The war drama of the Eagles

The “Eagle-Guard”

The loss of twelve Eagles in one battle made a deep and lasting impression upon Napoleon. That twelve of his cherished emblems, those mementoes of victorious Caesar, for whose prestige he had advanced such exacting claims, should have fallen en bloc into the hands of the enemy came as a galling blow to Napoleon’s military pride. Twelve Eagles reft from amid the bayonets of the Grand Army on one battlefield: twelve Eagles paraded together as trophies through the capital of an exulting foe! It was a poignantly felt humiliation for the mighty Imperator of the Field of Mars. And yet no default could be charged against the soldiers to whom these Eagles had been entrusted. All that men might do for their defence they had done. Most of the luckless battalions, indeed, had fought and fallen directly under the eyes of the Emperor himself, looking on from his post of vantage by the wall of Eylau churchyard.

Napoleon, however, had already realised that his distribution of an emblem to whose preservation he attached such extreme importance had been made on too lavish a scale. He had been imprudent in distributing such hostages to fortune broadcast; there were too many Eagles on offer to the enemy. Napoleon, indeed, had already tacitly admitted that. Within two months of the opening of the first campaign of the Grand Army—during the Austerlitz campaign—immediately after Murat’s daring gallop on Vienna, Napoleon had summarily directed all the light cavalry Eagles to be sent back from the front. Every Hussar and Chasseur regiment was ordered to return its three squadron Eagles to head-quarters forthwith, for sending back to France. In future, a new Army regulation laid down, those corps would not take their Eagles into the field at all. The regulation after that was extended to Dragoons; and later to all Light Infantry battalions. No doubt it was a step dictated by prudence. In these corps particularly, from the nature of the duties they had normally to perform, the Eagles were peculiarly exposed to risk of isolation and capture.

What had happened at Eylau, and several narrow escapes in hand-to-hand combats at Friedland, together with certain other incidents in that battle which had come under Napoleon’s personal notice, where, through a nervous anxiety for the safety of their Eagles, some battalion commanders had kept back round them men whose bayonets were badly wanted elsewhere, led to a further step. Napoleon took advantage of the general scheme for the reorganisation of the Grand Army, which he carried out in 1808, to recast entirely his original arrangement as to the Eagles. He reduced the numbers by two-thirds.

Battalion Eagles were to be withdrawn in favour of Regimental Eagles. In the infantry, under the reorganisation scheme, there were to be five battalions to each regiment instead of three as heretofore; but there would be only one Eagle in future for the entire regiment. The existing Second and Third battalions were ordered to give up the Eagles they had hitherto carried, which would find a resting-place at the Invalides. The Regimental Eagle would be borne by the First Battalion. The other battalions would carry only “fanions,” small pennon-shaped flags. Each would have one “fanion,” a plain serge flag, of a distinctive colour for each battalion, without any mark or device on it, beyond the number of the battalion.

The Imperial edict, issued early in 1808, laid down that for the special protection of the Regimental Eagle in battle a commissioned officer and two picked veterans were to be appointed as the “Eagle-Guard,” replacing the sergeant-major and escort of the Battalion Eagles. The three were to be known as the First, Second, and Third Eagle-Bearers or “Porte-Aigles.” The officer to whose special charge the Regimental Eagle itself was committed was to be a senior lieutenant, “a man of proved valour, with not less than ten years’ Army service, including service on the battlefield in four campaigns,” specified as those of Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland. He would receive captain’s pay, and wear a gold-laced cocked hat and gold epaulettes. The two other Porte-Aigles were to be, in Napoleon’s own words, “deux braves,” of ten years’ service in the ranks, and “non-lettrés.” On the last qualification, indeed, Napoleon laid peculiar stress. The two were to be, as the Emperor himself put it, “men who could neither read nor write, so that their only hope of promotion should be through acts of special courage and devotion.” They would receive lieutenants’ pay, have special privileges, and wear four gold lace chevrons on their arms. Only the Emperor could nominate or degrade Porte-Aigles.

