Why Weren't Archers Used in the Napoleonic Wars?

Since warfare in the gunpowder was about densely-packed unarmoured infantry, wouldn't archers have been the perfect counter?

===
Follow me on Facebook:

Twitter:

[NUSensei]

*An account of the deployment of horse archers by the Russian Empire against the French:*
"During our stay on the plateau of Pilnitz, the enemy, and above all the Russians, received many reinforcements, the main one, led by General Benningsen was of not less than 60, 000 men, and was composed of the corps of Doctoroff and Tolsto and the reserve of Prince Labanoff. This reserve came from beyond Moscow and included in its ranks a large number of Tartars and Baskirs, armed only with bows and arrows.

I have never understood with what aim the Russian government brought from so far and at such great expense these masses of irregular cavalry, who having neither sabres nor lances nor any kind of firearm, were unable to stand up against trained soldiers, and served only to strip the countryside and starve the regular forces, which alone were capable of resisting a European enemy. Our soldiers were not in the least alarmed at the sight of these semi-barbarous Asiatics, whom they nicknamed cupids, because of their bows and arrows.

Nevertheless, these newcomers, who did not yet know the French, had been so indoctrinated by their leaders, almost as ignorant as themselves, that they expected to see us take flight at their approach; and so they could not wait to attack us. From the very day of their arrival in sight of our troops they launched themselves in swarms against them, but having been everywhere repulsed by gunfire, the Baskirs left a great number of dead on the ground.

...I had these [prisoners] brought to the Emperor, who, after examining them expressed his surprise at the spectacle of these wretched horsemen who were sent, with no other arms than bows and arrows, to fight European soldiers armed with sabres, lances, guns, and pistols!…"

- The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot

[piotrgradkowski]

Was it a coincidence, that your shirt somehow resembles a uniform from the Napoleonic era? Buttons, color scheme, collar, shoulder straps...

[alexanderflack]

Honestly, part of the reason why casualties from archery were so low in medieval battles is probably the universal use of textile armor. Even if the arrow penetrates it, the gambeson still often stopped it before it got deep enough to cause lethal damage. Against Napoleonic era uniforms that wouldn't be a problem, but France could probably produce armor faster than Britain could produce archers if they tried that.

Another consideration is mobility on the battlefield. Archers could protect themselves from cavalry and other enemies that get too close, but only if they prepare the area in advance with stakes and trenches, and carry swords and other sidearms. Muskets, on the other hand, could mount bayonets in order to protect from closing enemies even while moving.

With regard to logistics, I would point out that importing yew staves from the continent during certain phases of the Napoleonic wars would be...problematic. To say nothing of the fact that the yew populations there still hadn't even come close to recovering from the hit they took the last time the English decided to go all in on the longbow.

Excellent video, with a lot of good points.

[Treblaine]

I don't see how any Napoleonic era commander would possibly think "I want all the qualities of archers", here is the problems they had:

Excess Range
Combat range was far greater than they wanted. They knew their musket were not accurate at range yet when troops started coming under fire at 300 yards the troops tended to really not want to advance, often to get them to not flee they'd shoot back. This wasn't the plan. If archers were stuck at this range they'd be utterly useless, that's beyond their maximum range. Archers really didn't solve this problem.

Ammunition consumption
Commanders knew they were getting through tens of thousands of rounds but very few enemy casualties, it was a clear they were consuming ammunition at an unsustainable rate and not getting much results for this. Having a weapon that shot even faster was not an enticing prosect, they knew a musket volley was extremely effective if within range. They didn't need to shoot faster, they needed to miss LESS.

Manpower shortages
There were continual challenges getting enough men, and the training they were getting was overwhelmingly focused on maneuver. That took enough time. This was the focus, they really wanted troops to just bite the bullet, take moderate casualties and close in enough for a knockout blow. This overwhelming focus depended on good marching formation, discipline and confidence. Adding on top of this an archery training regime? It's only going to make the commander's problems worse.

Elite Rifle Companies
There were elite troops and these were overwhelmingly in rifle companies, these were soldiers who had skills very similar to archers in that they were able to estimate distance and intuit how much drop compensation to give to their shot. But this skill when applied to a rifle gave far greater effective range and solved the problem of combat being at excessive range.

Rebellion
Right in the middle of the Hundreds Years War there was the Peasant's Revolt where large numbers of commoners decided they'd had enough of the system and started lopping off the heads of noblemen, and they could do this because they were the backbone of the armed forces of England. It was a near run thing for the king and a major part of how effective this was depended on how they were all generally very well armed and you couldn't disarm them, they could just make another bow. I think the last thing they wanted as a result of the Napoleonic war was having all these young men going home and finding 90% of them didn't have the vote but they did know how to shoot a bow. If they depended on guns to fight you could just take their guns when they left the army and then what are they gonna do?

[Marmocet]

Military archery continued to be used alongside firearms in China, Japan, the Ottoman Empire and throughout the Eurasian Steppe region until the around mid to late 19th century. Europe and European derived nations were actually rather unusual in abandoning military archery for firearms so early.

[feralgrandad]

By the time we got to the Napoleonic Wars Warfare was so effective the french invented a whole new way to medically treat the wounded. The term "triage" was invented at this time. Also, it should be remembered that Napoleon was an Artillery Officer his whole career. Dealing with a load of archers at range would have been a relatively simple matter for him. He'd just blown them of the battlefield. While an interesting academic exercise and a great topic for a video, firearms totally eclipsed the Bow. Bernard Cornwell reckoned you could train a combat archer in as little 6 years. You can teach a man to shoot a firearm in weeks and fight as a unit in months. Nice video David. Im enjoying these history based ones very much.

