Battle of Waterloo & Bullet-Proof Cuirassier Breast Plates
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- Опубликовано: 12 июл 2024
- Waterloo Voices 1815 book: amzn.to/2zVXupG
Battle of Waterloo & Bullet Proof Cuirassiers
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www.waterloouncovered.com/
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Entry level job offering at the curaissers for interns. Must have 12 years of warfare experience and have served in atleast three campaigns.
Also need to be 6ft or taller.
I think the 6 foot requirement is like a feet or two lower since, maybe even 3 feet, i think 6 foot is a bit too much
@@dongphuongdang6786 4 feet from the horse and two feet of the rider, is six feet in total, isn't it?
Not really . Even 20 year old men who were tall and well built could be selected .
Physically imposing people could be selected even if they were fresh and young .
Incidently, the famous "pierced" cuirass of a French carabinier killed by a cannonball at Waterloo bears the marks of two bullets that did not penetrate at all. Given the engagement the guy died in (the desperate charge of the French heavy cavalry against English squares) these were probably not pistol bullets.
I know Im a bit late to the party, but at least pre-rifled musket cuirasses seem to have been rather resistant to even close-range musket fire. The reason I know this is that the 1683 regulation pattern cuirass used by the swedish caroelan cavalry (a more correct translation of the swedish word would be "ridery") during the great nordic war almost always came with a "bullet proof" in the form of a dent from a musket ball fired at the armour at close range. This was done with almost all cuirasses which were worn by pretty much everyone in the ridery as they were issued to every every single "common" (rank of private) cavalryman.
When reading accounts of the Carolean army in the field I am also reminded of the fact that even a cuirass that might not stop a test shot might do so in the field. This would be because of several reasons. First the quality of the powder, since black powder needs to be of the correct granulation to be properly effective. Since damp or wet powder clumps together powder in the field, particularly in bad weather or during long campaigns can be a lot less explosive than prime condition powder at the manufactury. The second factor is the human one, particularly where paper-cartridges are not available. In a stressful combat situation there seems to be a reasonable likelihood that a soldier would add too much or too little powder to his musket. Particularly when the quality of the powder is not great it seems likely that the charge would tend towards being inadequate.
Draw me like one of your French cuirassiers~
+Sheldon agreed.
7w7 :v
Got to love perfectly timed adverts.
Just as he's going on about thrusting I get a little ad pop up "find your loving partner" lol
William Muller had a pretty fun opinion on the cuirass in 1811: "Iron cuirasses are only retained in use among the French, and serve almost no other purpose, than to fatigue both the men and the horses. They merely preserve the breast and the belly, from the bullets of small arms, but this the horses neck does also."
The British cavalry was slaughtered by French cuirassed cavalry in almost every encounter.
The cuirassiers were not from the Imperial Guard though, they were from the regular army. Along with the cuirassiers, the carabiniers à cheval also wore a breastplate with an extra brass decorating layer, and beared the same sabre.
As far as I understand, cuirassiers were supposed to have a musquetoon, but sources vary. And there have been lots of regulations issued, every new regulation slightly modifying the equipment and saddle. As you never send good equipment to waste just because it doesn't fit the new regulation. Except maybe for the saber scabbard. The An IX version was apparently made from a metal too thin, and there was a risk a shock could trap the blade into the scabbard. The An XI version was much stronger, and I guess this was a problem that dearly needed to be solved.
All the developement of imperial French sabers was coordonated by one guy: the general Gassendi, who wrote multiple editions of his "aide mémoire à l'usage des officiers d'artillerie", as the artillery was responsible for all the logistic. The same Gassendi, during the royalist restauration, went on to design the 1822 line of sabers.
Matt, I remember you once said French sabers were a bit boring to collect, as they looked the same. The fact most were created/supervised by the same dude might explain it a bit. It also goes to show how differently the French and the British worked. France always had a stronger central state, and the army developped its own material and then had it made.
Did carabiniers really had same swords as cuirassiers? I thought they changed to slightly curved sabers after 1809
At 7:35, what's the white sash for? Holding that black little bag I presume, but what's that pouch for? Is that for cartridges?
And a quick google search (with little research into the artist but its 1 in the morning) shows carabiniers generally depicted at Borodino with slightly curved sabres indeed.
nether were the lancers, but boney never went anywhere without them, well not outside of france. :3
Perhaps the author was extrapolating between the Horse Guards and the Cuirassiers. He did note the similarity in helmet, it's possible he thought they served a similar role. After all the emperor was on the battlefield, if the King had gone to the war the Horse Guards would go with him. Just a thought.
