OF HORSES, OF NAPOLEON AND OF OTHER THINGS
Quotes are from: Marengo, the myth of Napoleon's horse.
Napoleon is said to not have been an elegant rider, but there is much mention and even representation in paintings, of his horses. English horses were famed for their docked tails and were easily distinguishable from their French or other counterparts. In hot environments Foy suggested that cropped tails were a bad choice, as the tail would also serve to cool the horse down. His opinion of how well the horses were trained, was also rather negative. Not only the tails, but also the way the mane was brushed could distinguish one group fron another. The Life Guards were said to have brushed the mane of their horses to the left, while the Royal Horse Guards had done this, to the right.
Germans were known for selling everything to feed horse, while the English would sell their horse to get to their spirits as is suggested by Captain Mercer, British Artillery. Costello agrees with this, going as far as to say that Germans would take care of their horses first, before taking care of their needs, when arriving in camp.
Quote: "Napoleon was an intrepid rider who usually rode stallions – even though they can be positively dangerous when bad-tempered. He galloped with a sense of daring and freedom unusual in someone so methodical. Even at breakneck speed, no obstacle worried him. The memoirs of his staff and courtiers show that on a horse Napoleon feared little, while his attitude towards day-to-day stable welfare was often enlightened.
He forbade his soldiers to dock the tails of their horses, a practice then prevalent in the British army, and horse-buyers were instructed to avoid purchasing horses with cut tails either for Napoleon or the French cavalry. Cropped tails saved effort in grooming, but a brush-like stump did not swish away troublesome flies and other insects and also upset the horses’ balance. In Britain this cruel custom was not banned until 1949."
While, we easily remember mention of how the French horses can be smelled for a mile at the cost of their maltreatment, there can be a picture, painted to show a different perspective of the same topic:
Quote: "Napoleon praised his horse’s excellent memory of places: ‘When I lost my way, I was accustomed to throw the reins on his neck, and he always discovered places where I, with all my observation and boasted superior knowledge, could not.’"
Napoleon's experience with horse riding was different than the bringing up of many of the members of the noble or higher standing families, where a stiff posture was a fair must. He however was not afraid of horses, nor of riding them even when his skill was different and much more reckless and 'fluid'.
Quote: "When Napoleon rode, his mounts were usually a borrowed donkey or mule, or, if he was lucky, the most hardened pony – anything a child with a puny frame could climb on. His mother later recounted how when he was seven and a half the family bailiff brought to their house two young and spirited horses. Napoleon mounted one of them, and, to the terror of every one, galloped off to the farm, laughing at their fright. The farmer brought him back."
When Napoleon left for school on the continent - being away from Corsica - he had been visited perhaps once, but has not gone home even that much during the period there. He was a reader and writer, which might have influenced him not only in learning strategies that he would benefit from in his adult life, but also that would allow him to 'dream big'.
Quote: "Later, he recalled with nostalgia a tree near the school, where ‘when I was but twelve years old, I used to sit during play-hours and read’. A voracious reader, this solitary boy filled over 400 pages of notebooks with thoughts on many books, including those by Jean Jacques Rousseau, the Swiss philosopher who had risen to fame in 1762. Napoleon’s passion for history, for finding similarities in present events with those in the past, would stay with him all his life. He had a fascination with Alexander the Great, the Romans and the caliphs of Egypt, as well as with Alexander’s campaigns in the Orient. This taught him the importance of cavalry in battle. He was especially interested that Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years War followed the same strategy in battle as Alexander, Hannibal and Julius Caesar."
It might be interesting that the course of the past could have been so much different, if the events before his rise, had been more in his favour. At first, Napoleon wanted to go to sea:
Quote: "Having grown up beside the sea and being now deprived of it, and remembering, as only a child can, the real or imaginary adventures of the sailor husband of his wet-nurse, Camilla Ilari, his ambition became to pursue a career in the navy. During her only visit to the school, Napoleon’s mother was horrified to find that her son, like other boys planning a naval career, slept in a hammock."
