#Bacler d'Albe

[northernmariette]

The Administrative Structure of Napoleon’s Army (1)

Turning again to my copy of The Illustrated Napoleon, here is what its author David G, Chandler has to say about the part of the army dedicated to its administration: 

A complete survey of Napoleon’s methods of war must include the nerve centre that directed this impressive war machine, La Grande Armee. The direction, administration and coordination of forces that eventually numbered more than half a million men was a daunting task in the days before radio or telegraphy, and the fact that there were many deficiencies of control is less amazing than that the system worked at all. [...] The ministers of war and marine were situated in Paris, but their activities were taken up mainly with the administration of the conscription laws together with the equipment, supply and movement of men and the overall logistical support of the forces, rather than with matters of policy; for, from first to last, Napoleon kept the tighest personal control over the strategic direction of France’s wars, on both land and sea, so that from 1804 his imperial headquarters, or Grand-Quartier-General, was the supreme authority for the issue of his directives, at least in time of active war.

By 1812, the Grand-Quartier-General had expanded from some 250 officers and men to the size of a small army corps. In its heyday it comprised three main sections: the maison, Napoleon’s personal headquarters; the general headquarters, the responsibility of Marshal Berthier, chief of staff; and the general administrative headquarters, under the intendant, for some time the province of Count Daru.

So we have the administration divided into three parts; I will post about the first here, and about the other two at a later time.

The maison was by far the most important; through it Napoleon ruled France as well as directed his campaigns. It was divided into two main, and a number of subsidiary, parts. The true nerve center, the “sanctuary of genius”, as it has been called, was the emperor’s cabinet, including the Bureau Topographique, or map office, This was small in size, comprising a few dozen key advisors, including civilians, of whom the most important after Berthier (who was ex-officio a member of both senior sections of the general staff) was the obscure General Bacler d’Albe, with whom Napoleon conducted his twice-daily planning sessions. Second, there was the emperor’s personal household - the officers, officials and servants responsible for his personal well-being and service under the supervision of the marshal of the palace, Duroc, and including a considerable number of general officers serving as aides de camp. There were also attendant staffs provided by the key ministries in Paris - the Treasury, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military ministries. In 1812, when the staff was at its largest, some of these institutions were kept well in the rear - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for instance, never moving farther forward than Vilna, hard by the Russo-Polish frontier.

David G. Chandler, The Illustrated Napoleon. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1973, 1990. P. 86

Berthier knew all about maps, of course, and was quite expert at reading and creating them; for example, when he was fighting alongside Washington’s forces in America, he and his brother surveyed and mapped for the first time some of its Atlantic coast, at their own initiative and request, when there was a lull in the action. I suppose other officers might have enjoyed the respite, but the King of Workaholics would never be happy sitting around doing nothing.

Bacler d’Albe was also a talented painter, and his battles scenes and landscapes survive. 

Might representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been more useful at Napoleon’s side when he was waiting in vain for the Tsar to capitulate during the Russian campaign? I have to wonder; but by that time, nobody could tell Napoleon anything.

[microcosme11]

Louis Bacler d’Albe

Artist (he painted the portrait of Bonaparte) and topographer. From historyofwar.org:

General Louis-Albert-Ghislain Bacler d'Albe (1761-1824) was the head of Napoleon's topographical bureau from 1804 and one of his most important staff officers.

Bacler d'Albe was an artist before the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars. He joined the French Army in 1793, and was almost immediately employed in the topographical and geographical services.

Bacler d'Albe served in Italy in 1794-96, during Napoleon's first campaign in Italy. He then worked for Napoleon for most of the rest of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

In September 1804 he became head of Napoleon's Topographical Department, with responsibility for producing and updating maps of any campaign area, complete with the positions of friendly and enemy troops. He also had to make sure that all the equipment Napoleon might require for map work were present each day, along with Napoleon's valued carnets, notebooks that contained details of every French and enemy unit. He was also often given the job of working out times and distances.

He became one of Napoleon's most trusted and valued subordinates, and on campaign was normally the first man Napoleon summoned in the morning, and the last at night. At first he worked alone, despite his heavy workload, but eventually he was given two assistants.

General Fain describes the two men crawling across the top of the map table to get closer to the fine details, sometimes bumping heads as they looked at the same information.

Although Napoleon depended heavily on his campaign headquarters and its small staff, he didn't promote or reward its members very well. Bacler d'Albe was made a baron in 1809, but he wasn't promoted to general of brigade until 1813, despite playing a key part in most of Napoleon's most famous campaigns.

Bacler d'Albe's oldest son Joseph-Albert served as an aide-de-camp to Philippe Ségur during the 1812 invasion of Russia.

Bacler d'Albe's career survived the fall of Napoleon. He was made director of the Dépot de la Guerre 1814 and served the Bourbons until his retirement in 1820.

This map says “residence of Buonaparte” and I can’t believe Bacler d’Albe wrote that on the original map (this was a lithograph or something).