In the 17th century a cuirass was generally expected to stop a musket ball at around 50 paces.
I think the mentioned requirements belonged to the the Horse Carabiniers who were the elite heavy cavalry of the French Army. They were mainly chosen for their physical stature and were veterans of many campaigns , they started wearing armour from 1809 . These were regarded as one of the best cavalry regiments in Europe.
I remember reading an account by a British soldier at Waterloo, who described musket shots bouncing of cuirassiers' armour with a sound like hail bouncing off a roof.
I've read an account from a British infantryman that says something along the lines of
"When we shot their cuirasses with our muskets it made a most queer sound."
Honestly 4 to 5 killograms for a cuirass that covers your upper torso completely seems pretty light compared to a modern plate carrier that weighs 10-15kg. This makes me ask myself why they wouldn't make it ,,completely" musket proof by adding 2-3 killograms.
4 to 5 kg front and back each. so 8 to 10 kg total.
They probably did, but there is a never ending race of making a better firearms against better armor protection and so forth... they just say screw it, the armor is just getting too heavy and too expensive to make.
The weight is mainly about what the horse can carry. I thought the really big guys went to the infantry/grenadiers, where a cuirassiers was a big guy of at at least 1.73m (just taller than Napoleon himself)
Adding a kilo of steel to your breastplate isn't adding a kilo you're wearing in practise. That kilo of steel is likely to feel like more because it's further from your body. Think pushing a door shut from the handle vs near the hinges
musket balls of lead could be badly spread out and splintered by passing through steel and would create a large wound channel
K Vjqxzz and often was better to the ball to pass through the body, but if a ball overcome a cuirass it will stuck inside
K Vjqxzz I was gonna say that exactly, as the Ball would deform much earlier than when hitting an unarmoured man
5:54 "Tis but a scratch."
So, their arms had the same range of movement as someone in a cardboard box robot costume? Gotcha.
I will certainly have to pick that up. Been fascinated with the era ever since I first discovered Sharpe's Rifles! Learning more about the actual history and events is always desired! Thanks for the great video!
There is a cuirass in France that was hit by a cannonball at Waterloo, going all the way through the right side, through the rider and through the back plate. The man's name was known and a physical description of him, but he was only 22 years old. Hardly a man who had served in three campaigns. The French regiments of the 100 Days contained a good number of veterans but the vast majority were also full of younger men who had little service...the "three campaign men" at the time of Waterloo were rare as most of them were dead. Napoleon had three months to reassemble an army and you can be sure a large number were conscripts.
Holiday no excuse for missing battle of Waterloo. Cashiered. Released the service. Good day sir!
I fucking love these extracts from history.
Napoleonic wars have been a area of interest to me since I was introduced to the Sharpe television series staring Sean Bean back in the 90's. Therefore I greatly appreciate when you cover the arms of this period. Thanks for sharing this and I will be curious to see if I can get a copy of this book over here in the States.
Greg Thewestgaredneck try biblio.com. I’ve had good experiences ordering British books from them.
John Dally thanks for the heads up!!
Great site and museum to visit. Found the time whilst on a trip round western European battle sites in 2017. Glad i did.
Talking of the toughness of horses made me think of a horse from the battle of Little Bighorn that was the only surviving creature of the 7th Cavalry at the end of the battle, his name was Commanche, and had taken 7 bullet wounds and multiple arrows all over the body, then laid in the sun for almost a week while being eaten alive by crows, he was found by a trooper after the battle and nursed back to health!!
You abondoned your comrades at the battlefield of Waterloo?!! You broke Duke Wellington's heart, Matt. :O
Huzzah for the Heavies!
If you have done any hunting, you know that an animal does not fall right down. You need to hit the head, spine or shatter a leg for that. Even a shot right thru the heart may not result in the animal falling right away.
My point is, getting a horse to fall dead down in the first shot is not as easy as some make think.
Indeed, with black powder weapons on such a large animal, very tricky.
Something tells me that a cannonball will do the trick first-time though (assuming it hits and ploughs through the horse's chest in this scenario).
It is on Mount and Blade. One bayonet stab takes down horse and rider. And we all know how close to reality M&B is.
