. Volume IV.  P361

[xi] A History of the Peninsular War. Sir Charles Oman. Volume VI.  P7

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[xiii] A History of the Peninsular War. Sir Charles Oman. Volume II.  P6

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[xvi] Authorised Establishments of the British Army in the Napoleonic Wars, Roderick MacArthur.  SAHR Journals Volume 87 Number 350  & 352

[xvii] Rules and Regulations for the Formations, Field Exercise and Movements of His Majesty’s Forces 1792. P67

[xviii] A History of the Peninsular War. Sir Charles Oman. Volume VI.  P231

[xix] A History of the Peninsular War, Sir Charles Oman, Volume II.  P213

[xx] A History of the Peninsular War, Sir Charles Oman, Volume II.  P317 and P641

[xxi] A History of the Peninsular War, Sir Charles Oman, Volume III.  P374

[xxii] A History of the Peninsular War, Sir Charles Oman, Volume III.  P375

[xxiii] Napoleon at Leipzig. George Nafziger. P51

[xxiv] Napoleon at Leipzig.  George Nafziger.  P278

[xxv] Geschichte der Königlich Deutschen Legion.  Bernhard Schwertseger. Vol 2.  P303