PART II. Horse Sizes and the Missions of the Three Cavalry Arms

Editorial note: this is a cleaned transcription of the original document. Obvious spacing, punctuation, and OCR issues have been regularized for readability, while the substance and argument of the original have been preserved. Where the source table was unclear or incomplete, the uncertainty has been left visible rather than silently reconstructed.

Contents

• British Cavalry
• Austrian Cavalry
• Russian Cavalry
• French Cavalry
• Comparative Table: Range of Horse Sizes Among the Major European Powers
• Remount and Capture Figures

We have been told repeatedly by most English-language sources that Cuirassiers were big men mounted on big horses and that all the French horses captured in the Peninsula were mere ponies and could not be used as remounts by the British cavalry. Nor were the Spanish horses, for that matter. At Waterloo, the British Heavies were better mounted than the French Cuirassiers, etc.

Well, that is clear-cut, at least from the British point of view. However, some basic questions come to mind. Why could the French, as well as the Spaniards, the original Hungarian Hussars, the Cossacks, and some other countries use smaller horses and make good use of them, while the British did not? Obviously, different standards were used.

In the Peninsula, the British had both Heavy and Light Cavalry, and the French had mostly Light Cavalry and Dragoons, with a single regiment of Cuirassiers, the famous 13th Cuirassiers.

And in the Peninsula the British had, relatively speaking, fewer cavalry regiments when compared to the French. Wellington, according to Oman and other reliable sources, never had enough cavalry and had problems keeping his cavalry regiments, whether Lights or Heavies, up to strength, since all his remounts had to be brought from England. To compound the problem, special ships for horse transportation did not exist.

Another question comes to mind. What was the size of the British horses in their Heavy and Light Cavalry?

Bryan Fosten, in Wellington's Light Cavalry (Osprey, Men-at-Arms Series, London, 1982), reports the horse sizes of the 10th Hussars in 1813, which was typical:

British Cavalry

British Light Cavalry Horse Sizes (10th Hussars, 1813)

Then, in Wellington's Heavy Cavalry (Osprey, Men-at-Arms Series, London, 1982), the same author gives the size of the horses ridden by the "heavies":

"...the 2nd North British Dragoons (Scots Greys) were remarkably and uniformly well mounted.... Interestingly, a list of the size of the horses of this regiment was taken, as follows"

British Heavy Cavalry Horse Sizes (2nd North British Dragoons / Scots Greys)

Hence, we can say that the British Heavies and Lights were mounted on about the same size horses, with a majority of horses 15 hands or higher. Indeed, those were large horses. They were "chargers," a breed of horses developed in England to fit the British experience of war.

However, the above data shows us a very important fact: horse sizes in British service were practically identical for Lights and Heavies. Hence, in British service, horse size had nothing to do with cavalry classification, which was determined by the theoretical mission expected from the cavalry regiments.

The reason is well explained by another British historian, John Pimlott, a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in British Light Cavalry (Almark, London, 1977), as he tells us:

"With the British army of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth century, however, there is a problem. Although theoretical ideas undoubtedly existed, they lacked the power to enforce their implementation within individual regiments, which were still controlled by their respective colonels.... Tactical lessons of a particular campaign were invariably forgotten once peace returned, necessitating an often costly process of re-learning in the next war.... This mean that when the Peninsula War begun in 1808, light cavalry officers regarded the charge as the only tactic to be effected and totally ignored the specialist roles for which their units had been originally intended. The tactical history of such units between 1808 and 1815 is therefore one of improvisation and the forced re-learning of basic skills under arduous combat conditions..."

Note that Sir Charles Oman in Wellington's Army agrees with that statement and said:

"To attempt giving men or officers any idea in England of outpost duties was considered absurd, and when they cam abroad they had all to learn."

Then, in his conclusion, the eminently objective Pimlott said:

"...writing in 1826, the Duke stated that he had found the light cavalry useful: first... upon advance guards, flanks, etc. as quickest movers and to enable me to know and see as much as possible in the shortest space of time; secondly, to use them in small bodies to attack small bodies of the enemy's cavalry". Nevertheless, because they "would gallop (and) could not preserve their order", he found them "so inferior ...to the French...(that) although I consider one squadron a match for two French squadrons... I should not have liked to see four British squadrons opposed to four French squadrons; and as number increased, and order became more necessary, I was more unwilling to risk our cavalry without having a greater superiority of numbers".