Oh ok that bits just come up in the video thank you for the reference matt
Jen'ari-asha
That raises an interesting question of whether and to what extent animals have any awareness of the danger posed by sharp objects. It's quite safe to say that even most mammals have no conscious understanding of the abstract concept of sharpness, but it would also seem that surely nature would exert sufficient selection pressure for an instinctive caution to evolve.
When I was a kid I would sometimes hold a Bowie knife up to my dog -not in a dangerous or sadistic way, but as a kind of informal cognitive ethology experiment. He never showed the slightest alarm but only cocked his head to the side as if to say, "I'm pretty damn sure that's not food, so I'm kind of drawing a blank on why you want me to pay attention to it".
On the other hand if I'd simply light a match his ears would instantly perk up and he'd become visibly alarmed, which is strange because surely fire would come up far less often (for almost the entirety of the domestic dog's evolutionary history) than broken branches and jagged rocks.
Then again these were of course highly imperfect "experiments".
I love your channel.
Interesting subject.The video is a success with the details.
Thank you very much.
Awesome video Matt! Keep it up!!
Nice and informal mini lecture. I would like to make a comment regarding a couple of points on this. The musket carried by these troops early on in the wars, eventually became discarded as a matter of preference. By 1812, this was especially the case although pistols continued to be carried. according to some sources, the average height at this time was around 5ft 7inches, so finding suitable manpower for this part of the army must have been far ranging. As you pointed out, the Cuirassier was the panzer weapon of the age, but with limitations. I enjoyed this Vid very much and look forward to further subjects.
That reference to Mount and Blade Napoleonic Wars though
And I imagine that 3 campaigns and 12 years served would be easy due to the previous French Revolutionary Wars. For the 6 foot requirement I remember reading in the memoirs of an Old Guard soldier, the soldier was applying for a Sapper job and was a few inches off from the height requirement but yet was still given the job, so exceptions would be made.
The French cuirasse had a wire on the inside held in place at the points at which the brass studs are this wire held in place the lining which was filled with horse hair as a padding
Awesome video!!! 6ft high is correct, the campaign stuff is not. Carabiniers out ranked cuirassiers as did the guard cavalry, horses were allotted to the cuirassiers based on size not quality, especially after 1812. "Big men on big horses", the horse was more of a weapon that their saber, they were essentially a battering ram.
has to be over 6 feet. what is this, tinder?
Lost Marimo Just swipe left with your sword for those Englishmen you don't like.
Cuirasses were also used by French engineers/sappers to protect them from musket fire when undermining wall's etc, except they were painted black.
At a distance, over 70 yards, accurate range for a musket, the Cuirasse should protect from a ball, the originals did have a padded lining fitted by all the studs on front and back. These is why at Waterloo the command was shoot at the horse's.
I would be very happy to see you do more military history stuff, showing the use of weapons in context.
I think brightness is spot on. If you're a musketman and being charged by a horseman pointing a sword at you, what are you going to aim at? Under right circumstances breastplate glare may obscure wearer from a person aiming directly at them.
The myths believed and propagated by period writers are amazing. Perhaps more amazing is that many of these are still believed despite the fact that we have now have access to the actual French regulations and sources. I do sometimes wonder how much period writers simply invented to make their accounts more popular and thus more successful.
The 6 foot ideal for curaisser was initially enforced but as campaigns continued, replacements were generally not held to the standard. They were expected to be veterans and three campaigns was expected, but men died and replacements had to be found. The later in the wars, the more likely the standard began to lessen down to "Is he a good and veteran cavalryman?" By the way, none of the Imperial Guard Cavalry wore breastplates...these heavy regiments were part of the normal army. Plus the armor for the standard ranks tended to be more uniform and was designed to fit a big man...heavy cavalry were big men on big horses. You had to have some size on you or the thing simply would not fit.
"Owing to it's brightness" may not be a reference to it's shininess, but to the smoothness of the polish, which gave less of a chance for the musketball to dig in. Even curved, if they were rougher, it might be harder for the musketball to glance off....
The Big Brothers. I can only imagine what it was like to face a charge of French heavy cavalry.
