NETHERLANDS ARTILLERY
EQUIPMENT AND TRAIN
DURING THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN
1815
by Geert van Uythoven
EQUIPMENT
After a while there was relatively enough
artillery personnel available. Equipment and horses however was an entirely
other story, the biggest problem the Netherlands had to cope with. There was
enough material available: on 21 January 1815, the Netherlands had 72 short
bronze 12-pdr cannon; 114 6-pdr cannon; 83 3-pdr cannon; 124 16-pdr (stone)
howitzers (20 cm); 87 24-pdr (iron) howitzer (15 cm); 315 gun-carriages; 238
limbers with ammunition chests; and 144 caissons . In addition, there was more
then enough ammunition available. However, the material was of mixed origin.
There were bronze guns of the year 1794 (a modified model of guns designed in
1770 and cast in The Hague in 1773); guns cast in The Hague before 1810, mostly
based on the same principles as the modified 1770 model already mentioned;
finally French guns of the Gribeauval system and guns of the year XI of the
French Republic. Overall, the guns itself were of a good quality. Limbers and
gun-carriages were a mixture of the French and Dutch model. So interchange
ability between gun-carriages and other material was seldom achieved. As an
example, an artillery battery had seven different kinds of wheels in use! In
addition, the carriages and caissons were badly constructed, heavy and
cumbersome. The gun-carriages were partially old and worn out; many of them
still had wooden axles. The remaining gun-carriages were new but constructed
from wet wood. Equipment for the horse teams and other artillery equipment was
totally lacking for the greater part. Something which understandably was
totally no issue at this time was the colour of gun carriages, etc. And
although details are not known, one can safely assume that the Netherlands
artillery presented a mixture of gun and equipment models, with varying
colours, mostly different shades of brown, or with the odd French olive green.
It is clear however that before the year 1826, the Netherlands army used no
British material and guns.
A
6-pdr foot artillery battery was armed with six short 6-pdr bronze cannon, and
two 24-pdr (iron) bronze howitzers. It had 17 ammunition caissons; 12 for the
6-pdr ammunition, the remaining 5 for the howitzers. In addition, there were 12
caissons loaded with infantry and cavalry cartridges; 3 spare carriages; 2
baggage wagons; and a mobile forge. This gave a total of 43 vehicles, which
needed 232 horses for its horse teams. A 12-pdr foot artillery battery had
short 12-pdr bronze cannon instead of the 6-pdr cannon. 6-pdr horse artillery
batteries had more ammunition caissons but only 4 caissons with infantry or
cavalry cartridges, giving them a total of 38 vehicles. So horse artillery
batteries needed less train horses as the foot artillery batteries. Batteries
that took the field later during the campaign however sometimes had less
caissons with them.
Not surprisingly, although the personnel
was present, the Netherlands had many problems to be able to field even the ten
batteries mentioned. On 20 January 1815, General Du Pont had already reported
to the Ministry of War that for these ten batteries he was still short 788
horses. He had guns and carriages for eleven batteries, but for ten batteries
he was for example still 14 artillery caissons, and 71 infantry caissons short.
Regarding the horse teams: 6-pdr cannon, howitzers and caissons were pulled by
a team of six horses; 12-pdr cannon by a team of eight horses; and all other
wagons by a team of four horses. Within the horse artillery all gunners were
mounted. Within the foot artillery only the officers were mounted; the others
walking alongside the guns and limbers. This made movement of course very slow,
and explains why the various commanders used the horse artillery more often,
first, and in forward positions when they had the choice. As is illustrated by
the use of the Netherlands horse artillery during the Waterloo campaign .
The train detachments were a separate
entity, and there was no formal combination of certain companies or detachments
to certain batteries. In many cases the train detachments were even billeted in
other villages as the artillery battery they belonged to. For example during
the months August to November 1815, in Chassé’s Division distance between the
batteries and their train detachments was about 3.0 to 3.5 kilometres! Except
for having the task of delivering the horse teams to pull the guns, the commanding
officer of the train detachment command the eight ammunition caissons of the
first line, which followed the guns. The remaining ‘wagons of the second line’;
the ammunition train consisting of the remaining artillery ammunition caissons,
the caissons with the infantry and cavalry cartridges, and all other wagons,
were commanded by the second officer of the train, out of firing range of the
enemy.
The
train was the biggest problem to cope with by making mobile the batteries. As
we have seen, initially there were only two battalions of train soldiers, each
of six companies. However, the one in the south, build out of two under
strength companies, was still virtually non-existing, while the northern one
was also much under strength. Only as late as 14 April 1815 it was decided to
bring these battalions on a war footing, i.e. expanding them to eight companies
each! That this happened so late was caused by the fact that there were just
not enough train soldiers available to form even the peace time organisation!
