The Artillery
Organization - (Cont'd)
The allocation of so great a proportion of guns to the infantry meant that concentration of fire by 'massed battery' was almost impossible to achieve, even though as early as 1795 Archduke Charles had written of its utility. In the 1805 campaign, even though the four regiments had 16 companies, each had an establishment of 187 personnel, the establishment was still inadequate, and following the defeat of that year an overhaul was instituted, which at last withdrew most of the 'battalion guns'; and as by so doing the gunners lost their infantry manual labourers, a new Artillerie Handlanger Corps was formed in June 1808 to perform this duty, each Handlanger company being split to provide sufficient untrained crew for three batteries. Throughout the period, the artillery transport service remained a seperate unit, the Fuhrwesencorps or Feuerwerkscompagnie, which was only 'malitarised' in 1808. In 1809 the Transport (Fuhrwesen) Corps provided teams and drivers for these batteries. The corps was divided into Fuhrwesencorps Artillerie-Bespanungdivisin, each of 73 personnel and 180 horses, sufficient to move three batteries. The Fuhrwesencorps allocated to the 'cavalry batteries' had 200 men and 200 horses to move 2 batteries. The ratio of artillery pieces to men was at its peak, 3.5 to every one thousand men. Charles's reforms, accomplished prior to the 1809 campaign, assembled the 'battalion guns' into 8-gun 'brigade batteries', usually deployed at brigade level; the heavier guns were reorganised into 'support' and 'position batteries' of the artillery reserve, the former assigned at divisional or corps level and the latter forming the corps reserve.
Support batteries (Unterstutzungs Batterien), usually consisted of four 6pdrs. and two 7pdr. howitzers; the cavalry batteries (Cavalleriebatterien) of four light 6pdrs. and two short barreled 7pdr. howitzers; and the 'position' batteries usually of four 12pdrs. (occasionally 18 or 6pdrs.) and two 7pdr. howitzers. With the abandoning of the corps system after 1809, the support and position batteries wereconcentrated into a reserve park, and allocated to the Armee Abtheilungen of1813-14 much as to the previous corps, with the 8-gun brigade batteries remaining as before, except the innefective 3pdr. was replaced wherever possible by the 6pdr. These reforms ended the dissipation of fire resulting from the 'battalion guns' system though even after 1809 concentrated or 'massed battery' fire was only recommended, not made compulsory by the regulations.
Austrian artillery c.1800, showing the tobacco-brown coat with red facings which distinguished that branch of the Austrian army, here with the combed 1798 helmet of the infantry style, except that the rank and file of the artillery wore a red comb instead of the blanck-and-yellow of the infantry. The officer (at left), wears the universal Austrian gold sash with black interweaving; the gunner (at right) has his artillery tools in a 'holster' on a shoulder belt. The center figure is a driver of the 'Fuhrwesencorps' in light greay with yellow-over-black plume.
(Print after R. von Ottenfeld)