Very interesting, Thank You! Another book for my wish-list, Damn! I've often wondered about using the point on horseback... I'm not a horseman, but I imagine delivering the point on horseback would be rather like fencing while sitting in a chair. I used to do that against a club-mate in a wheelchair, with foil, many years ago. The mechanics of thrust versus cut *on horseback, without footwork* would be interesting to examine. I'm tempted to suggest experimental sparring seated on wheeled office chairs, which might be an interesting simulation as well as quite silly. If you try it you must film it!
Dropping a like just because you referenced mount and blade napoleonic wars
For the most part what those of us who aren't military historians 'know' about black powder weapons and warfare of the early 19th century comes from movie depictions of these historical battles and we should know by now that movie directors have a vested interest in capturing our excitement by fantastical depictions rather than what was realistic. Black powder muskets in the early 19th century didn't have the same level of muzzle energy that soldiers would see in the American Civil War and later with the rifled barrels and the improved Mine' ball which would exist about 50 years after the Napoleonic Wars. I'm not surprised that there were cuirasses in use in the Napoleonic Wars that could withstand both pistol and musket balls because again we have less muzzle energy (carbine length muskets especially) and the projectiles weren't yet designed for most efficient flight and carrying energy. I would further think that besides musket balls to the face, neck or vital organs that taking a stab or cut from a cavalry saber or sword might on average be more immediately devastating than the immediate effects of these relatively low powered projectile strikes.
There is one more important aspect to consider, when it comes to lethality of musket balls penetrating armour. Musket ball is made of lead, while a cuirass is steel, so because of a difference in hardness a ball flattens when it hits a cuirass and exits on the other side shaped more like a disk, thus increasing a contact area and causing much more devastating wounds, especially if a projectile starts to rotate.
Third! Matt you are a wonderful person.
I think the reason a wound through a cuirass mostly proves mortal is not because of additional steel from the cuirass but because the spread of the lead shot after going through the steel. Kind of like a hollow point vs a full metal jacket.
Field Marshall Foix, at the battle of Waterloo, was shot multiple times and used multipe horses as they were injured or killex.
At the start of the passage it mentions that this is the imperial guard Calvary so the service requirements is common among all the guard units like the old guard
I believe the writer that mentioned the requirements misunderstood a few things. As MadNumForce mentioned below, the cuirassiers were not Imperial Guard. They were heavy, regular, cavalry. Imperial Guard, both foot and horse, did have height and service requirements. For Grenadiers of the Guard, they had to be over 5'10" and had to have ten years of service, at least 3 campaigns (or two wounds), and over 35 years of age. Horse grenadiers had similar service requirements. They used a straight sword but did not wear a cuirass.
I recall reading a first hand account from an English infantry soldier (I can't recall his name), who stated that when his unit fired a volley at a opposing cuirassier squadron, there was a very audible sound like heavy rain against metal roof as the musket balls struck the enemy.
The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa has a cuirass supposedly taken from Waterloo that is pierced in 3 or more places by musket balls. Presumably that particular trooper had ridden into quite close range before being hit.
Hello, new to HEMA and love your content. Can you please talk more on medieval firearms.
One of your best videos. I am assuming padding was used in helmets but never heard for sure. Was i
3 campaigns would probably be quite a few years even without a year limit.
Holy shit, I was just reading a discussion of this exact topic on a historical forum last night. It featured some interesting photos, including one of a cuirass that a cannon ball had torn through like it was tinfoil.
Great video as always, but I'm wondering what that new sword is on your wall. Looks a bit like a claymore or early broadsword, I must know!
You mentioned something that I think might confuse people and that's what you said regarding cuirasses and breastplates. To clarify things for those who don't already know, a cuirass and a breastplate are two separate things. You can have a breastplate without a cuirass but you can't have a cuirass without a breastplate and that's because a cuirass is what you call the combination of a breastplate and backplate worn together.
I am not sure that 6' height requirement meant the same thing as we understand it. French feet/inches were not the same as English so it depends on which the author is referring to.
When people think of Napoleon's tactics they generally think of heavy artillery use and Lancer cavalry, but by far the most truly effective weapon in his arsenal and probably most effective weapon of the entire era would have to be the Baguette Bayonet.
Carbs are the real enemy.
Luckily Beef Wellington was there to save the day at the battle of Waterloo. He was the only one who could stop the French Napoleon pastry.
They used stale baguettes so hard that you could crack a man's skull with it. After all why waste food when you could use it as a weapon?
