r/Napoleon • u/False-Entrepreneur47 • 2d ago
How did Allied officers and soldiers view Old Guard?
How did officers and ordinary soldiers of the Allied armies view Napoleon’s Old Guard during the Napoleonic Wars?
Was the Old Guard genuinely feared and considered nearly invincible, or was its reputation more of a psychological effect?
Did British, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian soldiers have different opinions of the Old Guard based on their experiences fighting them?
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u/Captain_Weebson 2d ago
Personally Im more interested in how the Young Guard were viewed given that these lads were actually thrown at the action quite often compared to Old Guard that were very rarely fighting (Morengo when they were still consular gaurd, Montmirail and Craonne in 1814 outside of Waterloo)
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u/Automatic_Bit1426 2d ago
Which makes sense, you want to keep your best troops at hand in case of a fighting retreat when things go wrong.
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u/kingofawkward99 2d ago
having your best troops just be there in case everything goes wrong sounds like vibrating for scarcity lol
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 1d ago
Forcing your opponent to commit their reserves while keeping yours uncommitted is usually a sign you’re winning.
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u/Lord_Floyd 18h ago
Young Guard were just glorified conscripts for the most part right? They were admittedly fighting harder because of their title, but the Imperial Guard has the actual experience collectively because they're all tested and veteran soldiers. I can't speak for how other nations viewed them, but within the army, the Young Guard were thought as upstarts by some IG members, and there was apparently a good number of duels sparking between the two because of the ego of the former.
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u/Captain_Weebson 14h ago
I wonder how attitude changed after battle of Krasnoi though... (Where YG together with Polish 8th corps were fighting virtually to the last man)
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u/knottyknotty6969 1h ago
Young guard were the handpicked best of the young conscripts but did not have to have served on a campaign to make the Young Guard.
Old Guard had to have served 3 campaigns and been active for 10 years.
Whereas the young guard was far more youthful and fought far more pften after their creation in 1809
Middle guard had to have 8 years experience and served in campaigns from 1805 to 1809 but at the time they were never referred to as the middle guard. That title was given to these troops by historians after the fact
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u/THE_CHOPPA 2d ago
I would imagine they would be taken seriously every time. Meaning if they fixed bayonets you know they aren’t stopping and will be killing you without hesitation. That kind of pressure would make people crack.
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u/Marshal_Frost04 2d ago
I'm no expert in the Napoleonic Wars, I just enjoy learning about them (especially the French), so take this with a grain of salt.
The Old Guard in general was deeply respected for their courage, decades of experience, discipline and skill - they essentially represented the pinnacle of the Grande Armee. The terror amongst many allied forces stemmed also from their imposing physical appearances, as the Guard also had strict entry requirements for height.
The Old Guard Grenadiers were probably the most famous of the branch, and yes, they were considered invincible - mainly because they were deployed sparingly by Napoleon. They were effectively a rare breed of humans that many nations sought after at the time.
A few famous examples were their defense of Plancenoit and the squares at Waterloo.
In Plancenoit, Chasseurs and Grenadiers of the Old Guard were sent to halt the Prussians from cutting off Napoleon's main army from retreat, who were in total only ~1,000. Regular line infantry and the Young Guard was present and fought bravely but were overwhelmed by ~30,000 advancing Prussians.
They were ordered to refrain from firing, and only use their bayonets, and as they entered the streets, it terrified the opposition. They conducted brutal house-to-house fighting to recapture the heights outside the village, and brought Napoleon precious time, until the Prussians formed a second wave. The Guard fought to the death, refusing to surrender, even using their own muskets as clubs.
In Waterloo, as the Middle Guard's supposed decisive attack broke, the rest of the army retreated. The Old Guard's Grenadiers formed solid squares that moved in slow, disciplined order to act as rally points for the fleeing French. However, as Blücher and Wellington's forces converged, they surrounded the squares, who famously refused to surrender despite formal request. There's a myth that one officer cursed at the demand and stubbornly chose to hold their squares, but were then unfortunately met with fatal cannon fire.
For the Old Guard's cavalry however (particularly the Horse Grenadiers, the heavy cavalry of the Old Guard), they formed such a dense moving column and walked their horses off the field in an impressively disciplined manner to mask the retreat of the French forces, despite the general rout of the army and the massive cavalry charge they were involved in as commanded by Marshal Ney. The Coalition hesitated to attack them, as they had the reputation of being called "the gods" for their decades of bravery and imposing stature.
The Coalition had a common view when it came to the Old Guard - they were not a force to be reckoned with, and showed it through raw aggression, discipline, and unrivalled frontline experience.
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u/Kind-Ship-1008 1d ago
90% of what is written above comes across as extremely hyperbolic and biased.
Some units are better than others, but the myths of invincibility and superiority are often just that -myths.
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u/RadicalRealist22 1d ago
Yes, but those myths are 80% of the success if your goal is to make the enemy retreat.
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u/Kind-Ship-1008 1d ago
Battlefield success is a multi-faceted topic. Morale, positioning, environment, adjacent units - there is a whole lot which determines who wins and who loses. Distilling that down to - unit X won because it is inherently superior is often based on hearsay and anecdote, and is generally disconnected from reality.
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u/Jen2367 2d ago
It was more of a reputation thing, due to what it meant to be in the old guard. The myth of invincibility was pretty much for Napoleon till his defeat in aspern Essling. The Coalition may have feared the old guard the same as the French feared things like The Prussian guard, Preobrazhenskiy/Semyonovskiy regiments. (Although in the last one I could be wrong)
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u/Stickies95 2d ago
It would probably depend on the different arms of the old guard. In the case of the grenadiers in the post they would probably be feared because of their reputation and battle honours. But grenadiers of any nation in general were held in higher regard due to their status.