To cope with this problem three measures were taken. First, the infantry and
cavalry had to deliver men that had previous experience with train duty, or
which could handle horses. But not surprisingly the commanders of those units
were not happy to lose good soldiers. As a result, only the weak, unhealthy, or
undisciplined characters were handed over. Or men that were married and had
brought their wife and even children with them. Taking this in account, what
happened in the evening of 18 June can be no surprise anymore (see below).
Second, during the end of April 1815, a Bataljon Treinsoldaten nationale
militie, a ‘train battalion of the militia’, of six companies was raised.
Understandably, in June this battalion was still far from ready to take the field.
Thirdly, for a short time, troopers of the light dragoons were ‘borrowed’ and
send to Mechelen, to attend the horse of the train that were present there, as
there were no experienced train soldiers available.
Overall
the quality of the train soldiers was low, illustrated by their weak discipline
and bad behaviour. On 17 June, the day before the battle of Waterloo, the
‘great train’ consisting of all the baggage wagons, and for some Netherlands
Divisions also their superfluous artillery vehicles, were send back through
Brussels to Vilvoorde. In addition the reserve artillery under command of
Lieutenant-Kolonel G.J. Holsman, because of the lack of horses in no state to
take the field, was send back. Of the remaining vehicles, those of the 2nd and
3rd Division present at Waterloo were divided in the guns with their respective
ammunition caissons(‘the first line’), and an ‘ammunition train’ consisting of
the caissons with infantry and cavalry cartridges, the latter placed further
back (‘wagons of the second line’). Among the vehicles that had been send back
to Brussels, panic broke out in the evening of the 18th. Many soldiers of the
train with their horses, sometimes including their vehicles, moved to Mechelen,
Antwerpen, and even to Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom, and further, without any order.
Captain Rochell of the 19th Militia Battalion in the 3rd Division wrote the
following in his diary about this: “We had a very careful paymaster in 1st
Lieutenant Bellard Lormer, who noticed the confusion in the supply train, and,
for safety reasons started to retreat, and did not halt until he was in
Antwerp. This was not such a bad thing, because the baggage-wagon of the other
[militia?] battalion in our brigade was plundered”.
Beside
the lack of train soldiers the lack of horse teams was just as worse. This was
caused directly by the 1812 debacle in Russia. In 1813, being part of the
French Empire, the Netherlands also had to provide a huge amount of horses to
rebuild the French army again. This had serious consequences for the events in
1814 and 1815. On 25 March 1815 for example, there were no horses available for
the train, as discussed in several other places in this series. During their
march to the southern Netherlands many batteries were pulled by requisitioned
horses not suited for proper military use, finally taking the field with
insufficient trained personnel, which had difficulties negotiating the ground
they had to cover. The lack of horses was the cause that at the time the
battles of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo took place, only seven Netherlands
batteries were operational; both Foot artillery batteries ‘Du Bois’ and
‘Kaempfer’, forming the reserve artillery, could not be brought into action by
lack of horses alone.
To
illustrate the slow building-up of the Netherlands train: on 19 March 1815, the
(northern) Train battalion of the line had an effective strength of 430 men and
517 horses; on 6 May, this had been
raised to only 679 men and 1,607 horse, while on paper a strength of 1,286 men
and 2,117 horses was needed. The Train battalion of the militia had only a
cadre of 36 men, and no horses present, of its paper strength of 1,286 men and
2,117 horses; on 30 June, nearly two weeks after the battle of Waterloo, the
train battalion of the line had 1,140 men and 1,660 horses, while the militia
had 628 men and 191 horses only . And of those horses, many were those that
were disapproved of by the cavalry, which in many cases mend they were no good
for use in the field by the train either! The horses of the militia train were
destined to form the train detachment (2nd company, 1st Lieutenant De Lignage)
for the 12-pdr Foot artillery battery ‘Du Bois’, which was at Mons by now, but
the arrival was delayed for a couple of more days while the train soldiers of
the militia were still not totally uniformed because of lack of clothing. In
addition, a 12-pdr Foot artillery battery (‘Severijns’) stood ready in ‘s
Hertogenbosch, which was provided with the horses for a militia train
detachment (8th company, 1st Lieutenant Vervoet) by taking away most of the 367
horses from two train companies that were with the pontoon train. Finally, the
6-pdr Foot artillery battalion ‘Spies’ received enough horse teams to take the
field, giving the Netherlands mobile army a total of ten artillery batteries.
Due
to the bad experiences with the train, on 27 October 1815 it was decreed that a third train battalion would
be raised, consisting of national militia, each battalion 8 companies strong.
Of the total of 24 train companies, 16 were destined to serve the field artillery,
as it was planned to make mobile 14 artillery batteries in the future when
necessary.
Source: Geert van Uythoven, “Netherlands Artillery in the
Waterloo Campaign – Part 1: The creation of an artillery arm”, in ‘First Empire’,
July / August 2003, pp. 4 - 11.
© Geert van Uythoven