I'm pretty sure that a musket ball penetrating armour will cause massive shrapnel and deform on impact. The latter causes it to cause wider wound channels and possibly additional damage through tumbling. Morover, faster bullets do not necessarily produce more damage as they often go clean through, whereas slower bullets dump all their kinetic energy and momentum into their target.
The book is actually from 2015 (no doubt in relation to the 200 year). It is available on Amazon... Mat, you might want to link, if you got a % deal with amazon…..
Good point - done.
There were elite cuirassier in the French army called Mounted Carabiniers....they wore gold armour
So, to put it all in a nutshell, cuirassier pros and cons. Cons: Can’t move your arms freely(can’t clap your hands without bending your elbows), 12pounds heavier, can’t fire a muscket and hard to get enlisted. Pros: Looks badass, can fire pistols, can take more shots, deadly sword thrusts. Its worth the try.
Another pro: scares the shit out of standard infantry when charging
The Prussians did not have cuirassiers. They had some units that were designated as cuirassiers (Kürassiere), but they wore no armour, and none of them were present at Waterloo anyway. The armour was only re-introduced after the Napoleonic wars.
Hi Matt, do you have accounts, if the musketballs would more possible to break/shutter at the breastplates or deflekt to the side with the propability to hit someone around, if it would have enough energy and momentum left?
Thanks for your great work!
john Mullholand Thank you
Cuirasses could be made completely shot-proof, but in doing so the resultant weight would make them utterly impractical to wear. Early French cuirasses were intended to be proof against three musket balls fired at close range, but this level of protection was unattainable in practice. Later standards only required cuirasses to withstand a single shot at long range. Elting, J.R. Swords around a Throne: Napoleon’s Grande Armée, London (1988) p. 230.
Charge of the light brigade you say?
"The Trooper!" \m/
There is also an account of Cuirassiers charging in on the Prussians during the Franco Prussian War. Whilst they were charging they could hear the clattering of bullets impacting and being stopped by their cuirasses.
Sorry for off topic question but, can a kite shield protect its user from low, powerful blow from montante or halberd to the legs? Will it bounce off or not? You know, a low part of kite shield is pretty narrow and it could not have a good backup to not fall back
reference 13:37 why where wounds through a cuirias - just as a guess it would be more likley to be fatal due to penetration of a hard object like a breast plate with a softer metal slug (lead) causes the bullet to deform prior to entry into the body this creates far greater entry wounds and greater hydrostatic shock to the individual, plus potential fragmentation of the round as well,
They do have "pads" they're the leather red bits sticking out, basicly like a built in haurberk or arkon, or amring jacket.
Abba - Waterloo 🕺🎵
Waterloo, promise to love you forevermore
Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to...
If his account of padding underneath the cuirasse is true then perhaps that would be a large source of clothing fragments getting into wounds. Could it be possible as well for a musket ball that would have passed all the way through to ricochet off the back plate? Those factors, combined with deformation of the lead as it passes through the breastplate as well as the factors you mentioned, I could see a musket wound through a cuirasse being exceptionally lethal for the time period.
Whole lot of ads this time... RUclips must like you again.
I sure hope that's the case!
The pads are probably removed a hundred or so years later, they will begin to smell, and anybody who needed to use it could just put a new line of padding in. The first person who restored the armour would likely remove any smelly or rotting leather or linens to get at any rust on the underside.
By brightness he probably means then centre of curvature as it the spot that will reflect light shined at it. It would actually be a very small area on a cuirass shaped like that. I wonder how much each cuirass like that cost compared to price of a musket or a horse.
I wonder if a highly polished piece of armor might present slightly less friction and let a round ball skid off that might otherwise get enough purchase to rupture the steel. Good read, thank you.
I suppose it's possible. Or maybe they just thought that was the case.
20 yards seems to be normal for a knee-to-knee, impact charge of heavy cavalry. Horses at a gallop tend to separate and become strung out. Plus, it exhausts the horse. Much better to approach slowly, in formation, and then only really pick up the pace for the last few yards. Just like pike or bayonet charges - you don't want to just sprint in; you want to keep formation for as long as possible and hope to "push" the enemy into breaking rank.
Another point about penetrating a quirass: when shot from close range a ball can penetrate a breastplate but maybe it will ricochet from backplate and do more damage? It happens with modern armour, as i heard.
Matt could you please provide the source that proves cuirasses were effective against musketballs?
Occurs to me that as the cuirasse protects the torso any hit that penetrates it will consequently be to the torso and, as that's where we keep a lot of our vital organs, it's more likely to be fatal?