[spitfiresergi]

I remember reading somewhere that Ben Franklin actually wanted to raise a company or two of fur trappers and use them as archers during the American revolution, but I think you nailed it… In reality there’s no way it could’ve worked out in such a short time. Would’ve been an interesting scenario though!

[mangalores-x_x]

I feel there is a big mystification of the bow and a downplaying of this dirty, industrial tool, the musket. The musket was accurate enough within the ranges a war archer would normally operate in (100 meters) and if archers would try to exploit greater ranged shots they would face cannon. So they weren't better at either range against modern weapons while needing years of training and armies having grown by an order of magnitude into the hundreds of thousands in total.


I also have the impression that foot archers did not fare that well in battles of maneuvers. Swiss pikemen which would be mostly unarmored militia became the supreme fighting force and model emulated by others in the 15th century by charging enemy formations at rapid pace and outmaneuvering the enemy. It's from these pikemen it developed into pike and shot and then musket with bayonets backed by artillery.


So even contemporary to the English longbow we see this different doctrine which then became dominant by the late 15th century and drove the European arms race of the following centuries, while the bow was pretty much abandoned with the English being more of a rarity and not a defining military force in that time. Everyone copied the Swiss, then the Landsknecht, then the Tercios, then the Dutch, then the Swedes and then we are firmly in the musket era, pretty much none copied the English at that time.

[OneOneThree-wlml]

I'd be curious to hear what Nu thinks about the Native American's ability to fight off European colonists!

[dmitryliashko]

Well, a bow WAS used in the Napoleonic wars. It is true for Enland, who didnt use a bow for centuries to that date. But. During 1812 Campaign Russian army used not only traditional regimetns like musketeers, grenadiers, hussars etc. Cossacks are well known by westernies, but not much talk about irregular nomad cavalry like Bashkirs, Tatars and others. Most of them still lived a nomadic live, dealing with a horses and bows from childhood. Equipment of bashkir warrior included a horse, a bow, a pike, a saber and rarely a musket or pistol for some. Of course, a cavalry archer not a go-to guy for a big battle with guns, but during all Russian Campaign there was not many really big battles, but thousands of small guerilla fights, and light cavalry, especially if equipped with bows, was exactly what Russians needed to overcome half a million army without winning a big battle. I dont mean that bow was a weapon that had a major role o something, but it WAS used, and I belive was quite effective for some purpose.

[redhongkong]

crossbow doesnt need much trainning, and rapid firing crossbow are best against early firearms.

[musikSkool]

What about six shooter cowboys to quickdraw in current wars?

[kategrant]

One important aspect you overlooked about Napoleonic warfare that makes a BIG advantage for the musket, and that's the Bayonet. Bayonet charges were not occasional things in Napoleonic Warfare, but they were decisive parts of battle. It was not uncommon for the best line infantry to fire a single volley and then simply charge, and it was the bayonet charge that did most of the casualties.

This was the real radical transformation that took place in the 18th century. Line infantry didn't simply fill the roll of the traditional 'shot' but 'pike' as well. What would trained archers carry to defend themselves from what is effectively a tight formation of spearmen charging at them? Nothing, really.

So any group of archers would have to stick very closely behind line infantry to have any hope of taking part in the battle.

[timothym]

The other idea that comes to my mind is that even if it worked for one battle, it would be a "one trick pony". If it was effective they would be immediately targeted by artillery or faced with muskets with a simple mobile palisade etc.. They were an old weapon and as such it wouldn't have been difficult for an enemy to know how to counter them. One advantage of gunpowder weapons is that they can often punch through shields and other equipment that would stop arrows.

[thedictationofallah]

Muskets were actually really accurate if reloaded in a certain way (Using a part of the flax plant). The musket gets bad rep because they were "inaccurate", that was only the case in linear warfare with line battles and such, because they wanted to reload as quickly as possible, and the reloading process used paper cartridges, which made the gun quite inaccurate. But if given enough training (The same amount of time as bows) many men could be excellent shooters.

[MikoArcher]

Horse archers took part in the war with Napoleon from the Russian Empire and showed a very high efficiency in sabotage operations.

[Malamockq]

A better question would be... why use archers? They were long obsolete by that time. Bows had a slighter higher rate of fire and... that's it. In every other aspect, muskets were superior, and yes, contrary to popular belief, muskets were more accurate than bows. In order to even be remotely accurate with a bow, you had to train your entire life, and even then a bunch of peasants with muskets could outrange you, had greater lethality, and greater accuracy.

[BillHalliwell]

G'day David, Extremely interesting video. As a military historian I can't think of one instance where battlefield technology went 'backwards'. In fact, one of the main reasons why modern era warfare so devastating was that doctrine always lagged way behind weapons' technology.
Your logistics argument really put the logical cap on this thought experiment. No archery factories; no master archers; no military archery instructors also rendered the concept impossible.
Well, in at least one instance, there was an exception. If you modern archers out there want to win bets in pubs then you can tell the story of the Lt.Col. in the British Army who was the last British soldier to carry a bow, arrows and a broad sword into battle in several theatres during WW2 !
Thanks for another great video.
Cheers, BH

P.S. I liked your modern day French army shirt.

[a.g.cleaveland]

I think one point that bears mentioning is that even if archers did join the fight, and did provide enough of an advantage that the English won, Napoleon would have started to gear for the new form of combat. Just in the same way armor and weapons in the midieval age co-evolved, so would happen later.

[ankitsrivastava]

Very insightful...thank you! I can't help but think about how apt some of these arguments will be in the future when we compare energy weapons to current day projectile weapons :)