The Second and Third Porte-Aigles were to carry no weapons except heavy pistols, “to blow out the brains of an enemy attempting to lay hands on an Eagle.” These were Napoleon’s own words as to that, in his order of February 18, 1808: “Pour éviter que l’ardeur dans la mêlée ne les détourne de leur unique objet, de la garde de l’Aigle, le sabre et l’épée leurs sont interdits. Ils n’auront d’autres armes que plusieurs paires de pistolets, d’emploi que de veiller froidement a brûler la cervelle de celui qui avancerait la main pour saisir l’Aigle.” After the Wagram campaign of 1809 Napoleon substituted a helmet and defensive brass scale-epaulettes as the First Porte-Aigle’s equipment. He gave the two soldiers of the Eagle-Guard a halberd each, with a pennon or banderol attached—Red for the Second Porte-Aigle, White for the Third—as well as a sword and a pair of large-bore pistols. The pennons were for use should mounted men attack the Eagle; “for fluttering in front of the horses in order to make them rear and plunge and upset their riders.”19

Two more soldiers were added to the Eagle-Guard in 1813, as the Fourth and Fifth Porte-Aigles. They were armed with the same weapons as the others, and had respectively Yellow and Green pennons on their halberds.

Yet further to add to the prestige of the Eagles, Napoleon, after Wagram, decreed the institution of a Special Order of Military Merit, which he called the “Order of the Trois Toisons d’Or”—something on the lines of our own Victoria Cross—certain of the provisions of which had direct reference to the Eagles. The decoration was to be conferred on men, whatever their rank, “distinguished in the defence of the Eagle of their regiment.” Also, according to the 6th Article of the Constitution of the Order, “Les Aigles des régiments qui ont assisté avec distinction aux grandes batailles seront décorés de l’Ordre des Trois Toisons d’Or.”20

The special distinction of having the badge of the Legion of Honour affixed to its Eagle as a decoration to the regimental standard was in 1812 granted to one corps, the celebrated 57th. It was as a reward for magnificent intrepidity displayed under the eyes of Napoleon at the battle of Borodino. The 57th had at the same time a further and unique mark of Imperial regard awarded to it. Napoleon ordered that a representation of the badge of the Legion of Honour should be stamped on the uniform buttons of the regiment. No corps of the Grand Army, perhaps, had a finer fighting tradition than this splendid regiment—the same “Terrible 57me qui rien n’arrête,” of the Army of Italy; which, too, as has been said, Napoleon singled out for a special word of encouragement on the morning of Austerlitz; calling to them as he rode past, “You will remember to-day, Fifty-seventh, how I once named you ‘Le Terrible’!”

But, with regard to the Regimental Eagles of 1808, even for Napoleon it was one thing to decree the abolition of Battalion Eagles, and another to obtain compliance with the order that the surplus Eagles should be returned to the War Minister for laying up at the Invalides.

A number of second and third battalions of regiments stationed at places out of the way of direct Imperial inspection—in garrisons beyond the frontiers, in subjugated countries, or in the remaining overseas possessions of France—continued for some time to evade the order recalling their Eagles. No doubt, too, they were unwilling to part with standards some of which had led the corps under fire at Austerlitz and Jena.

Napoleon had to repeat his order of recall twice: once during 1809; the second time in 1811. That second order was the outcome of a discovery made by the Emperor himself. At an Imperial review of the troops of the Amsterdam and North Holland garrisons on October 12, 1810, three of the regiments had the temerity to parade before the Emperor’s eyes with four Eagles apiece—one to each battalion. Such flagrant disobedience could not be overlooked; and then subsequent inquiries brought out the fact that elsewhere there were many Battalion Eagles which had similarly been retained against orders. An additional discovery was made at the same time, that the Fourth-Battalion Eagles had been supplied surreptitiously, through some official at the Ministry of War, entirely without Napoleon’s knowledge.