Another reason for the penetration of a Cuirass being considered mortal is that if it took alot of energy from the shot to get though then the ball would bounce around inside like a BB in a tin can.
If the author is referring to a blow as in a shot from a musket, the energy of a close shot combined with the deformation of the projectile and spalling material from the inside of the armor is more thsn likely what he is referring to as "mortal". It's a concept that is still valid today with modern hard body armors, and many companies especially ones producing ar500 Steel armor, advertise anti-spall coatings. Most modern service rifles fire small projectile High Velocity cartridges that are usually around 5 and a half millimeters in diameter which is around 20 caliber usually more (the AR-15 and military variants, M16 M4, your L85 etc are 5.56mm or .223 caliber). small arms at the time could fire projectiles as large is 70 caliber and 55 to 65 calibers were common. projectile of this size traveling at velocity sufficient to penetrate that armor would cause devastating effects on what was behind it. love the video thank you Matt, greetings from the US.
A shot that penetrates the breast plate will be smashed or “mushroomed” from the impact, making the ball effectively wider and ripping a wider path through the victim (acting like a hollw point). Or it could fragment during as it goes through the breast plate, shotgunning into the flesh. Insufficient armor is often worse than no armor when it comes to bullets, at least from the ballistic tests I’ve seen. Those where with modern guns but the worst ones were using soft lead cored ammunition so I figure the same should be true for the old timey guns
You can also find accounts in the Franco-Prussian war of French cuirassier breastplates deflecting small arms fire. Remember that by this time the Prussians weren't even using muskets anymore, they were using early bolt-action rifles.
Surely early musket balls were simple soft lead balls travelling at a relatively low velocity so would have little armour piercing capacity. Not sure about grapeshot and canister shot; if it was made of steel/iron it would have a much better armour piercing capacity.
This is why I'm not fully convinced by the theory of firearms being the cause of armour's vanishing from battlefields. Well, at least not as a sole cause. And I think of course of full, steel plate armour and it's direct descendants. Because armour as such never have vanished.
Anyway, we speak of round lead projectile - yes, moving quite fast compared to bow arrow for example, but this is still relatively soft material, and energies were not as high, as in case of modern firearms. I've read once also, that (this was however in relation to earlier than Napoleonic period) amount of gun powder used was usually smaller, than we used to think, and we use nowdays in black-powder guns. If this is true (I don't know), then we speak of even lesser penetrative capabilities (over distance). And this lead projectile is about to penetrate a plate made of steel. I think, that beyond some range (maybe 70-80 meters?) this might be hard even in case of medieval breastplates. And those of the period (as far as I know) were made thicker and heavier for the purpose.
This is why I think that professionalisation of armies, with were growing in numbers, and started to be payed (and equipped) by a state, was equally important, as firearms evolution, when it comes to vanish of steel plate armours from battlefields.
Just my opinion. ;)
I thought more along the lines of a ball penetration pushing the curaisse metal inwards cutting the person both with ball and his own curaise. Have you ever seen the curaise example that a cannon ball went through?
matt, we have an arena, and one gladiator has a gun, and the other has knightish plate armor,
who wins?
if the knight wins, is knightish melee close combat the pinnacle of dueling?
How close we're Wellington's squares anyway? Wouldn't the rounds cause friendly fire casualties?
The riding armour(1590) from prince Maurits blocked a musket ball. It still exists in the Hofjagd - und Rüstkammer des Kunsthistorischen Museums Vienna. though this was quite some time before Napoleon came about. so perhaps the guns were less powerful.
16th-century muskets proper were actually much more powerful than 19th-century muskets, because they were absurdly huge & used giant loads of powder. Of course, I doubt that armor stopped a ball from a heavy musket.
It could have been a relatively long range shot or a glancing hit. I can't find many details. For al we know it passed trough someone already.
I would say that Leipzig was far more significant than Waterloo, in terms of both scale (600,000 men involved!) and decisiveness (it basically ended any chance of the French empire resurging after the disastrous Russian campaign, due to the lost of all their German satelite states after it). Waterloo was a swan song compared to it.
Small nitpick here: Belgium didn't exist until it's declaration of independence in 1830. Hence it's isn't possible for Belgians to fight against Napoleon in 1815.
