The French Artillery of the Napoleonic War

To fully understand the Artillery of the First Empire one must look back at the development of artillery at the end of the Ancien Regime and the period of the Revolution. This is the aim of this book. The term artillery in the Middle Ages meant, "the collection of military hardware used by an army". Originally, therefore, the corps of the artillery consisted of officers who invented, used and maintained this hardware. It would be a number of centuries and setbacks before the artillery was finally provided with a functioning organisation: this was to be the work of Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval. It is this organisation, slowly developed over thirty years by Gribeauval, the inspector of Artillery, which remained more or less in place until 1825 which forms the object of this book. The book will cover all types of artillery: the equipment developed by gunners at the end of the Ancien Regime, from the Revolution to the First Empire, for both foot and mounted artillery; everything from pontoon builders, garrisons, coast-guards, to many forgotten heroes of the epic Napoleonic era, all described in detail in the profiles and outlines presented here. Two chapters are devoted to artillery transport and crews which, during this period finally reached maturity, "The Age of Regulations". In 176 pages with close to a thousand images, this volume is a revised, augmented and amended version of other titles on this subject by these authors, both acclaimed enthusiasts of the period.