One point is clear: the colonels commanding the British Light Regiments prepared their regiments for the charge and, for that mission, the big "charger" was simply better suited. Hence the large "charger" was the standard for the British cavalry, Light or Heavy.

(Note the similarity of points of view on Light Cavalry between Wellington and Napoleon.)

However, the above shows that, in British service, horse size had nothing to do with cavalry missions. The British Light Cavalry had to learn its Light Cavalry trade abroad, and the hard way.

Our next step is to take a closer look at the horse sizes used by other countries.

At the beginning of the Wars of the French Revolution, all the European cavalries had somewhat of a vivid memory of the Seven Years' War and had more or less tried to imitate the dominant cavalry of that war: Frederick the Great's cavalry.

Christopher Duffy, in his remarkable The Army of Frederick the Great, p. 93, states:

"...Frederick had to insist on a minimum height of 5ft 5in for his Cuirassiers and Dragoons, and in practice the average height turned out to be noticeably larger... Frederick decreed that cuirassier horses should stand at least 5ft 5in tall (15.75 hands) and the dragoon horses at 5ft 2in (15.5 hands), only the Hussars being allowed to accept smaller horses...."

And on pp. 97-98:

"...However, like most weapons of war, the Dragoons became subject to a process of up-rating over the years, and in Prussia old Frederick William converted them into a force that was fit to enter an open cavalry battle in the company of the armoured Cuirassiers."

Hence Frederick the Great also mounted his Cuirassiers and Dragoons on large horses, with a minimum size even larger than in British service. Yet Frederick expected his Dragoons and Hussars to occasionally dismount, but the Cuirassiers were expressly excluded from doing so.

The above quotations also bring up another interesting point. In Prussia, as well as in other countries—including France—the Dragoons became subject to a process of up-rating over the years, and, in Prussia and elsewhere, they were slowly converted into a force that was fit to enter an open cavalry battle in the company of the armored Cuirassiers.

For all practical purposes, in Prussia, the Dragoons had become another form of Heavy Cavalry and were classified as such.

The process continued after Frederick's time not only in the Prussian army but also in the Austrian and Russian armies, and, as in the French royal army, the Dragoons kept their dismounted capabilities, perhaps to a lesser extent than in French service.

Let us point out that originally, Dragoons were infantry mounted on smaller, inexpensive horses to move quickly to critical parts of a battlefield, where they would dismount.

However, like the original British Light Cavalry, at some points in time they led some successful charges, not by design, but simply because they had been there at an opportune time.

Then the charge, as well as other cavalry duties, slowly became expected of them too. As a result, they slowly increased the quality of their mounts, and in Prussian service they became virtually indistinguishable from the Cuirassiers, both in duties and horse sizes, and were classified as Heavies.

In England, since there were no cuirassiers, the Heavy Cavalry consisted exclusively of Dragoons, which were not expected to dismount.

It is interesting to note that, in the French Royal Army, of the 24 cavalry regiments, i.e. Heavy Cavalry, which had worn the cuirass since 1763, only the 8th Cavalry, the Cuirassiers du Roi, continued to wear the cuirass through the Wars of the French Revolution. The Cavalry and the 2 Carabiniers regiments were mounted on large horses, typically 15 1/2 hands and above.

Austrian Cavalry

The Austrian cavalry has always been noted for its worthy combat ability and its beautiful mounts, mostly raised in the large Hungarian plains and the like. In 1809, its 35 regiments consisted of 8 Cuirassier, 6 Dragoon, 6 Chevau-léger, 12 Hussar, and 3 Uhlan regiments.

The Cuirassiers and the Dragoons were officially classified as Heavy Cavalry (Krieg 1809, official Austrian history of the 1809 war published by the Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung des k. und k. Kriegsarchiv, 6 vols., Vienna, 1907-1910) and, on occasion, served as such in Reserve cavalry formations. The Chevau-légers, Hussars, and Uhlans were designed as Light Cavalry and used as such.

MacClellan, The Armies of Europe (Philadelphia, 1861), gives the minimum Austrian horse sizes as follows:

Note that in Austrian service the Dragoons were considered Heavy Cavalry and mounted, not surprisingly, on larger horses than the Light Cavalry.

