A battle of the imperial gendarmerie Villodrigo, October 23, 1812

A battle of the imperial gendarmerie Villodrigo, October 23, 1812

On July 14, 1913, the departmental gendarmerie received its flag from the newly elected President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré. It was decided on November 4 of the same year to inscribe four battles on this flag, by the military tradition established by Napoleon. Seeking to establish its military legitimacy, the gendarmerie recorded the battles of Hondschoote (September 8, 1793), Villodrigo (October 23, 1812), Taguin (May 16, 1843) and Sébastopol (1855) (1). If the first of these battles is a pitched battle, Sevastopol a siege, and Taguin an escort and pursuit operation, Villodrigo is a vanguard fight as part of a counter-offensive. The different types of "battle" presented here illustrate the diversity of the gendarmerie's military missions: from ranged troops to asymmetric warfare missions, corps, reconnaissance, vanguard, and escort. The “battle” of Villodrigo must be understood in the light of these different realities. Likewise, one must ask what Villodrigo is: a fight or a battle. Historiography shows frequent use of both terms for this feat of arms (2).

The “fight” of Villodrigo took place on October 23, 1812 in Castile. For the gendarmerie squadrons present, this is a first. Until now they have evolved in small units in an asymmetric conflict where the enemy does not constitute a united front but guerrilla units scattered across the territory.

From one type of war to another

The placing under the supervision of Spain desired by Napoleon resulted in the sending of French troops in 1807 to the Iberian Peninsula.

To this interference, the Spanish people responded with an exacerbated nationalist feeling which resulted in an increase in guerrilla operations and harassment of Napoleonic troops. The Emperor then decided to restore order by creating, by the imperial decree of November 24, 1809, a corps of twenty gendarmerie squadrons intended to serve in the north of the peninsula. Four months later, in March 1810, Napoleon charged the gendarmerie with pacifying five regions: Castile, Aragon, Navarre, the Basque provinces, and the province of Santander.

In November 1810, part of the gendarmerie squadrons in Spain were grouped to form the 1st Gendarmerie Legion of Spain, commonly called the Burgos Legion, since it was organized from this city. The mission of these squadrons will henceforth be to maintain order and then to protect the roads and convoys with escorts and fortified points (3). Overwhelmed by anti-French national sentiment and by the successes of the Anglo-Portuguese troops under Wellington's orders, the French troops were, on September 18, 1812, forced to evacuate Burgos. These troops pull themselves together at Miranda and cease their retrograde movement. Marshals Suchet and Soult coordinate their effort and plan a counterattack.

The army of Portugal under the orders of General Souham, reinforced by the Army of the North under Caffarelli, will have to lead a counter-offensive and project its vanguard composed of two cavalry brigades: one under the orders of Colonel Merlin, the other commanded by the gendarmerie colonel Jean-Alexis Béteille.

The Béteille brigade, a reinforcement unit of the Northern Army, is made up of 11 squadrons, for a total of 1,261 men. These squadrons come from the following units: the 1st Gendarmerie Legion of Spain, under the direct orders of Colonel Jean-Alexis Béteille, i.e. 6 squadrons and 501 men; the 15th regiment of horse hunters, under the orders of Colonel Faverot, i.e. 3 squadrons and 534 men; the light horse-lancers of Berg, under the orders of the squadron leader of Toll, i.e. 2 squadrons, 226 men (4).

The French army launched its counterattack and forced Wellington's troops to lift the siege of Burgos Castle. Béteille and his brigade were the first to pursue the Anglo-Portuguese rearguard made up of ten British and Hanoverian squadrons, two battalions, and six cannons.

Thus, the gendarmerie squadrons evolved for the first time since 1810 in a large body made up of cavalry. The gendarmes left their police and protection mission to carry out a vanguard cavalry fight as part of a general pursuit involving two enemy armies.

Overview of the facts

The rearguard of Wellington's army is under the command of Lieutenant-General Stapleton Cotton. This English general has under his command two cavalry brigades, an infantry brigade, and an artillery detachment, or 2,300 men.

With these combined arms components, Cotton decides to use a ruse four kilometers from Villodrigo to stop the French progression.