That height is not so unusual - I believe the British Coldstream Cuards height requirement was 6ft. 2in. (although now it has been reduced to 5ft. 10in. !!?)
I suppose that a soldier would be pretty happy if his cuirass saved him from a musket ball, but realistically how significant would this protection be in a battle environment? The horse would be the primary target to halt an incoming charge and the most likely target to get hit anyway.
yes I read one time (I think it might have been a Modesty Blaise book when I was in my early teens lol) that duellists would strip to the waist so as not to have fibres driven into wounds? they might not have known about infection, but might have prevented it to some extent by doing this? I would imagine that some of these Cuirassiers would have died days later of blood poisoning due to fibres entering their wounds? even if the surgeon had removed the ball? good review!
all true yes! also I think I read that some died of lead poisoning at a relatively early age , especially in the case of gunfighters in the old west really prolific ones anyway that were wounded a number of times through their lives! possibly the same with some career soldiers in Napoleonic times?
yes I think you're right! but I was referring to lead poisoning as a possible cause of early death as well! which might take years till it manifests a bit like asbestosis! especially if you are a soldier who has been shot a number of times during your life?
Black powder fouling is sterile both in material and being an immediate product of combustion.
Earlier in the video you wanted to put the significance of Waterloo into perspective and you compared it with another war in Europe. Do you think Waterloo "holds up" if you were to compare it whatever wars and battles have occurred in Asia and Africa?
In terms of historical significance, absolutely (although as many have pointed out, Leipzig was really much more significant than Waterloo, which was blown out of proportion by the English and their American lackeys).
The end of the Napoleonic wars set up the European balance of power of the 19th and 20th centuries, which in time brought about colonialism and nationalism. No nation in Asia or Africa was ever in a position that would allow it to grow to world dominance (before the current century), so no specific battle would have reshaped World History as radically as European battles did. Both Asia and Africa are simply too vast to create powerful empires, which are dependant on concentration more than territory or population, and there are huge internal borders that prevent expansion (Gobi and Sahara deserts, the Himalayas, etc.) whereas Europe is, to all intents and purposes, one huge plain (with the notable exception of the three peninsulas, but even they are not that isolated, thanks to the inner seas).
Many battles and wars (especially in Asia) were certainly up there in terms of scale, as well as regional significance, but they didn't shape the world as much, or rather, their aftermath was overrun by the aftermath of European conflicts.
One more possibility of why musket shots might be more deadly after going through a cuirass: Could it be possible that the musket ball would become mangled/shattered after it pierces the cuirass? That would mean more chunks of musket ball entering the body, damaging internal organs more than a single ball, which otherwise would have to hit something hard like bone before breaking into smaller pieces. We see this phenomena in the modern day as well. If body armor is made of steel instead of ceramic, it will often have to have a rubbery "anti-spalling" coating over the front to prevent broken bullet shards from splashing outwards and hitting unprotected parts of the body like the neck. Additionally, we know of the lethality of shattering bullets from the 5.56 round, which is small compared to a 7.62 round, but travels faster and will shatter inside the body within a certain range. Thoughts, anyone?
So why were these cuirasses not more popular among other kinds of troops? Say, infantrymen who mostly would stay far enough away from the enemy that they would probably be bulletproof most of the time? Cost is obviously an issue, but what about just outfitting some units to be on the front lines? Are they simply too heavy to be maneuverable in, causing fatigue if you wear it all day, thus only being usable if you're on horseback?
I heard or read somewhere about the russian special forces body armor used in afghanistan guys would remove it because they decided that it was better to just get shot than have the massive spalling carried in with the bullet. I believe that was what he was referring to.
Regarding to the helmets of the curassiers, they were certainly not bulletproof. The breastplates varied in thickness and that is why it could be sometimes effectif against musket bullets. I had an early Napoleonic example wich was twice as thick and heavy as the 1828 Officers cuirras that I own now.
It must also be remembered that throughout Napoleon's empire, advancement through hard work rather than elitist means was the order of the day.
It engendered a knowledge that lowborn men could achieve more than elsewhere, and it's why the neighbouring countries feared any expansion of the system.
Those cuirassiers must have been the elite of the elite, and it's understandable why so many of Napoleon's divisions were so strong in the belief that they'd be all conquering.
I sometimes wonder what utopia might have borne out of Waterloo ending with an allied defeat.
"Ahhh, if only this had happened that time we'd be living in utopia today!"