Napoleon's Guns 1792–1815 (2)

The Gribeauval system siege artillery first saw action in the United States during the American War of Independence. In 1780 the artillery train sent with General Rochambeau’s French expeditionary corps featured the new guns. They were under the command of Lt-Col d’Aboville of the Auxonne Regiment, Corps Royal de l’Artillerie, whose 2nd battalion served the guns. They landed in Newport, Rhode Island, in the summer of 1780, and the field pieces accompanied the French army as it marched towards Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781.
The siege artillery, consisting of 12 24-pdrs, eight 16-pdrs, two 8-inch howitzers and a dozen 8- and 12-inch mortars, remained in Newport until the late summer of 1781, when it was loaded on board the French fleet and was finally landed at Treeball’s Landing on the James River on 30 September. Although only 11km from Yorktown, there were not enough horses to pull the artillery train, and 16 bullocks were pressed into service. Several batteries were constructed on the first parallel from 8 October and, from 13 October, the guns were moved into the newly built batteries of the second parallel. These heavy batteries bombarded Yorktown until it surrendered on 19 October. The French eventually re-embarked their siege artillery and sent it the West Indies the following year. On the whole, they were very pleased with the new materiel and few corrections seemed necessary. Twenty years later, Lord Cornwallis confided to d’Aboville that ‘it was to you that I should have surrendered since it is your well aimed guns that destroyed all my fortifications’.

The heavy artillery was also deployed with the French armies across Europe during the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, always ready to be brought up to pound an enemy fortress into submission. The guns proved to be remarkably sturdy and easy to serve, even under difficult campaign conditions.

One of the first large sieges of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars was that of the port city of Toulon in 1793. It was occupied by British, Spanish and Piedmontese, as well as French royalist troops, but, by September 1793, was surrounded by large numbers of French republican forces.

This disorganised revolutionary army included a newly promoted artillery battalion commander, Napoleon Bonaparte. The siege dragged on, and, finally, Bonaparte’s ideas on how to take the city were tried out. According to Napoleon, the key was to occupy the peninsula to the south of the city. With heavy artillery mounted there, the harbour would quickly become untenable, and the enemy fleet would have to withdraw. Methodically, the forts in that area were bombarded by the republicans’ heavy artillery siege batteries, then stormed by waves of troops. Bonaparte charged with his men and took a bayonet thrust in the thigh as the British artillery platforms were taken. With the fall of these forts, admirals Hood and Gravina, respectively in command of the British and Spanish contingents, knew the game was up. The only thing to do was to evacuate the city and set fire to the French ships and shore installations as quickly as possible. On the morning of 20 December, the French Republican troops marched into Toulon.

It was Napoleon’s baptism of fire, during which he also suffered his first wound. Like the few wounds to follow in his later campaigns, this was a slight one. Toulon was also Napoleon’s first taste of glory. He had come up with the successful plan, both strategically and tactically, and delivered Toulon to the Republican Army. His outstanding conduct was rewarded. He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General, and Sergeant Andoche Junot, whom Napoleon had met and valued highly during the siege, was commissioned and became his aide-de-camp.

Napoleon’s involvement with artillery in his later campaigns was largely restricted to the field artillery. However, the siege and garrison artillery also played an important role, especially in Spain and Portugal between 1808 and 1814. Sieges of cities such as Zaragoza, Gerona, Cadiz, Ciudad Rodrigo, Almeida, Taragona and other towns required large trains of heavy artillery that were, generally speaking, expertly served by the French gunners and officers, all of whom were well trained for the task. In spite of the heroism of the Spanish and Portuguese defenders, the French siege artillery nearly always prevailed. Conversely, the French gunners could prove to be very thorough defenders when besieged, as their outstanding resistance at Badajoz and San Sebastian showed. In France itself, coastal artillery was also used to keep the blockading British ships at a respectable distance. Often overlooked by historians are the French artillerymen who served their guns in the French colonies in America, Africa and Asia.

Relatively few in number and serving old iron naval guns to defend their forts against the far stronger forces of the British and their allies, they nevertheless gave a fine account of themselves at such places as Guadeloupe and Mauritius.