Dragoon or not a Dragoon that is the question.

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Dragoon or not a Dragoon that is the question.

Post by Darkman » Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:23 pm

Hi. Just a question for the more knowledgeable.

Which Dragoons in the WSS would be considered Dragoons as we think of them and which are basically called Dragoons but are in fact line cavalry.

It was something that came up in a conversation. Do French Dragoons tend to fight more in the classic Dragoon role, where as the allies fight more as cavalry.

Thanks for you advice in advance.
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Post by Captain of Dragoons » Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:52 pm

Where would we be without Dragoons :!: Workhorse of the Army :wink:

At the Boyne it was Jacobite dragoons in the dismounted role that held up the Williamite flanking attack at the pass.

At Blenheim after the first attacks on the villiage failed the Scot Greys assualt the village in the dismounted role and later on mounted up for the closing of the battle.

At Ramillies the French used dragoons in the dismounted role.

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Post by Darkman » Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:49 am

Hi Thanks for the reply.

I knew about the Boyne and Ramillies but did not know about the Scots Greys.

At Blenheim the Allies had approx 70 Squadrons of Dragoons in their OOB.

What I am trying to work out is, should all of them be classified as Dragoons or were some in fact Line Cavalry but called Dgraoons.

I understand that in the 1750's British cavalry were all called Dragoons so that they could be paid less. I just wondered if this happened in other countries earlier in the period.

Thanks
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Post by hwiccee » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:22 pm

Dragoons were at this time 'Line cavalry' that generally fought mounted and in the battlelines. They were generally considered to be inferior to 'Horse' or other cavalry but the differences were often not great. Often it was just the case that dragoon units were new units while 'horse' and other units were pre war units.

The only nation at the time that regularly dismounted it's dragoons were the Poles/Lithuanians. The other nation which did this fairly regularly was the Russians. Other than this it was a fairly rare event for others to dismount.
hwiccee

Post by hwiccee » Sat Oct 16, 2010 10:19 pm

Notwithstanding Iain's post it is the case that the vast majority of WSS dragoons fought mounted as battle cavalry. In each of the battles he mentions approx. 20% of the dragoons at the battle dismounted. The vast bulk of these were due to special circumstances and contray to the usual role of the period. At Blenheim this was because most of the French dragoons didn't have horses because of horse disease. While at Ramilles the dragoons had dismounted temporary because of difficult terrain.
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Post by 18th Century Guy » Sun Oct 17, 2010 1:21 pm

I have a question regarding Dragoons. I've seen drawings of the difference in the size of the horse given to a Dragoon versus regular horse. Was this really the case? Could they stand up to regular horse in combat?
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Post by Captain of Dragoons » Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:16 pm

Although slightly pass our period Dragoons were used in 'the 45' in Scotland in the dismounted role.

The name of the action escapes me (maybe someone can help me out) but the Government Forces tried to engaged the Jacobite rearguard and the three regiments of dragoons dismounted to attack but the rearguard gave them the slip.
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Post by hwiccee » Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:39 pm

18th Century Guy wrote:I have a question regarding Dragoons. I've seen drawings of the difference in the size of the horse given to a Dragoon versus regular horse. Was this really the case? Could they stand up to regular horse in combat?

I suppose it depends a little on the pictures you have seen. It is certainly true that 'Horse' units would in theory have larger horses than 'Dragoons'. The size/fitness of the horse would clearly be a factor in the relative effectiveness of units but not neccessarily the most decisive. Obviously when comparing 'Horse' generally and 'Dragoons' generally in the WSS period there is going to be a great deal of variation. Which dragoons? which Horse? what is the situation? etc, are all going to be important.

In general 'dragoons' were a little bit inferior to 'horse' in the WSS period. As already mentioned dragoons where typically new units raised during the war (and often disbanded at the end), while 'Horse' were typically pre war units. So a 'typical' Horse unit was likely to better trained, more experienced, had more espirit de corps, etc, than a 'typical' dragoon unit. Although of course this would vary a lot depending on the units, situation, etc. But in my view these kinds of factors were a lot more likely to be decisive than the quality of the horse, unless there was a really big difference.

For example the Swedes were the best cavalry of this period and their horses were generally bad compared to Western horses. Being mounted on low horses didn't stop them always defeating Western Horse on high quality horses.