Trying to make people believe in a retreat, he placed General Halkett's infantry brigade behind a watercourse, the Hormazuela River, to attract the French, and concealed on each side of the road two cavalry brigades for the ambushed. Furthermore, the English artillery was ordered to shell the French cavalrymen within firing range.

The lack of allied coordination caused this stratagem to fail. Threatened by English artillery, the Béteille brigade vigorously charged the six squadrons of Major-General George Anson's brigade, bringing together eight hundred men (5). The English line is broken, Anson's brigade disbands, and Béteille's gendarmes cross the bridge that spans the river. In a burst of pride, Cotton sends the elite of the English cavalry, the red dragons, but it is too late: the English lines will be turned, and the brigades of the Northern army arrive to support that of Béteille.

Merlin's brigade, supported by that of Boyer, began an enveloping movement on the right of the Allied device. The Curto brigade arrives behind that of Béteille. A thousand British cavalrymen then fled in disorder and left 200 killed and 85 prisoners behind. The Béteille brigade, for its part, had 6 killed and 126 wounded (6). His colonel, wounded several times, was not spared.

Immediate recognition

Villodrigo consolidates the liberation of Burgos by General Souham and is part of a general movement of retaking of the places by the French in the north of Spain during the last months of 1812. However, the years 1813 and 1814 must be considered for the operations of French troops in Spain, no longer as years of conquest, but rather as years of defense of France (7).

Villodrigo-map

Thus, the men of the 1st Gendarmerie Legion in Spain returned definitively to France in December 1812, the resumption of army operations marking the end of the police missions of its squadrons.

Nevertheless, the Emperor recognized the commitment of Béteille's men to Villodrigo. On February 25, 1813, the cross of the Legion of Honor was awarded to all gendarmerie officers, as well as five non-commissioned officers, six brigadiers, and three gendarmes. The men of Villodrigo thus enter the pantheon of the gendarmerie.

Colonel Béteille's medical certificate testifies to the violence of this operation. Some archives allow us to understand the intensity of the fighting, or even the combat itself, more than others. This is the case for medical certificates found in personnel files and memoranda intended for the recognition of pension rights or obtaining decorations, which often give details not only of injuries but also of fights. The description of all these injuries provides information on combat techniques and underlines, on the one hand, that despite a health service often poorly supported by the administration (8), death is not inevitable for many seriously injured people. (9), on the other hand, gendarmerie Colonel Béteille has a solid fighting culture. This soldier of the Ancien Régime and the Revolution joined the gendarmerie in 1802. Previously, he distinguished himself in the cavalry but also the infantry during the campaigns of the Revolution, in Toulon, in the Alps, in Italy, and Egypt, as highlighted in its “Statement of Services” reproduced in the annex to this article.

With his culture as a horseman and infantryman, Colonel Béteille was able to go to the center of the enemy system at Villodrigo to cross it by force as evidenced by his wounds and basing his command on the power of the example.

In conclusion, threatened on its flanks by enemy cavalry, and in its ranks by artillery, Béteille had no other choice but to move with his troop into contact with the English. The vigor of his brigade's charge made it possible to break through the British lines and obtain the advantage by creating an effect of panic through the disorganization of the Allied system. The enumeration of Colonel Béteille's wounds is both the testimony of a command based on courage and example and the testimony of an effective tactic seeking to unbalance the adversary through the shock on its central positions.

If, by the number of men engaged, it is more appropriate to speak of "vanguard combat" for Villodrigo, by the tactics employed it is possible to speak of "battle" since Napoleonic paradigms are taken up in this operation: sinking of the lines, disorganization of the enemy and enveloping movement of one of the adversary's wings.

(1) Hondschoote: on September 8, 1793, the 32nd Gendarmerie Division contributed to the victory against the Anglo-Hanoverians; Villodrigo: on October 23, 1812, a legion of mounted police overthrew the English dragoons in Spain; Taguin: on May 16, 1843, thirty gendarmes participated in the capture of Abd el Kader's smala; Sevastopol: in 1855, two battalions of the foot gendarmerie regiment of the Imperial Guard participated in the assault and capture of the city. Subsequently, the mentions of Indochina and AFN will be included in the gendarmerie flag.