Von Angeli, in Erzherzog Carl (Vienna, 1897), vol. 5, p. 18, confirms the above:

The size of remounts for the Chevau-légers were fixed between 14 hands 3 to 4 inches (155 to 158 centimeters), that for the Hussars between 14 hands 2 and 3 inches (152 to 155 centimeters).

Russian Cavalry

In Russian service, in 1812, there were 6 Cuirassier regiments, but 2 Dragoon regiments were converted to Cuirassiers, raising the total to 8. There were 30 Dragoon regiments having the same organization as the Cuirassier regiments. Note that the Cuirassiers, Dragoons, Uhlans, Hussars, etc., were also drilled as infantry and expected to fight, occasionally, in dismounted actions.

Here comes a big surprise. Zwenguitov, in L'Armée Russe, gives us the size of the Russian horses in arsines, which translate as:

From the above, it can be seen that the Russian cavalry did not mount very large horses. Yet, if we believe Wilson (The Russian Army and the Campaign of Poland 1806-1807, 1810):

"The Russian cavalry is certainly the best mounted of any on the continent.... The heavy Russian horses are matchless for a union of size, strength, activity and strength."

That is an impressive statement. And their Cuirassiers were not the least disadvantaged by their smaller horses. However, the fact remains that the Russian Cuirassiers were not mounted on horses as large as the British cavalry, since they were mounted on horses less than 15 hands, and that without inconvenience. Once more we have evidence that cavalry missions were not strictly tied to horse sizes.

French Cavalry

In 1692, Louis XIV introduced the Hussars into the French army. Originally, they were Hungarians of smaller size and mounted on very resistant small Hungarian horses.

Then, slowly, the French cavalry establishment took over, and the Hussars were recruited among Germans and German-speaking Frenchmen and mounted on French horses. Slowly, the recruiting cavalry standards were fully applied, and the Hussars had to be 1.742 meter (5'9") tall. During the 18th century, the Hussars had grown no less than 10 centimeters (about 4 inches).

In the French Royal Army, the horses given to the Hussars were the smallest in the French cavalry. Yet, as everywhere else, the trend was to provide them with larger horses, and in 1761, to remedy flagrant remount abuses, Louis XV issued a royal edict:

His Majesty, informed that in spite of ordinances on the size of horses, the captains purchase larger horses than prescribed by the said ordinances. From then on, His Majesty does not want any remount horses above 4 foot 8 to 10 inches at the most (1.56 meter) (15 hands)...

Yet 15-hand horses were still rather large for Hussars, and it is not surprising that their horse size was to be reduced. So, at the beginning of the French Revolution, the minimum horse size for the Light Cavalry was set at 1.47 meter (14.7 hands). At the beginning of the Empire it was reduced to 1.38 meter (13.4 hands), to be increased to 1.4 meter (13.6 hands) in 1814.

In 1793, a regulation gave the following remount sizes, therefore setting a French standard quite different from the British standard, and the trend was clearly set toward smaller horses:

The cavalry of the Revolutionary armies badly needed horses, and another decree dated October 8, 1793, further reduced the minimum sizes for the Light Cavalry. It stipulated that a large number of districts in the French provinces were to furnish 6 horses for the cavalry, fully equipped. They were to be at least 5 years old, with a minimum height of 14.2 hands for the Light Cavalry, 14.5 hands for the Dragoons, and 14.9 hands for the Cavalry.

A regulation on remounts of the French Cavalry (i.e. Heavy Cavalry) dated October 28, 1802, that is before the 1803 reforms eliminating the existing Cavalry regiments and replacing them with Cuirassiers, while downgrading some to Dragoons, spells out the size of the horses:

The Cuirassiers' and Carabiniers' horses shall be purchased in Germany preferably in Mecklenburg; they shall be between 4 and 5 years of age, and their price can not exceed 500 francs. That of the Cavalry and of the Dragoons will be drawn from the departments of Calvados, Orne, Manche, Seine-Inférieure, and Eure [all departments of the province of Normandy, JAL]; their size shall be between 1.543 meters and 1.583 meters [which translates to about 15 1/4 to 15 1/2 hands].