He had not been selected to sail on an adventure, thus he wrote:
Quote: "After this refusal, with the help of a master, Napoleon wrote to the Admiralty in England requesting a place at the naval college in Portsmouth. Although the correspondence does not exist in the Public Record Office, the fact is known because Napoleon showed his letter to an English boy in the school, Robert Lawley from Shropshire, who was later created Baron Wenlock."
During his later stay, already with the Artillery, another instance of Napoleon's younger attempts at riding is described:
Quote: "Saddle horses were not available for all officers. However, Napoleon and des Mazis wanted to ride one day and, still dressed in their blue officer’s uniforms, hired a couple of old horses. Much to the astonishment of onlookers, once the horses changed their canter into a fast gallop, the two men could not rein them in and they bolted through the village, hair and manes flying, returning to Valence at the same reckless pace. It took the two friends several days to recover."
In the beginning Napoleon thought of Paoli as a hero, and only later while growing up more, and with times as well as Paoli changing, his opinion changed as well. Even he had been arrested, during the last throes of the revolution. He was released because of the same person, who had put him in jail in the first place. In 1794 he was as poor as a Church's mouse, pale and tired, and arriving in Paris he shared a room in the Marais with a friend Androche Junot.
The example of one rising through the ranks and what opportunities he would have had, had the Revolution not changed the ways of promotion:
Quote: "Murat, artistic, tall and good-looking and recognizable by his flamboyant uniforms, was one of the thousands of men who benefited from the Revolution. The son of a Gascon innkeeper, he started life as a stable boy. In the old army he would never have risen above the rank of sergeant; in the Revolutionary army he rose to lead its most elite division, the cavalry."
Napoleon's research of Egypt.. nay, but also.
Quote: "On board the ships were 37,000 soldiers and 197 scientists and artists of the Scientific and Artistic Commission, but only 1,250 horses – just enough for the officers, a squadron of cavalry for and to pulling the 171 cannon."
And on the transport of horses by sea:
Quote: "Most cavalrymen were equipped with harnesses and saddles – they would have to buy, borrow, steal or seize mounts on arrival. The lack of horses was due to limited space on the ships and the high death rate of horses at sea – there was on average a 25 per cent loss. Horses needed a minimum of ten times the space given to each soldier. Embarkation and disembarkation were also highly dangerous – especially when ships were unable to moor alongside a quay and the animals had to be swung on board with cumbersome pulleys, tackle and slings. Some- times when disembarking, horses were lowered on slings into the water and left to swim ashore. Large animals were normally carried in the waists of ships along with the shipboard larder of penned-up pigs, sheep and hens..
Conditions at sea for animals were horrendous. Ships’ quarters were claustrophobic and horses had to tolerate being tied down in slings with safety harness through rough seas. When waves tossed a ship on its side, horses broke bones easily or were cast down in their boxes – rolling so close to the wall that they could not get up. Inadequate food and water supplies on board often caused further troubles. The water available was usually no more than five gallons a day and horses normally drink between six to seven gallons, depending on the weather and their activity. On long voyages, semi-starvation caused mange. Colic was common.
Disposing of manure and other garbage was awkward for ships sailing clandestinely. Debris floating on the surface of the sea attracted birds and could lead to detection. Smells were also a setback. Ships in which the stables were not cleaned daily of stale dung and urine could be smelled by keen sailors miles away. Bad air irritated the mucous membranes of both men and horses and produced catarrh. The smells on board were a bane for anyone as sensitive to bad odours as Napoleon, whose sense of smell was so keen that he carried two phials of special cologne in his boots to mask the stench of the battlefield."
