What's the advantage of the infantry column formation in the Napoleonic Wars?

Question

In movies/books set in the Napoleonic Wars, the British are normally deployed into lines and the French into columns. The columns are usually the advancing ones, charging into the line as the line hold their ground and fire volleys at the advancing column. In the movies it's always depicted that this situation benefits the British, because they outshoot the column (the whole line can shoot vs just the front rank or the outer edge of the column), and they don't have to move (meaning they can reload easily and faster). Not to mention that it seems scarier to be in the front rank of a column.

The result is normally the French getting slaughtered before they even reach the line, or when they arrive they would be so outnumbered that it becomes an unbalanced melee. Well, to be fair of course English-speaking movies tend to show British victories.

Actual history reading seems to confirm that the French indeed liked fighting in columns, but why did they do this when it seems obvious that the line is more advantageous? The only advantage I can think is probably faster speed (because less files to harmonize), but I don't think this justifies the greatly reduced firepower.

And why is it in the movies the French seems to be the one attacking and the British standing their ground? How would the French deploy if they're the defending side? Is there a good example of a French victory using this kind of setting?

Answer 1

What you are referring to is commonly known as the "French Column". I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that English movies and the English version of Wikipedia are pretty dismissive of it. After all, that was the opinion of everyone's favorite English General, Wellington. And he was certainly able to back it up.

The first thing you have to realize is that Napoleonic-era unit tactics were not all about math. Getting the maximum possible fire on your opponent is important, but it isn't the only factor.

The greatest goal is to remove the enemy units from action. Now a unit (regiment, battalion, etc) obviously can be removed from action without killing every single person in that unit. How bad do you have to hurt them? That depends on oodles of factors (eg: training, experience, casualties, etc) that are often wound up into a big ball called "morale".

So a lot of Napoleanic-era tactics that may not make a lot of sense mathematically make a lot of sense when you factor in morale. For instance, the volley. Mathematically you'd be better off letting every man fire as fast as he possibly can, rather than making them all wait on a signal. However, there's a huge difference to the opposing unit whether your buddies around you are dying in dribs and drabs here and there, or in great big groups all at once. Volleys hit like a hammer rather than a steady rain.

The idea behind a French Column isn't to pour a lot of fire into the opposing unit. Instead, it is to concentrate the entire efforts of your unit into a small area (usually in the middle) of the enemy unit. The folks in the rest of the enemy unit may feel safer, but anyone at the point of impact looking at an entire French Column 50 or so men wide and hundreds deep making a beeline straight at their part of the line has a pretty good idea they are gonna die. A sensible human being (aka: all but the incredibly well-trained) looking at that will do whatever they can to get out of the way.

If you can break the enemy line there, you break their unit in two. If you then keep coming, you will suddenly have your whole unit in the middle of theirs, able to fire on all of them effectively in a line while they have found themselves in a column (assuming they don't just rout). The key to being able to do this is training and speed, and early on nobody could match Napoleon in these two qualities. It was almost like a Calvary charge for him, but done with infantry.

Here's a passage taken from a fan of the formation in Eric Flint's 1824: The Arkansas War (a work of alternative history):

The term "column" was a misnomer, he now realized, applied to the fighting formation of the French armies of the Revolution. This bore no resemblance at all to a long, slender line of men marching down a road.

It was more like a sledgehammer. Or perhaps a very blunt spear. Fifty men across, at the front, firing as they came, with the rest of the regiment in close support. The formation relied on speed and impact, more like a cavalry charge than anything else Sam could think of.

Watching it in action, he could now understand why the formation had eventually been abandoned. Very well trained and disciplined professional armies, formed into lines, could bring too much fire to bear on the front of the column. Hundreds of men against fifty.

But that presupposed the sort of professional armies trained and led by generals like the Duke of Wellington...

Answer 2

Napoleon loved forward momentum - and he got it with the heavy column. The formation forced his infantry forward, the front ranks constantly pushed to the fore by the ranks behind them, and made opponents break formation to get the hell out of the way. This worked, because Napoleon was an artilleryman - he would disrupt opposing line formations with artillery barrage and cavalry, and once an infantry column broke through, it was all but over for the opposing forces. Napoleon's genius was knowing the soft spot to send his columns towards, and how to best support the attack.

Bear in mind that the "attack column" wasn't like a marching column or even an infantry square. The peleton, which translates as "platoon" or "rank", was either 80 men wide and 9 deep, or 40 men wide and 18 deep, and was the base unit of maneuver. So look at it more as successive waves of dense line formations. Once they're through the opposing line, peletons can wheel right or left to deliver flanking fire.

