Quick follow up on this thread about losses in Napoleon's 33e. I've crunched a few numbers on monthly losses, and have a few quick results. 1/ - ThreadSky

graemecallister.bsky.social • 25 days ago

Quick follow up on this thread about losses in Napoleon's 33e. I've crunched a few numbers on monthly losses, and have a few quick results. 1/

Reposted from Graeme Callister

Ever wondered what actually happened to most soldiers in Napoleon's army?

I've just finished going through the individual service records for the hard-fighting 33e Ligne regiment (14,829 entries) through a decade of warfare.

Here are the headlines: 1/

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graemecallister.bsky.social•25 days ago

Here's a month-by-month breakdown of deaths (all causes) where an exact date is recorded.

As you'd expect, a few small spikes for outbreaks of illness, larger spikes for major battles (Eylau Feb 1807, Wagram July 1809, Borodino Sep 1812).

Large spikes in early 1814 probably deaths in garrisons. 2/

graemecallister.bsky.social•25 days ago

There are clusters of losses around major campaigns, but 1812 seems remarkably light in losses.

I suspect this is because of how losses were recorded - the regiment never received news of most men hospitalised during the campaign, so couldn't update records. 3/

graemecallister.bsky.social•25 days ago

So if we add in men last recorded as wounded or hospitalised to the numbers, we get this graph.

As you can see, losses in September 1812 (Borodino) and Oct/Nov (the retreat) are enormous, dwarfing those of earlier in the wars. 4/

graemecallister.bsky.social•25 days ago

But this may again not be an accurate reflection of loss, as many men who disappeared or were left behind on the battlefield after a defeat were just recorded as 'presumed POW'. This was especially the case in 1813, when 1,844 men were 'presumed POW'. 5/

graemecallister.bsky.social•25 days ago

So if we add men last recorded in the registers as POW/presumed POW (i.e. they were never heard of again by the regiment), we get this graph.

Note it isn't totally accurate, as the 'presumed POW' in 1813 don't have exact dates, so I've divided them evenly between months of active campaigning. 6/

graemecallister.bsky.social•25 days ago

It's slightly impressionistic, but we can start to see here the sheer scale of losses in 1812 and 1813 compared to earlier in the wars.

Again, any man who returned to the unit at any point is not included in these figures - these are just men never heard of again for one reason or another. /End

maniagnosis.bsky.social•25 days ago

If the unit had ~5000 men at the start of 1812, that's well north of 50% loss in 1812 and nearly as much again in 1813.

😱

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