So while the quality of the horse will obviously be a factor, it is only likely to be one of many and not neccessarily the most important. This is especially so as the distinction between different units horses is liekly to disappear over time.
hwiccee

Post by hwiccee » Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:52 pm

iain1704 wrote:
I think this is a debate where we are going to have to agree to differ. I can probably cite a lot more examples to support my case and you can probably counter these with other cases. It is my belief that the mindset of the late 17th/early 18th Century still regarded these troops as mounted Infantry (used on many occasions to support the Horse) but also used on many occasions on and off the battlefield in the dismounted role.
I believe the idea of Dragoons as battle cavalry (which there were later in the 18th Century) has also been applied carte blanche to the earlier period and this is an error.
Iain I am at a bit of a loss to answer this. You original post essential just copied what I had already said. I then added a clarification which you haven't contested, because it is correct, and then you put this post which has nothing whatsoever to do with what we are talking about. Certainly it has nothing to do with my posts.

So if you are disagree with anyone then you are disagree with yourself.
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Post by hwiccee » Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:28 pm

Iain,

I think that you are missing some significant points here. The original question was from someone who is clearly fairly new to the period and so I was trying to use non specialised language. The question he was asking, or at least what I think he was asking, was "Are WSS dragoons like ECW dragoon or like SYW dragoons?" I was not making any kind of serious dissertation on the role of dragoons but just some general points.

I think that you are taking the posts completely out of context and so you have not understood them for what they were intended to be.
iain1704 wrote: Nick

In order to clarify the point that I disagree with you (not myself) and why:

You wrote:
Dragoons were at this time 'Line cavalry' that generally fought mounted and in the battlelines. They were generally considered to be inferior to 'Horse' or other cavalry but the differences were often not great. Often it was just the case that dragoon units were new units while 'horse' and other units were pre war units.

I disagree because:
On the assumption that we are discussing Western European Armies in general and not one particular state.
Dragoons were considered and treated as mounted Infantry, operating both Horse & Foot Drills so the citation that they were 'Line Cavalry' is incorrect. They were generally posted seperately from the Cavalry, either on the flanks or as a reserve on most camp rosters.

My use of 'Line cavalry' was of course in the context of the question, rather than the interpretation you have. This is I think clear from the fact that I use the term 'battlelines'. I am not really sure ow you thought I was using the term as your interpretation doesn't fit with how I would use the term. In any case ECW dragoons were not posted in the line of battle at all, whereas SYW and WSS dragoons usually were. ECW dragoons were not in the line of battle and not generally expected to fight mounted agains't 'real' cavalry. ECW were not 'Line Cavalry' but WSS dragoons were posted in the Line and so were 'Line caalry' in the context used.

You clearly agree with this as you mention the fact that they are 'Line cavalry' again above & so you are in a sense arguing with yourself, although you clearly didn't realise this.

I will return to mounted infantry below but I will talk here about the term 'mounted infantry' and what it usually means.

OK so first of all on dragoons as mounted infantry. You fooled me in your previous post as you seemed to understand the background to the use of this term for dragoons in this period and later. Perhaps you already understand what now follows but it is not clear to me that you do and it is important. So I apologise if I am telling you something you already know.

It is true that sometimes dragoons in this period are called 'mounted infantry' and clearly this is true to a small. You seem to think that this was a situation which only existed at this time but in fact it continued for many years after. During the WAS/SYW period many (most? all?) dragoons still trained to fight on foot. Many (most? all?) still had bayonets & other 'infantry' equipment. Dragoons were still supposed to only be support troops, second line troops, etc. If memory serves me right this continued in some armies right to the Napoleonic wars and possibly after (although don't quote me on these as I am not sure).

But basically this idea that dragoons were 'mere mounted infantry' persisted a long time and long after they clearly were not 'mere mounted infantry' in any meaningful military. The reason for this is because the term was a cheap way to be rude to dragoons and a comment of the social status of dragoon units. This was of course effective because of the lingering foot based aspects of 18th century and possibly afterwards (not just WSS) dragoons. It is not intended to be a serious evaluation of the actual combat effectiveness of the units or what they actually did. While these kinds of things clearly had an impact on warfare of the time the main effect it had was on things like placement of dragoon 'Line cavalry' into the battlelines.

Because of their low social status, and NOT because of any lack of skill, dragoons were placed in low status positions. If XXX dragoons were the best mounted unit in the world they would still be placed on the flanks, etc, because they would still be low status dragoon units. While if YYY Guard Horse was the worst mounted unit in the world & worse than all the dragoon units in their army they would still be placed in the position on honour in the battleline. The 'effect' of dragoons being 'mounted infantry' was generally on this and similar matters. Rather than in the ECW when the effect was they always (or nearly always) fought dismounted and were usually totally rubbish when mounted.

