Half brigade

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A half-brigade (French: demi-brigade ) was a tactical formation of three or more battalions , which gained importance in the French military during the coalition wars.

Already in the army of the Swedish King Gustav Adolf there was a combat formation of several infantry regiments, which was called a half-brigade . However, this was not an administrative unit, but merely an ad hoc list of the battle. Only at the time of the French Revolution did the half-brigades become a permanent institution.

During the first coalition war , the welfare committee and the national convention decided on 23 August 1793 the levée en masse . A general mobilization of the population began, which also included the drafting of around 300,000 soldiers and the strength of the French army grew to over a million men. Unlike the remaining regular troops, however, the newly formed units were not only poorly trained, but also displayed poor discipline and morale. They were unable to perform the intricate maneuvers of linear tactics under fire . Instead of fighting in line and column, at best they fought in loose swarms of riflemen, in fire instead of with the poor blanche preferred by the line and volunteer troops , and were therefore hardly able to hold terrain against an attacking enemy or to gain terrain in the attack. Not infrequently these troops fled under the pressure of the enemy.

With the formation of the half -brigades ( demi-brigades ), by decree of the National Convention of February 21, 1793, which went back on the initiative of the Minister of War Lazare-Nicolas-Marguerite Carnot , an attempt was made to compensate for the weaknesses of the conscript associations by placing them in mixed associations with regular troops and dissolved the old regimental structure . In this way, 209 half-brigades of the line ( demi-brigades de bataille or "demi-brigades premiére formation") and 42 half-brigades of light foot troops ( demi-brigades légères ) emerged. The high proportion of light infantry units , in other countries a small, elitist class of troops, was also a concession to the fighting style of the unserved units.

According to this decree, a demi-brigade de ligne consisted of 2,437 officers, NCOs and men and was divided into:

  • a brigade staff consisting of 31 officers, NCOs and men
  • three battalions (one of the regular troops and two battalions of volunteers) with each
  • a field gun company with 6 four-pound cannons

Another decree of November 29, 1793 increased the number of conscript battalions in some half-brigades to four to five. Two half-brigades were subordinate to each brigade , two brigades in turn, together with other units, formed a division .

The decree of 18 nivôse an IV (January 7, 1796) ordered the Deuxiéme amalgame (Second Amalgame ) to merge the existing half-brigades into 100 new line half-brigades (now called "demi-brigades d'infanterie") and 30 half-brigades of light infantry . This number was increased to 110 with the decree of 10 germinal on IV (March 30, 1796). In this way, the organization reacted to the high losses, which were mainly due to the high number and less due to the intensity of the fighting, but also due to desertion and illness (by 1797 the personnel strength of the French army had fallen to less than 400,000 men).

In the resulting half-brigades, the regular battalions formed the backbone of the formation in battle and gave it stamina and thrust. At the same time it was hoped that the conscripts could learn from the regulars and that their morale and discipline would grow through their presence, especially since all battalions should come from the same department if possible. The differences in pay and equipment between the two formations have also been eliminated. By the end of the First Coalition War in 1797, these heterogeneous combat formations had become experienced, uniform and powerful units. The mutual distrust between volunteers, conscripts and regulars had given way to a separate "esprit de corps".

On September 24, 1803, a decree of the First Consul Napoléon Bonaparte determined that the half-brigades should keep their old numbering, but renamed regiments again, which also happened in 1804 . However, the designation remained for associations that were quickly composed of various smaller units.

As the last association of the French army, the 13e demi-brigade de Légion étrangère currently has this name.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hew Strachan: European Armies and the Conduct of War , London 2005, pp. 40f.
  2. ^ Décret de la convention nationale. You February 21, 1793, l'an second de la Republique Francoise . In: Supplement to the Militair weekly paper, 33rd year (Sept. 1849), p. 150f.
  3. ^ Décret de la convention nationale. You February 21, 1793, l'an second de la Republique Francoise . In: Supplement to the Militair-Wochenblatt, 33rd volume (Sept. 1849), p. 155.
  4. ^ Hew Strachan: European Armies and the Conduct of War , London 2005, pp. 40f.

literature

  • Siegfried Fiedler: Tactics and Strategy of the Revolutionary Wars 1792-1848 , Bonn 1988. ISBN 3-8289-0521-8
  • Frankenberg: Half-Brigade . In: Bernhard von Poten (Hrsg.): Concise dictionary of the entire military sciences 4th volume, Leipzig 1878, p. 244. Online
  • Carl Schulze, / Torsten Verhülsdonk: Napoleonic Wars , Herne 1996. ISBN 3-932077-00-8
  • Hew Strachan: European Armies and the Conduct of War , London 2005. ISBN 0-415-07863-6

Web links