It made Napoleon excessively angry. He complained bitterly to Marshal Berthier at the way in which the department which had to do with the standards of the Army had been mismanaged. “La partie des drapeaux des régiments,” he declared, “est aujourd’hui dans un grand chaos.” To the Minister of War, General Clarke, Duc de Feltre, Napoleon sent a stinging letter of rebuke.

With the letter went the draft of yet another decree, to be communicated to every corps in the service.

Three of the British trophy-Eagles now at Chelsea, it may be remarked in passing, bear the number “82.” They came into our hands in February 1809, at the surrender of Martinique to a conjoint British military and naval expedition. The 82nd was one of the regiments referred to as out of the way of direct inspection; in garrison across the Atlantic. It had not obeyed the order of 1808 to return its Second and Third Battalion Eagles to Paris—with the result that three Eagles at Chelsea represent the misfortune of this one regiment.

“The First Battalion,” ordered Napoleon in his decree of 1811, “is to carry the Eagle: the other battalions will have each a fanion, quite plain, as follows: 2nd Battalion, White; 3rd, Red; 4th, Blue. Where certain regiments may possess additional battalions, these are to have, the 5th a Green fanion, the 6th a Yellow fanion.”21

In 1813, in Napoleon’s conscript army levied to replace the host destroyed in Russia, the newly raised Line regiments, and “Provisional-Regiments,” made up of the amalgamated dépôt battalions of various corps, had to earn their Eagles on the battlefield. “No newly raised regiment,” ordered Napoleon, “is to receive an Eagle until after his Majesty has been satisfied with its service before the enemy.”

The flags issued in 1808, and after that, to go with the Regimental Eagles, were much more elaborate than those of the Champ de Mars. They had white diamond-shaped centre panels, similar to those in the flags presented on the Field of Mars, but with Imperial crowns embroidered in gold on the red and blue upper corners of the flag, and golden Eagles on the lower corners. Gold embroidered wreaths of laurel, encircling the Imperial monogram “N.” divided off the crowns above from the Eagles below. A border of gold fringe round the entire flag, embroidered with bees, was another new enrichment. In these flags the regimental battle-honour inscriptions on the reverse side of the white centre space in the former flags appeared in a revised from. Only victories of importance since the institution of the Empire, and at which Napoleon had commanded in person, were admitted. Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Eckmühl, Essling, Wagram, constituted the full list from which selection was made. One regiment alone was allowed to record an earlier victory:—the Imperial Guard. They preserved their “Marengo” honour. Inscriptions such as “Le 75e arrive et bât l’ennemi,” “J’étais tranquille, le 32e était là,” and the others which had been allowed on the flags of the Field of Mars, recalling deeds of the Army of Italy, disappeared from the revised pattern of 1808. A new inscription was specially authorised for the flag of one regiment, in honour of a feat of great distinction during the Wagram campaign. The 84th of the Line was permitted to inscribe “Un contre dix—Grätz, 1809”—but that only lasted for three years; the inscription was ordered to be taken off in 1811.

The design of the flag introduced in 1808 held until 1814. A less elaborate design was adopted for the Eagle-standards of the “Hundred Days,” two specimens of which are in this country—the Waterloo trophies at Chelsea.

Attractive and handsome as the new flag was, the Army, as before, looked on it as but an appendage, as merely “l’ornement de l’Aigle.” The Eagle at the head of the staff, by itself, was all that nine soldiers out of ten troubled about. Not a few regiments, indeed, when on service, removed the flags altogether from their Eagle-poles and displayed as their standard the Eagle only. Particularly was this the case in Spain, where many regiments were in the field continuously, in some instances, for over six years—from 1808 to 1814. Asked one day after the Peninsular War about the inscription and battle-honours on the flag of his regiment, an infantry chef de bataillon frankly confessed that he had “never set eyes on it!” The silken flag, he explained, “had been removed from the Eagle-pole before he first joined as a lieutenant, and had always, as he understood, been kept at the dépôt of the corps in France, rolled up and locked away in the regimental chest. The Eagle on its bare pole was all he had ever seen.”