This brings me to the term 'mounted infantry' and what it means. This term in the way used in the 'dragoons are mere mounted infantry' idea is not a useful military term, mainly because it is not intended to be. Now of course there are many variations on the exact definition of the term but I will offer a general purpose one here. So treat this as a general principle rather than an exact description.

Mounted infantry are infantry, with little or no mounted combat training, who use their horse for transport to the battle. In 95% or more cases they get off their horses before coming on to the battlefield or very soon after entering the battlefield. If caught mounted by any 'real' cavalry they would be totally massacred, as opposed to merely defeated. ECW dragoons are clearly mainly 'mounted infantry', equally clearly WSS dragoons are clearly not.

iain1704 wrote:Most Dragoon regiments in the main armies were not newly raised but existed before the war(s), infact it is generally the Line Cavalry that is newly raised for the war (it is more expensive to maintain in peacetime).

I suppose you would have to do a proper survey of all nations to be sure on this, which to be honest I can't be bothered to do. It may be that more 'Horse' (why you use Line Cavalry here I have no idea as you do not mean Line Caavlry in any of the usual senses) units were raised during the war but as a % I would say more dragoons. i.e. it is possible that a say an 'average' state has 10 horse and 2 dragoon at the start of the war & then raise 5 horse and 4 dragoons. But this is still a bigger %.


In any case I was mainly talking about British/French as this seemed to be the focus of 'Darkman's' interest. On a quick count the French had 95 or so Horse regiments and raised 16 or so. They had 23 dragoons and 12 or there abouts. For British it is roughly 9 and 2 for Horse and 8 and 14 for dragoons. Frankly I really can't be bothered to talk more about this side issue so I will leave it.

iain1704 wrote:You also wrote:
The only nation at the time that regularly dismounted it's dragoons were the Poles/Lithuanians. The other nation which did this fairly regularly was the Russians. Other than this it was a fairly rare event for others to dismount.

To cite various battles where the Dragoons were used in a dismounted role:
1701- Chiari - Austrian dragoons dismounted in support of the Foot.
1702- Friedlingen - Imperial dragoons again dismounted to support the Foot.
1703- Schardenburg - Bavarian dragoons dismount to clear the village.
1704 - Schellenburg - Scots Greys
1704 - Blenheim both sides (admittedly the French had a horse shortage)
1705 - Exilheim - Franco-Spanish dragoons on the Line of Brabant.
1706 - Ramillies - not just the 14 french squadrons but 3 in Franquinee and in addition the allied dragoons their dismounted to protect the foot from La Mottes counter attack.

In major and minor conflicts dragoons are regularly used in both mounted and dismounted roles, as determined by the need of the commander at the time. My point being that it is not a fairly rare event for dragoons to dismount at this time.
Yes of course some dragoons dismounted and I could add more examples to your list (and also some involving 'Horse'). But this does not in any sense make the dragoons (or Horse) that did this 'mounted infantry'. This is even more true in the context of the thread rather than your imagination.

If you totalled up all the occasions in the WSS of dragoons dismounting, compared to the occasions they fought entirely mounted, then it would be no more than 5% of the time and probably more like 1% that they actually dismounted. This I would suggest is 'a fairly rare event' and especially as I am contrasting it with the Poles/Russians and in the context of the question ECW dragoons. In contrast the Poles dismounted 100% of the time in the GNW and the Russians circa 30 -40%. Both of these nations clearly regularly dismounted and in the ECW I would guess it was 95% or more of the time. At a single battle in 1708 the Russians dismounted about 100 squadrons, probably about the same total for the wole of the WSS. So compared to all these examples and in the context of the thread WSS dragoons (and Horse) dismounting is not common.
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Post by footslogger » Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:25 am

iain1704 wrote: 1706 - Ramillies - not just the 14 french squadrons but 3 in Franquinee and in addition the allied dragoons their dismounted to protect the foot from La Mottes counter attack.


kind regards

Iain
Where can I read more about this in particular?
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Post by footslogger » Fri Oct 22, 2010 7:25 pm

Thanks for the pointer. I had completely missed his mentioning dismounted dragoons on the allied side. Just have to figure out which Opdham's regiment is.
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Post by hwiccee » Fri Oct 22, 2010 9:59 pm

iain1704 wrote:
Maybe Darkman will clarify this but it appears to be both our beliefs that the question was regarding whether Dragoons fought in both mounted and dismounted or were they almost entirely fighting mounted during the War of the Spanish Succession. The supplement was regarding the difference in useage between the French and the Allies.