At the beginning of 1807, Napoleon reduced the Light Cavalry horse sizes even further. He made the following comments:

The Cuirassiers must be tall (1.7 meter or 5'8" minimum), but that is useless for the Hussars and the Chasseurs, and even detrimental. Because to mount tall men, we need taller horses to accommodate them, which double their upkeep uselessly. Make a project for the State Council so a man cannot become a Hussar or Chasseur if he is taller than 1.61 meter (5'4"). Their horse sizes must be reduced by one inch. Presently the Hussars and Chasseurs horses are like Dragoon horses. With such a measure, we can now use the great number of the smaller horses that we have in France. The Chasseurs and Hussars only need horses 1.405 to 1.430 meter (13.7 to 13.9 hands) tall.

Obviously, Napoleon must have had very good reasons to declare that smaller horses, and smaller men, were more desirable for the Light Cavalry.

Bertin, in La Campagne de 1812, using data exclusively from the French archives (Archives Guerre, Vincennes, and Archives Nationales), gives the following sizes:

"The horses had to be at least 5 years old and their size had to be:"

French Cavalry Horse Sizes from Bertin

Bertin further commented on the above table:

"The size of the Cuirassiers' horses had been slightly increased from the previous minimum and maximum of 15 1/4 hands and 15 1/2 hands to 15.3 and 15.7 hands, and the Dragoons slightly decreased from 15 1/4 and 15 1/2 hands to 15 hands and 15.3 hands, a difference practically negligible."

However, to be complete, we must also mention that in the French cavalry, horse sizes were not always adhered to, especially for the Light Cavalry. There were numerous examples in which the horse sizes were lowered because of urgent needs and other reasons. We have seen above that in 1805, the French Dragoons had to accept lower-sized horses, 13- to 14-hand horses, to bring their regiments quickly up to strength.

The Imperial Guard was a very special formation and had its own remount standards. Lachouque, in Napoléon et la Garde Impériale, gives the following sizes for the Guard cavalry:

Imperial Guard Cavalry Horse Sizes

Thus, if we compare the size of the horses of the Guard Horse Grenadiers, who were undoubtedly Heavy Cavalry, with that of the Line Dragoons, we find that their horses were of similar size: 14.9 to 15.2 hands for the Guard Heavies, and 15 to 15.3 hands for the Line Dragoons.

However, a fact remains: the Guard Horse Grenadiers had slightly smaller horses than the Cuirassiers of the line regiments, and similar to those of the Dragoons.

In light of the above, in French service, horse size was obviously not the only criterion used to determine the classification of cavalry arms, since the Heavy Guard Horse Grenadiers had horses practically identical in range, 14.9 to 15.2 hands, to those of the Guard Light Cavalry Chasseurs à Cheval, 14.6 to 15.2 hands.

Yet the Horse Grenadiers were classified as Heavies and the Chasseurs as Lights. But were the Chasseurs of the Guard really Light Cavalry? Their mission was to escort Napoleon and not to be at the vanguard of the army. Note that they even engaged quite successfully against the Russian Guards Heavies at Austerlitz.

Comparative Table: Range of Horse Sizes Among the Major European Powers

Note: In each category, the upper number is the maximum size and the lower number the minimum size. All sizes are in hands.

Cuirassiers or Heavy Cavalry

Dragoons

Light Cavalry

Chevau-légers

The above table clearly shows that no significant differences in horse sizes existed in the European continental armies between Heavies and Dragoons, with the clear exception of Russia, which used smaller horses than everyone else.

Or were they? In fact, when we compare the figures below for the French Light Cavalry, we can see that they were comparable to those of the Russian Light Cavalry.

Our conclusion is that horse sizes were secondary in determining cavalry arm missions. Granted, Cuirassiers and other Heavies traditionally needed larger horses, but how much larger was simply not clearly defined. It simply looks as though each nation had its own standards.

The historical work generated in England, most of it published for home consumption, quite understandably simply judged horse sizes by their own standard based on the "charger."

Also, quite understandably, the European continental powers ignored the British standards, considering the smaller horses used by their Light Cavalry as ponies, and did not even discuss the subject.

Let us not forget that the bigger the horse, the greater its need for forage, oats, and the like. That was a significant problem for the British cavalry in Spain, but manageable, although with some restrictions, because of the relatively few British cavalry regiments in Spain.

That was a huge problem for the French Cuirassiers and Carabiniers in Poland in 1807 and during the retreat from Russia in 1812. In both campaigns, the losses of Cuirassier horses were enormous and almost impossible to replace in 1813 and 1814.

Napoleon was quite clear: he did not need larger horses in his Light Cavalry. Larger horses were more costly in upkeep, which he considered a useless expense, and also more fragile than smaller horses.

