■"^ 



fiiAi'. XXIV.] CAVALRY UNDER NAPOLEON. 



3G3 



which contained in the aggregate 38,200 men in 208 

 squadrons. ' 



Shortly after Napoleon's accession to the imperial 

 throne, he established a great camp at Boulogne, where 

 his army was carefully exercised in manoeuvring in large 

 masses. The system of tactics in the cavalry was based 

 upon the ideas of Frederick the Great, nor did Napoleon 

 make any improvements in their mancxsuvres. He was 

 himself an artillery officer, and but little acquainted with 

 the minutiae of cavalry drill. Frederick, on the contrary, 

 was thoroughly well versed in all the details of the 

 tactical manoeuvres of all three arms, and the result was 

 a perfection of training among the individual horsemen 

 in his army such as was unknown among the troops of 

 Napoleon. 



Napoleon, however, well knew the value of the cavalry 

 service in every sphere of its duty. He fully appreciated 

 the use of light cavalry for outpost and reconnoitriiig 

 purposes, and was far superior to Frederick the Great in 

 that most important quality of the general-in-chief — the 

 capacity to discover the position, the designs, and the 

 movements of the enemy. Frederick, us we have seen, 

 was continually incurring risks and defeat through his 

 inability to discover the plans of his opponents. Napoleon, 

 on the contrary, was almost always well informed. He only 

 failed in this particular after the disastrous campaign 

 in Russia, where his whole cavalry force was left either 

 buried in the snows, Ox captured in the long and terrible 

 retreat. The inefficiency of his cavalry before Lutzen in 

 1813, both in experience and numbers, left him in igno- 

 rance of the proximii_;' of the allies, and caused him to 

 be surprised into a general action, almost the only 

 instance in his history of his being taken unawares. 



Napoleon, feeling that his cavalry had not the man- 

 oeuvring capacity that .-endered so effective the Prussian 

 horsemen of Frederick, endeavoured to secure the same 

 results by overpowering numbers, who, rendered confident 

 by the feeling of strength which such superiority would 

 give them, would be able to make successful charges at 



' Boutourlin, Campaign of 1812. 