Wellington went with a much thinner line, and relied on carefully chosen terrain, cavalry and counter-artillery to disrupt French artillery support. Retreat and redeploy was a common British tactic, changing the shape of the line, bending but never breaking. The British are never shown as retreating in historical fiction because they're supposed to be the "Good Guys" in most english-language media - nevertheless C.S. Forrester had a fantastic depiction of a typical British retreat, organized and in good order while under heavy fire, in his Hornblower series. (Marines rather than infantry, but you get a good idea how this was drilled and practiced.) The other trick was to break French discipline with a two-volleys-and-bayonet-charge drill which caused the front of the attack column to break ranks, to rush to engage the enemy, which left them helpless to respond to flanking fire and too disorganized to take advantage of their break-through or allow the rest of the column to engage.

Answer 3

Columns are an aggressive formation, that work best against "inferior" (slower-firing, -marching) opponents. That's because at the point of contact, the column is very deep, which means that it has a good chance of breaking the enemy line. It's weakness is that against a well-drilled opponent, the defender will pull back the line on either side, let the attacker go through, and then slaughter the column with fire from both sides.

Most of Napoleon's opponents had inferior armies. The main exception was the British army, which was exceptionally well-drilled, and could not only deploy in line, but "refuse the line" (the standard anti-column defense used at e.g. Little Round Top by the North at Gettysburg), and form squares (against cavalry).

That's why British armies under the likes of Wellington could defeat equal or greater numbers of Frenchmen, while other countries' armies needed a superiority of numbers.

There are few inherent advantages to lines versus columns; it's all a matter of execution. Ultimately, the British executed better than the French, while others did not, which is why British lines distinguished themselves against French columns.

Answer 4

The first thing to remember is that Napoleon prized speed over everything else. Most of his campaigns he faced much larger armies led by different nations and leaders. When Napoleon arrived the opposing armies would be near one another but not yet (His apposing armies were separated due to forage and supply needs, or were traveling to meet one another at a rally point.) Napoleon would then force march his army to meet one of these separated enemy armies. Once he arrived there he needed to attack and destroy that army immediately before the other allied army could bring reinforcements and overwhelm him. He did this in such battles as Montenotte, Ulm, Jena, Ligny (the battle before Waterloo).

Once he got on the battle field he usually attacked the center of the enemy, his troops advancing in the French column. This allowed the troops to move more quickly only pausing a moment to slightly widen and then continue to march forward. They didn’t have to pause to redress their lines at any point. There is a great web site that explains it better than I can. http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/infantry_tactics_4.htm But as others have said the intent of the French column was to hit the center with a hammer blow.

The third thing to remember is that Napoleon’s armies were international and not very well trained. The French didn’t spend the time the British did to train troops to fire 3 shots a second. They didn’t train for months to perfect the complicated maneuvers needed to go from column to line under fire and under speed. According to La Grande Armee by Blond in 1809 the Grande Armee numbered 350,000 troops, 80% of which were French troops. By 1812 the 400,000 Grande Armee only 33% of them were French soldiers. Some of these troops, and officers did not even speak French. It would be too difficult to give multiple complicated orders versus just saying see their center go right for it as fast as you can. The British could train their troops so thoroughly because their army was so small; which is why it needed to be as tough as it could be. The French also could not afford to waste powder by constantly training them how to fire faster. Napoleon on the other hand knew he had a much larger man power base than any other single country; he could afford to waste his soldiers for a victory.

Some people would say this shows the genius of Wellington to use his men to the maximum of their ability; and Napoleon lacked genius because he was so willing to sacrifice them. To me it says that both of them realized their own situation and tried to maximize it as best as they could. Napoleon believed in speed, Wellington in terrain. I had also wondered why the French used the column attack, and I spent a lot of time researching different ideas on it. But speed and undertrained and international army seemed to be the most common answer to why the column was used.

Answer 5

Speed with greater numbers and fear is the primary answer here.

The marching columns main purpose was to simply get to the enemy as fast as possible and overwhelm them with superior numbers. The huge columns of soldiers marching to a rhythmic drumbeat would strike fear into the hearts of any opponent. The high casualty rate of this kind of tactic was justified by the speed of victory and was less significant for the French due to their superior numbers.

Bottom line - it was a sledge hammmer to crack a nut.

This of course didn't work particularly well against the British, despite their inferior numbers, due to their far higher discipline and better training (they didn't break and run so easily) and their greater volley firing rate.

All British redcoats could fire 3 musket balls a minute - far better than any other army.