One must realize that the upkeep of a very large cavalry force by the French during the Wars of the French Revolution and of the Empire was a very heavy burden for the French finances. Every little possible trick to reduce expenses was considered.

It was economics, the lack of money, that prevented Napoleon from increasing his Light Cavalry and Dragoons to 4 squadrons at the end of 1805 and from mounting all his foot Dragoons.

Their increase to 4 squadrons had been planned in 1805 but not achieved. Napoleon, at the end of 1805 up to about June 1806, when war with Prussia became a certainty, did not anticipate another conflict in the immediate future.

Consequently, Napoleon began the Campaign of 1806 with a somewhat understrength cavalry, with no fewer than several battalions of dismounted Dragoons, which he had had little time to remount.

Recently, I was reading an account about the inexpensive small, frugal Polish horses, which were very resistant to hardship and also very easy to feed. Note that the Polish cavalry raised at the beginning of 1807 was mounted on such smaller horses without inconvenience. They made it out of Russia in 1812 much better than the French and other nations' horses.

The original Hungarian Hussars were also mounted on small and very tough little horses, also very easy to feed and very resistant to bad weather. So were the Cossacks' horses.

Note that in our discussion we have not spoken of Medium Cavalry, which appears only in English-language works.

Dragoons is the wording used everywhere, and the term Medium Cavalry is nowhere to be found in continental French, Austrian, Prussian, and Russian accounts that I am aware of.

For all practical purposes the continental Dragoons may have been a shade lighter than some of the Cuirassiers, but they could be, and were, considered Heavy Cavalry in continental armies. They were classified as such by the Prussians, the Austrians, and the Russians, as well as the French on many occasions.

During the Wars of the French Revolution and of the Empire, horse consumption had reached incredible proportions.

The French remount problem is a subject that has been somewhat neglected and often subjected to inaccurate speculation.

Some historians have argued that Napoleon had no problems mounting his cavalry as long as he had access to the horse resources of Germany. That is only partially true.

It is true that during the pursuit of the defeated Prussian army, some regiments, to compensate their losses, remounted themselves without reporting the number of captured horses, as they had done in 1805. However, in 1806, a great number of captured horses simply "disappeared," that is, were stolen because of insufficient escorts, during their transfer to the Potsdam depot.

For instance, the first contingent sent to Potsdam was the Saxon horses, which should have numbered 2,000. In reality only 1,240 made it to Potsdam. They were completed by a second contingent of 409 Saxon horses.

Some other works also claim that the French did not like the spirited Saxon horses and that they were returned to the original owners. I have failed to find any evidence of that assumption in French documents.

It is further erroneously reported that Napoleon had remounted most of his cavalry with the captured Prussian horses. Archive documents show that only a fraction of the captured Prussian horses reached Potsdam, as most had been stolen on their way. Hence they simply could not be used as remounts. For instance, of the 4,000 horses captured at Penzlow, only 50 reached Bourcier. They all had been stolen or exchanged for tired or sick French horses.

Between September 1, 1806 and September 1, 1807, a document of the French National Archives (AF IV 1180) reports:

Remount and Capture Figures

Number of Horses Delivered by Capture or Requisition

In addition to the above number, 29,691 horses had been purchased. Hence a total of 42,752 horses had been received by the Grande Armée. The number of 12,861 horses captured or requisitioned is certainly well below the real number, since the regiments did not report the number of captured horses that had been incorporated directly into their ranks.

These figures do include the Imperial Guard. For instance, the Guard Dragoons were mounted at Potsdam on purchased horses.

Furthermore, that argument somewhat implies that French horseflesh production was below standard and wholly inadequate. That is not sustained by facts. Quite the contrary.

In early 1807, Napoleon had to recognize that Germany's horse resources were insufficient to cover the needs of the campaign in Poland against Russia, and that he had to get help from France.

Hence, in the spring of 1807, as soon as recruits had been trained and mounted in their depots in France, they were sent to the Grande Armée in Germany. Beginning in April 1807, 11 temporary cavalry regiments were sent to Germany. All in all, in 1807, some 30,000 French horses crossed the Rhine to reinforce the Grande Armée.

The losses during the Campaign of 1807 were horrendous and strained the remount services severely, since about 60,000 horses were required to keep the French cavalry barely up to strength during that campaign.