My simple answer to this would be that both sides used dragoons in both the mounted and dismounted roles during the War of the Spanish Succession. I think we are both agreed on that.
Yes I agree :)
iain1704 wrote: To hit to the crux of the debate (I do not call it an argument because friends do not do that). It is the term and interpretation of the term ‘Line Cavalry’.
I interpret this as Cavalry who are trained to fight primarily on Horseback and are not drilled or expected to fight dismounted (also generally why you find Hussar/Croatian units listed with Cuirassier/Horse/Chevau-Leger/Reiter or what ever other term may be applied).
Your interpretation of this seems to relate to placement of Dragoon regiments within camp rosters (which some also call OOBs or line of battle). This is where I disagree. The problem with this is that you can find Dragoon regiments listed with cavalry as part of the line of battle as early as the 1630’s, right through the 17th Century and beyond (I am sure you have trawled through Marburg the same as I have), this obviously does not mean they are like SYW Dragoons either (I think we would both agree on that too).
I tend to think of the term 'line cavalry' in 2 senses. The first in the way I have used it previously to mean 'fighting in the battleline'. The opposition to this would be light cavalry or skirmishing cavalry who are not part of the 'Line'. AFAIK dragoons in the TYW/ECW period were never in the battlelines. They could be alongside or whatever but would not be expected to 'mix it' with real cavalry. Very often they were dismounted and occupying some kind of terrain feature, etc. The second way is in the sense of 'normal' 'ordinary units. So the opposite to this would be 'Guard Cavalry' or 'Militia Cavalry' or similar.

You could use the kind of classification you suggest but then you have problems with how do you clasify 'Cuirassier/Horse/Chevau-Leger/Reiter' who do get off there horses. These types of cavalry and later SYW dragoons still sometimes got off their horses from time to time.

I have no good suggestion for a good alternative name to any of these though :(

In any case on general principles I tend to think of dragoons as traveling from being near 100% mounted infantry (0% cavalry)in the TYW/ECW period to 100% full fledged cavalry in the Napoleonic period. I would say they are maybe 90 to 95% 'cavalry' in the SYW and maybe 80 to 85% in the WSS. But this does depend a lot on which dragoons you are talking about.

I have to say that I think that is not as much difference between WSS dragoons and SYW dragoons as you may think. The main difference in my view, in this connection, is that during the SYW most armies had ample light infantry/light cavalry/others to do the kind of tasks dragoons were asked to do in the WSS. I think that by the WSS the regular dismounting of cavalry, including dragoons, wasn't generally needed and it only really occured in response to specific problems on specific battlefields. When something came up dragoons would clealy be the first choice units to dismount. But it was not the usual way for dragoons to fight. While similarly other units would dismount if for some reason it was needed and dragoons couldn't be used.

Ok lets look at some examples.
iain1704 wrote: The term mounted infantry I used was a reference to the 17th Century attitude towards dragoons, obviously still strongly applied in the east as you proved with your examples, was still regarded much the same in the west.
I am afraid not. In reality I think that the ' backward East' is a good example of what I mean above.

The Polish dragoons always dismounted simply because for various reasons the Polish armies in the GNW had no infantry. So the dragoons and often the 'Horse' dismounted despite supposing to be used mounted. AFAIK this was different to later 17th century practice when Polish dragoons rarely dismounted.

The Russians were actually either circa 100% or less than 5%, the 30-40% I mentioned was a kind of an average. You see the Russians used 2 kinds of armies and used different tactics with each.

The first was basically a standard western style of army with infantry masses and relatively small numbers of cavalry. These kinds of armies used Western sytyle tactics with the vast majority of the cavalry fighting mounted - i.e. no more than 5% (and ususally a lot less) fighting mounted. I should point out here that all Russian cavalry was dragoons, they had no 'Horse' and so it is easy to see when their dragoons are fighting mounted compared to with other armies. These tactics are, at least as far as the Russians are concerned, copying the tactics of Western dragoons.

The second kind of army the Russians used was a 'flying column'. This had relatively small numbers of infantry mounted on horse with larger numbers of dragoons, plus other support troops. The whole thing was a fast moving strike force which moved on horse but largely dismounted to fight. 50 to 100% of the cavalry (which are of course were all dragoons) in these forces dismounted for all or some of the subsequent action. This kind of force was a specific Russian development and a response to the sitation they found themselves in.

It was this specific 'flying column' idea that the Russians used that accounts for their relatively large amount of use of dismounted dragoons. Other than this their dragoons nearly always fought mounted, to at least the extent I suggest for Western dragoons.

