Role of French Imperial Guard

Napoleon with the Imperial Guard

Imperial Guard

One of the first figures I ever bought was a handful of Hinton Hunt French Guard Grenadiers way back in 1969.   The other figures were British Horse Artillery and Highlanders.   I had a very limited knowledge of orders of battle during the Napoleonic Period.   I just liked the look of those particular figures.

This was long before the current obsession with historical orders of battle.   But even so I soon came to realise that for my wargames to have any bearing on historical Napoleonic battles I would have to aim for some sort of balance which would at least look like a Napoleonic army.

By then I had a “unit” of about 16 French Guard Grenadiers and it was obvious that I would need many hundreds of French line infantry to get the proportion of elite to line infantry looking more or less right.  However that would take a long time.   And in the meantime my French Guard took their place on the wargames table as just another French infantry “unit”.

Old Guard

As my wargames collection grew I started to organise them for use with Wargames Research Group.   As I recall there was no historical order of battle.   You could use any collection of “units” to represent a French army.   Throughout this period my Hinton Hunt Guard Grenadiers fought with my mostly Airfix French infantry.

Gradually I became aware of historical orders of battle.  I believe it was when I discovered Peter Gilder and “In the Grand Manner” that my collection of infantry became corps or divisions.  Even in the massive battles at his Wargames Holiday Centre there were no historical orders of battle.   A corps would consist of about ten 36 man infantry “units”, plus cavalry and artillery.   But there was no division or brigade organisation.

During this period my Hinton Hunt and Airfix were replaced with a series of different makes.   First Miniature Figurines, then Elite and Front Rank.   Each time I upgraded my French figures I included a selection of Imperial Garde.

But as I became more aware of historical orders of battle I also came to realise that the Imperial Garde NEVER fought as part of the main battle line.  They ALWAYS formed the reserve.   Consequently they very rarely actually fought at all.   As I came to understand this, my metal Imperial Garde was left on the shelf more and more.  

 

Young Guard

In the mid 1990 I replaced my collection for the last time.   I wanted to upgrade all of the mixed collection with Front Rank and Elite.   I was still using Grand Manner rules, or at least my own rules derived from them.   My Imperial Garde would consist of one division of Old Guard and one of Young Guard.    Each would have four 36 figure “units”.   There would also be a couple of cavalry “units” and artillery.

When I came to my great reorganisation to create my fictional 1813 campaign armies I started with these same figures.   The Old Guard division would become my Old Guard corps, the same for the Young Guard.  

The Old Guard would form part of my First French Army, which was commanded by Napoleon himself.   The Young Guard corps would form part of the Second French Army

At last I had found a way to use my Imperial Garde in every campaign, if not in every wargame.   They took their part in the field army, and fought as an individual corps.  But then the whole French army took the field/table, they would serve as the reserve of the four corps.

This compromise means that they no longer gather dust on the shelf.  Both Guard corps would be used in sequence the same as the rest of the French corps.   They would serve in different armies to avoid making one French army too powerful.  But I felt this was reasonable as the Young Guard was used in the same way in 1813, to bolster the largely conscript army which Napoleon commanded in that campaign

I will explain in a later blog how I have adjusted the combat ability of both corps to allow them to fight against Prussian, Russian, Austrian, British or even Spanish corps without always winning.