[illustratus]

Eve of the Battle of Austerlitz, 1805

by Louis Albert Guislain Bacler d'Albe

Napoleon I visiting the bivouacs of the army in the evening, the day before the Battle of Austerlitz on 1 December, 1805. Found in the collection of Musee de l'Histoire de France, Chateau de Versailles

[napoleondidthat]

A Day In the Life of Part 2

If there was need for a map, the emperor's cartographer,  Louis Albert Bacler d'Albe, was summoned.  After finding the requisite map in the cases of a room which was little more than a passage between the bedroom and the study, he would spread it on the large, sturdy table built for the purpose and produce a pincushion full of pins with different-coloured heads, together with colored pencils and a pair of compasses to measure distances. If it was a large map, though would both climb onto the table and lie down on it. 'More than once I saw them both lying on that great table, interrupting their work with a sudden exclamation only when one of their heads hit the other too hard,' records Fain.

At nine o'clock the chamberlain of the day would scratch on the door to announce that it was time for the lever. Napoleon would pass into the larger study or salon, where the chefs de service of the court would be waiting to receive their orders for the day, along with those of the ministers who had something to report or orders to receive. The room contained two tables covered in green cloth placed diagonally in the corners at the end nearest his private study, and which Napoleon would sit and interrogate a minister or make him sit and take dictation. But on the whole he would receive people standing up in order to save time. The minister of police and the prefect of the Seine were always there to regale him with the latest information and gossip on the night's doings. Unless he needed to discuss some matter at length,  the lever might last as little as five minutes, after which he would go back to his study to work. He breakfasted in a few minutes, taking only one cup of strong coffee. On Thursdays there was a grand lever,  to which all those who had entry would come, which included most of the court. The morning's work usually concluded in an interview with the secretary of state, Maret, a man some loathed but who was perfectly mannered and was one of the few who enjoyed Napoleon's complete confidence.

Napoleon dined at six or seven, usually with Josephine, and with members of his family on Sundays. The dinner consisted of no more than two or three dishes, and usually lasted closer to fifteen than twenty minutes. Sometimes not a word was uttered. After dinner he might go back to work or join the empress in her salon. At the end of the evening there was a brief coucher, at which he would give the heads of the household service their orders for the next day. He was normally in bed by ten o'clock. 'In his private life, Napoleon was almost a military monk and everyone in his immediate service had to accommodate themselves to his rule,' recorded Fain.

The workload did not prevent the military monk from going to the theatre, hunting, planning new works, and even philandering. The new sleeping arrangement gave him greater freedom, and he used it. He would take advantage of some of Josephine's young ladies-in-waiting, who were in no position to resist. He also liked going with Duroc to the public masked balls at the Opera, where he acted as though nobody could recognise him, propositioning women and spreading salacious gossip. At one of these, early in 1806, he met Eleonore de la Plaigne, a nineteen-year-old protegee of Caroline Murat, newly married to a dragoon captain by the name of Revel, by all accounts an undesirable character. Shortly after Napoleon had noticed her, the captain was arrested, demoted, and roughly dealt with by the police before being pressured into divorcing her. Eleonore was taken in by the Murats as a member of their household and lodged in a small pavilion on their house at Neuilly, where Napoleon visited her.

'He would sometimes spend a whole day without working, but without leaving the palace or even his study,' according to Meneval. 'He might go and spend an hour with the empress, then he would come back, sit down on his settee and either fell asleep or seemed to for a while. He would then come and perch on a corner of my desk, or on the arm of my chair, sometimes even on my knees. He would then put his arm around my neck and amuse himself by playfully pulling my ear or smacking me on the shoulder or on the cheek.' He would wander about the room, pull out a book, quote from it and discuss it, or declaim some verses by Corneille, and sometimes he would sing--horribly out of tune.

Napoleon, A Life, Adam Zamoyski, pages 406-408

[philoursmars]

Quelques photos de l’expo sur Napoléon à Arras, au Musée des Beaux-Arts : 

- Joseph Chinard - "Eugène de Beauharnais”

- Jean-Charles Tardieu - "halte de l'Armée Française à Syène”

- 3 photos: Louis-François Lejeune -  "Bataille des Pyramides”

- Louis-François Lejeune - “Bataille de la Moskova”

- Louis-Albert-Guislain Bacler d'Albe - "Napoléon 1er visitant les bivouacs,la veille de la bataille d'Austerlitz”

- Louis Rochet - ''Napoléon Bonaparte à Brienne”

- mobilier d’époque

[made-in-france]

Bonaparte, général en chel de l'armée d'Italie, par Bacler Albe

[valinaraii]

Louis Albert Guislain Bacler d'Albe: Portrait of the General Bonaparte, 1796 -1797. General, cartograph and painter, Bacler d'Albe was one of Napoleon's collaborators and his strategic advisor. They had met at Toulon in 1793. Bacler d'Albe remained loyal; with the fall of the Empire in 1815, he was ruined (and spied by the Bourbon's police). He survived selling his engravings. As an artist, he not only painted battles and landscapes, but also mythological paintings that apparently have been lost. One of his works is this portrait from 1796 or 1797, inspired in the one by Gros.

Image source