I will briefly mention the Swedes here who had a lot of dragoons and these always fought mounted. But as the Swedes really are 'cutting edge' at this point in time I think that they are not a good example. So to round up I will mention the other participants in the GNW such as the Saxons and Danes.

These both fought in the WSS as well as the GNW and the Saxons in particular had a lot of dragoons. But even better they fought in relatively small battles where it is easier to see what the cavalry are actually doing. Large GNW battles involving these armies were 15 to 20 battalions per side. It is fairly clear that what the dragoons were doing is fighting mounted, or at least 95% or more of the time. When they did dismount, the same with the Russians in a standard battle, was in response to some specific local tactical factor.

So despite the seemingly high figures there is good evidence from the 'East' that dragoons only dismounted under specific conditions and that the 'usual' tactic was to fight mounted.
iain1704 wrote:
Again, you give good examples of this attitude in your response.
The main issue in the lack of western examples or small percentage to support the case is the lack of detailed primary sources specifically discussing dragoons, I feel it is quite dangerous to make the assumption that because only a few examples can be found as evidence of dismounted usage that it means they were used primarily in the mounted role like other cavalry, especially since dragoons performed other roles such as scouting, supply escort, during sieges, etc (I think the term ‘Jack of all Trades’ is very apt).
Yes this is very true and sadly we are, as often is the case, short of good accounts of what actually happened in detail. But of course this cuts both ways. In addition you have to explain what dismounted dragoons in the big cavalry actions were doing. It is difficult to imagine what the bulk of the Confederate dragoons, the ones in Hesse Kassel's group and Eugene' s, are doing if they are dismounted in the large cavlry actions at Blenheim.
iain1704 wrote: The other issue is Spain (why the British certainly raised the additional Dragoon regiments you mention), where the allies primarily used Dragoons in the Mounted role since they did not consider the theatre as suitable for the use of Horse Regiments, which probably goes a long way to reducing the number of examples found and would probably affect your percentages quite heavily.
I think because of the size of the big 'Marlborough' battles you would need to find evidence of significantly bigger amounts of dismounting in them to seriously change the %. The battles in Spain are really too small to have much impact on the % but the % of dismounting is about the same as elsewhere.

In 1710 two of the actions featured dismounted cavalry for example, but again for specific tactical reasons rather than because it was the 'usual' thing to do. The first one featured cavalry from one or both sides dismounting in rough terrain, this probably included 'Horse' as well as dragoons. The second was with Britsh Horse and dragoons dismounting to defend a town when caught out. These were 2 relatively small affairs and in the 3 larger actions it seems very unlikely that anyone dismounted.

iain1704 wrote: I feel the debate has been extremely important in terms of views and interpretations and although we have disagreed, possibly through a misunderstanding of what the other wrote I hope I have now made my position clear.
I think that it is something that needs to be looked into but I suspect we largely don't have enough primary sources to tell for certain. I would suggest that the evidence we do have suggests that it was not common and we would also have some other problems to tackle if the dragoons did dismount.

Well I will finish now as I am tired and need to get to bed.

Nick
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Post by 18th Century Guy » Fri Oct 22, 2010 11:28 pm

Nick,

My question based on your information is how did the dragoons fair against the horse when used in the line in a mounted role? Were they a second line force or could some nations dragoons (in the WSS only, not GNW) be counted closer to being considered horse than others?

I think the stereotyped image is that dragoons during the WSS were not much better than light cavalry when in mounted combat. I'm just trying to figure out if that is the case or not and/or if dragoons from some nations were better and could be considered being closer to horse.

Thank you.
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Post by footslogger » Sat Oct 23, 2010 3:28 pm

iain1704 wrote:There were 4 regiments of Dragoons posted on the allied left:

1st Line: Dorffs 'Dutch' Dragoons under Major General Van der Nath
2nd Line: Schmettau 'Ansbach' Dragoons & Baudissin 'Holstein-Gottorp' Dragoons under Brigadier du Portail
3rd Line: Wurttemburg-Oels 'Danish' Dragoons under Brigadier Bonnart.

Opdam did not command a Dragoon regiment and since his regiment of Horse was on the left the reference is probably in error and refers to the two dragoon brigades of the 1st & 2nd line since this would give a total of just over 1500 men. All three regiments were posted on the extreme left and in a position to support Wertmuller's attack.

hope that helps

regards

Iain
Yes. I have the obat. I was thinking that maybe Opdam was the name of one of the regimental commanders of those dragoons. Thanks for the info.
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