Legion de la Vistule
The Légion de la Vistule , Polish name: Legia Nadwiślańska (German: Vistula Legion), was a Polish military unit, which Napoléon I by decree of March 31, 1808 from the Légion polonaise et Italienne of the army of the kingdom established a year earlier Westphalen was built by Jérôme Bonaparte . It was dissolved on June 18, 1813.
The Legion had a staff of 5467 men and was commanded by Général Józef Grabiński and then from June 7, 1808 by Colonel Józef Chłopicki .
In contrast to the Polish Chevau-légers , the majority of men came from the common people, and the officers came from the lower nobility .
Structure and organization
Origins
The Poles had made many soldiers available to the armies of the revolution . They were divided into mixed legions of infantry , cavalry and artillery .
The history and succession of these legions is quite complicated. In addition to the Warsaw legions, there was also a "Légion Polacco-Italienne", which served the King of Westphalia. It was the soldiers of this legion who were to form the base of the Vistula Legion in the service of France.
Lineup
On the basis of an agreement reached on May 10, 1808 between the French government and the government of the Duchy of Warsaw , the latter undertook to continuously provide new recruits to the Legion .
The legion originally consisted of three infantry regiments, each with two battalions based on the French model. H. with a voltigeur company , a grenadier company and four fusilier companies each . Plus a regiment of lancers with four escadrons .
organization
- 1808
The Legion was assembled in Bayonne under the personal supervision of Napoléon . It consisted of three infantry regiments with a total of about 5000 men (each with two battalions) and a regiment of lancers with four escadrons. The commandant was Jan Konopka.
The depot was set up in Sedan .
- 1810
A second Vistula legion was planned, but could not be fully implemented. She should have been recruited from among the Austrian prisoners of war of Polish origin from the 1809 campaign. On July 8, 1809, under the command of General Mikolaj Bronikowski in Wolkersdorf, the establishment of the 2nd Vistula Legion (2 Legia Nadwiślańska) began. However, since there was not enough crew available - most of the potential recruits preferred to join the troops of the Duchy of Warsaw - only one infantry regiment was finally formed, which was incorporated into the already existing Vistula Legion as the 4th regiment.
- 1811
A second lancers regiment was set up on February 7th. However, the two regiments were reorganized into the 7 e régiment de chevau-légers lanciers and the 8 e régiment de chevau-légers lanciers in June and incorporated into the French cavalry.
- 1812
The infantry regiments received a third battalion. But they came too late to take part in the Russian campaign.
- 1813
After returning from Russia, the remains of the "Légion de la Vistule" were combined into a "Régiment de la Vistule" under the command of Colonel Stanisław Malczewski. In August the regiment was assigned to the 27th Division of Izydor Krasiński.
Uniforms
infantry
A shako made of black felt with yellow-colored scale chains and white hangings was worn as headgear . On the front there was a gold-colored, half corona with an embossed "N".
- Fusiliers
The Vistula legionnaires wore a dark blue kurtka with yellow borders , a collar, skirt lining and cuffs with flaps according to the French pattern, the trousers were white without piping . There were no distinguishing features between the individual regiments.
- Grenadiers
The grenadiers wore red epaulettes and a red pompom on the shako.
- Voltigeurs
The voltigeurs wore yellow epaulettes and yellow braids.
- Artillerymen
No information is available here.
Lancers
The regiment wore a Tschapka as a national Polish peculiarity, on the front of which there was a copper shield with an embossed "N" with a crown. Catch cords were no longer available. Gold-colored scale chains served as a stop. The chapka was equipped with a red pompom at the top and was covered with a black oilcloth on the march.
The kurtka was dark blue with white buttons and yellow borders. The stand-up collar was also yellow. In addition, white epaulettes with white fringes were worn. The shoulder cords (aiguillettes) and the epaulettes were white. The ranks were indicated by silver angles. The long, dark blue trousers had wide yellow stripes on the sides.
Flags and standards
- infantry
The three infantry regiments carried on their old legionary flags . They were not equipped with the flags of the models 1804 or 1812. The flag of the 2nd regiment has been preserved.
- Lancers
There is no evidence that the Lancers wielded a standard. An escadron pennant (guidon) can be viewed in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris.
In the wars of the First Empire
Spanish War of Independence
It must first be pointed out that besides the Vistula Legion there were also the three regiments of the Duchy of Warsaw (4th, 7th and 9th) that had nothing to do with the Vistula Legion.
The regiments of the Vistula Legion took part in the majority of the great skirmishes of this war.
The most famous episode is the attack by the Lancers at the Battle of Albuera , where they, in association with a regiment of French hussars , smashed three English regiments and captured five flags and five cannons.
Russian campaign
The "Légion de la Vistule" formed a division that was assigned to the Garde impériale under the command of Général Michel Marie Claparède .
The 1st Lancers regiment was in Spain and the 2nd regiment was part of the cavalry of the Corbineau Brigade of the II Corps of Charles Nicolas Oudinot .
Campaign in Germany
Of the 7,000 men, only 1,500 had returned from Russia. They formed the "Régiment de la Vistule" to two battalions. The regiment fought, among other things, in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig .
Final skirmishes
- Campaign in France
The survivors were distributed among the imperial guard. Several hundred accompanied the emperor into exile on the island of Elba and then during the reign of the Hundred Days until the battle of Waterloo .
- 1815
By decree of April 11th, 15th and May 20th, Napoléon ordered the formation of eight foreign regiments, including
- the 3 e régiment étranger (made up of Polish soldiers)
as the last of these units.
Representation of the 4 e régiment de la légion de la Vistule
Lancier de la Vistule (yellow) and Lancier du Duché de Varsovie (blue)
literature
- Alain Pigeard: Dictionnaire de la Grande Armée (= Bibliothèque napoléonienne). Éditions Tallandier, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-84734-009-2 .
- Cdt Louis-Auguste Picard: La cavalerie dans les guerres de la Révolution et de l'Empire (= Collection du bicentenaire de l'épopée impériale: Les études ). 2 volumes. Editions Historiques Teissèdre, Paris 2000, ISBN 978-2-912259-48-6 .
- Général Désiré Chlapowski: Mémoires sur les guerres de Napoléon. Plon-Nourrit, Paris 1908 ( digitized on Gallica ).
- Général Heinrich von Brandt , Baron Alfred-Auguste Ernouf: Souvenirs d'un officier polonais. Scènes de la vie militaire en Espagne et en Russie (1808-1812). G. Charpentier, Paris 2002 ( full text of the first edition 1877 in the Google book search).
- George Nafziger, Mariusz T. Wesolowski, Tom Devoe: Poles and Saxons of the Napoleonic Wars. Emperor's Press, Chicago 2001, ISBN 978-0-9626655-2-3 .
- Pologne, Legion de la Vistule 1808. In: Carnets de la Sabretache. Pilot series, No. 36, 1977.
- Alain Pigeard: Les lanciers de la Vistule 1808-1811. In: Tradition Magazine. No. 205 and 206, 2004.
Footnotes
- ↑ Le 2 e régiment étranger en 1815. In: Le 3 ème régiment suisse 1806–1815 (PDF; 110 kB).