Said another officer: “We never spoke of the regiment’s ‘colours,’ and never saw them. We spoke only of ‘the Eagle.’”

This may be added. Napoleon was scrupulously exact in showing respect to the Eagle of a regiment whenever he passed one; whether on the line of march, or in bivouac, under a sentry, with the Eagle-Guard near at hand, resting horizontally on a support of piled muskets with bayonets fixed. If on horseback, Napoleon always uncovered and bowed low; if on the line of march, he sometimes stopped his carriage in passing, and got out, saluted the Eagle, and said a few words about the regiment’s battle record to the Eagle-Guard.

Between the review on the Field of Mars in 1804 and the overthrow on the plains of Leipsic in 1814 the number of regiments in the Grand Army increased continuously, requiring the presentation of many new Eagles. Forty-four were presented in the period to the infantry alone; to the regiments of the Line bearing numbers from the 113th to 156th; besides others to the regiments of the “Middle Guard” and “Young Guard,” and to two additional regiments of Cuirassiers. In every case Napoleon, in accordance with the stipulation that he so insisted on, made the presentation in person, with his own hand.

In not a few instances, indeed, the ceremony took place on campaign; and for one of these exceptionally interesting occasions we have available the notes of an eye-witness. It was at the presentation of the Eagle of the 126th Regiment of the Line, in Germany, in 1813.

Napoleon made his appearance in his campaigning uniform, the dark green undress of the Chasseurs of the Guard, and mounted as usual on a grey charger. His staff, all brilliant in full dress, attended him. Approaching the scene at a canter, they all slowed down to a walk as they neared where the regiment stood, with its battalions parading every available man, and drawn up to form three sides of a hollow square. The new Eagle, enveloped in the leather casing in which it had been brought from France, lay on a pile of drums on one flank of the First Battalion, and a little in advance. The fourth, or open, side of the square was for the Imperial staff, who drew up there, while the Emperor by himself rode into the middle of the square. As Napoleon reined up, the regimental drums beat the Appel, and the officers of the regiment stepped to the front, with swords at the carry, and formed in line before the Emperor.

Marshal Berthier, Chief of the Head-quarter Staff, then rode across to where the Eagle lay. He dismounted to receive it at the hands of the First Porte-Aigle, the Eagle being uncased at the same time. Berthier saluted the Eagle; then, holding it erect with both hands, the marshal bore it ceremoniously along in front of the row of officers, who saluted with lowered swords as the Eagle passed, the drums of the regiment now beating a long roll. Halting close in front of Napoleon, Berthier inclined the Eagle forward in salute, and the Emperor, on his side, uncovered and bowed in return. Then, drawing his glove from his left hand, Napoleon raised his hand and extended it towards the Eagle. He held the reins, according to his custom, in his right hand. Napoleon began his address to the corps in a deep, impressive tone:

“Soldiers of the 126th Regiment of the Line, I entrust to you the Eagle of France! It is to serve to you ever as your rallying-point. You swear to me never to abandon it, but with life! You swear never to suffer an affront to it for the honour of France! You swear ever to prefer death for it to dishonour! You swear!” The last words were pronounced with a peculiar stress, in a very solemn tone, with intense energy.

Instantly the officers of the regiment replied. Holding their swords on high, with one voice they shouted: “We swear!”

The next moment the words were taken up and repeated enthusiastically by the men: “We swear!”

Berthier, on that, formally handed the Eagle over to the colonel of the regiment, and the Emperor, raising his hand to his hat in salute to the Eagle, turned to rejoin the Staff and ride off elsewhere.

On the afternoon before the three days’ battle of Leipsic opened, on October 15, 1813, Napoleon, on the Marchfeldt, in the very presence of the enemy, presented with these formalities new Eagles to three newly raised regiments.