A Wonderful Collection of Napoleonic War 'Grande Armee' Cuirassier & Officer's Pistols, & Cuirassier Dragoon Musket, Crimean War General's Sword, Waterloo Hussar's Sword. Arriving Next Week

Plus, a Napoleonic Wars officers sword of a British Light Dragoon regiment, plus 19th century British swords, helmets and Japanese swords. Including, the sword of the Colonel of the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards in the Crimean War, {see pictures 8 and 9} later Major General, {see portrait picture 6}. We show a Portrait of Major Hodge of the 7th Light Dragoons with his same mameluke sword {see portrait picture 7} Before 1815, during the Napoleonic Wars and the Battle of Waterloo, the Mameluke-hilted sword was a fashionable, often personal, choice for British light cavalry officers (such as Hussars) and high-ranking staff officers, rather than a standard infantry rifle officer's weapon. The style was adopted following campaigns in Egypt and India, influenced by Napoleon's Mameluke units and the personal preference of the Duke of Wellington

The Grande Armée was formed in 1804 from the L'Armée des côtes de l'Océan (Army of the Ocean Coasts), a force of over 100,000 men that Napoleon had assembled for the proposed invasion of Britain. Napoleon later deployed the army in Central Europe to eliminate the combined threat of Austria and Russia, which were part of the Third Coalition formed against France. Thereafter, the Grande Armée was the principal military force deployed in the campaigns of 1806/7, the French invasion of Spain, and 1809, where it earned its prestige, and in the conflicts of 1812, 1813–14, and 1815. In practice, however, the term Grande Armée is used in English to refer to all the multinational forces gathered by Napoleon in his campaigns.

Upon its formation, the Grande Armée consisted of six corps under the command of Napoleon's marshals and senior generals. When the Austrian and Russian armies began preparations to invade France in late 1805, the Grande Armée was quickly ordered across the Rhine into southern Germany, leading to Napoleon's victories at Ulm and Austerlitz. The French Army grew as Napoleon seized power across Europe, recruiting troops from occupied and allied nations; it reached its peak of one million men at the start of the Russian campaign in 1812,3 with the Grande Armée reaching its height of 413,000 French soldiers and over 600,000 men overall when including foreign recruits.4

In summer of 1812, the Grande Armée marched slowly east, and the Russians fell back with its approach. After the capture of Smolensk and victory at Borodino, the French reached Moscow on 14 September 1812. However, the army was already drastically reduced by skirmishes with the Russians, disease (principally typhus), desertion, heat, exhaustion, and long communication lines. The army spent a month in Moscow but was ultimately forced to march back westward. Cold, starvation, and disease, as well as constant harassment by Cossacks and Russian partisans, resulted in the Grande Armée's utter destruction as a fighting force. Only 120,000 men survived to leave Russia (excluding early deserters); of these, 50,000 were Austrians, Prussians, and other Germans, 20,000 were Poles, and just 35,000 were French. As many as 380,000 died in the campaign.

Code: 26183