Riding styles, plans for the stud farms and improvement of horses:
Quote: "The Egyptians had a fluid riding style like the one Napoleon had known as a child; it was more to his liking than the stiff formality and more exhibitionist French dressage. He was impressed by their horses and riding methods, and developed a special affinity with the cavalry in Egypt which would stay with him all his life. Seizing Egyptian horses was part of his long-term plan to improve French bloodlines and revitalise the depleted French studs and rundown cavalry schools. As he had in Italy, he acquired hundreds of fine remounts. It was imperative to sequester local saddle-horses for the cavalry units and pack animals for transport immediately. "
Improvements of Egypt, while blockades were a great thing there, and a Victory has been on the side of the enemy of France:
Quote: "With over 30,000 troops bivouacked around the Pyramids, Napoleon, ignoring the heat, infections and desert maladies, let alone his naval defeat, undertook the administration and modernisation of Egypt. Under the direction of Nicolas Conté, the engineer, the first windmills ever to mill corn and raise water were introduced. Until then primitive mills had been driven by animal traction or by hand. Even in the early twentieth
century, windmills in Egypt were still known as ‘Bonaparte’s mills’. The ‘sanitary committee’ of Cairo made the city, especially its drains and canals, a little healthier and street lamps were placed at regular intervals. A bridge of boats was thrown between the two banks of the Nile. There were no roads then in Egypt and surveys were started to create a network of highways to be used during the floods. Napoleon’s reforms extended to trying to set up civilian hospitals and medical centres. An interest in medicine meant that French doctors in the expedition subsequently introduced cannabis into European medicine."
Egyptology, it was important. The discoveries, the scientists and artists were not taken along in vain:
Quote: " His greatest contribution, though, was to establish the foundations of Egyptology – including the study of the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Luxor, Karnak and the Rosetta Stone. When the stone was discovered all knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language and writing had been lost for over a thousand years. Napoleon ordered copies and impressions to be made of it so work could commence on deciphering the ancient Egyptian scripts. For the rest of his life he followed the work of the scholars and scientists who had accompanied him to Egypt."
Relationships among the men and officers in the French army:
Quote: "This direct Corsican manner, though, won him the loyalty of the common soldiers; he laughed and jested with them, haranguing them with a rough tenderness. Despite the difference of rank he displayed the air more of a student than a general. Familiarity between officers and men in the post-revolutionary French
army was not unusual – relationships between ranks were less formal than in the British army. But even though every soldier could hope to reach the highest rung on the military ladder, only a minority from the ranks rose higher than captain."
Cavalry is not strange... until it starts to have camels instead of horses!
Quote: "Napoleon’s innovations, particularly his newly founded Camel Corps in which each camel carried two French soldiers in sky-blue uniforms with white turbans, surprised the Arabs. With speed and precision the French dealt such terrible blows to their enemies from their high perches that even the Bedouin, previously acclaimed masters of the camel, acknowledged their superiority."
And this was the problem all soldiers had in Egypt, though spoken of, from the French side in this event.
Quote: "in arrears. At least 10,000 soldiers had died of illness or had been killed in battle and the remainder complained of the heat, the flies, the dread of dysentery or, worse still, the plague. Other sicknesses had already taken a terrible toll. Lice infestation, another irritation, caused unbearable itching and acute discomfort and one in three soldiers suffered from eye disease. The slightest breath of wind raised clouds of blinding, choking dust. Horses developed painful and inflamed eyes as well as periodic ophthalmia. The intolerable blaze of the midsummer sun, the burning sand, the lack of water and shade, all weakened and discouraged men accustomed to a different climate. Men and horses developed a permanent squint against the fine flying sand and the ever-glaring sun."
When Napoleon sneaked past The British blockage to get to Paris, there were things that he had seen and needed change:
Quote: " The poverty and disorder that he saw confirmed his belief that post-revolutionary France needed change. Inflation, shortages, rationing, conscription, inefficiency and corruption had brought the government to a low ebb indeed. The state was inefficient and nearly bankrupt."
And let this be all for now.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