(2) On the battle and its different meanings, we can refer in particular to Ariane Boltanski, Yann Lagadec, Franck Mercier (dir.), The battle of the act of arms in ideological combat, 11th-19th century, Rennes, PUR, 2015, pp. 245-260. On the battle as a cultural object see also Hervé Drévillon, Battles: war scenes from the Round Table to the trenches, Paris, Seuil, 2007.

(3) The work of Gildas Lepetit has highlighted the different missions of the Spanish gendarmerie. See in particular Seizing the elusive. Gendarmerie and counter-guerrilla warfare in Spain at the time of Napoleon, Rennes, PUR, 2017. The author has shown that we can distinguish two campaigns for the gendarmes in Spain: from 1810 to 1812, counter-insurgency operations and successful policing; from 1812 to 1813, escort and protection missions in an increasingly unrestricted environment.

(4) Emmanuel Martin, The French gendarmerie in Spain and Portugal (campaigns from 1807 to 1814), Léautey, 1898.

(5) The Anson brigade is made up of the 11th Light Dragoons regiment (2 squadrons, 300 men), the 12th Light Dragoons regiment (2 squadrons, 280 men), and the 16th Light Dragoons regiment under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Pelly (2 squadrons, 220 men).

(6) “Combat of Villodrigo (October 23, 1812)”, Carnet de la Sabretache, vol. 5,‎ 1897, pp. 286-292.

(7) The first part of the year 1813 was still marked by territorial control operations. The Battle of Vitoria (June 21, 1813) marks the start of operations to defend France.

(8) Pierre-François Percy, Journal des campaigns, Paris, Tallandier, 2002.

(9) Henri Ducoulombier, A surgeon of the Grande Armée, Baron Pierre-François Percy, Paris, Éditions historique Teissèdre, 2004, pp.137-140. The author, by studying Percy's diary, analyzes the different wounds of the combatants that the surgeon of the Grande Armée treated, those caused by knives, bullets, and those caused following artillery fire. See also on this theme Jean-François Lemaire, “The wounds of war”, Army, war and society in the Napoleonic era, under the direction of Jacques-Olivier Boudon, Paris, Institut Napoléon, SPM, 2004. Finally on death in combat, we can refer to Michel Roucaud, “Death in the Napoleonic Armies, from Combat to Trauma”, Napoleonic Wars and Armies: New Perspectives, proceedings of the conference organized by the SHD at the military school on November 30, 2012, under the direction of Hervé Drévillon, Bertrand Fonck and Michel Roucaud, Paris, Nouveau Monde, 2013, pp. 271-296.

Béteille's injuries

Surgeon Major Degrusse, of the army of northern Spain, thus certified on December 27, 1812 in Vitoria that "Colonel Béteille, of the 1st legion of mounted gendarmerie, received, in the affair which took place in Villodrigo in October, the following injuries: 1. a blow from the tip of a saber penetrating the left hypochondrium (A); 2. a very large saber blow to the upper part of the head, which fractured the two tables of the upper part of the coronal and parietals in their entire extent, with considerable separation of these bones which exposed the brain, from which many splinters have already come out; 3. a saber blow which also fractured the scaly part of the left temporal bone; 4. a blow from the point of a saber which injured the upper eyelid of the left eye; 5. a saber blow which longitudinally divided the muscles covering the left brow bone; 6. a very large sword blow carried transversely, which by dividing the wings of the nose fractured the entire extent of the bone of the upper jaw on the left side and the scar will be adherent; 7. a saber blow which knocked down the tuft of the chin; 8. a saber blow to the middle posterior internal part of the left arm which divided the muscles transversely up to the humerus, of which the scar is adherent; 9. a saber blow which removed half of the 3rd phalanx of the left middle finger; 10. a sword cut that divided

longitudinally the muscles of the right thumb; 11. a saber blow which, penetrating between the pointer and the middle finger of the same hand, fractured the bones of the metacarpus from which several deposits occurred accompanied by serious accidents; 12. finally, another which reversed the muscles of the palm of the same hand. » (B) In this certificate, the surgeon adds: "All the cavalry almost passed over this brave colonel, who was left for dead on the field of honor, and who then had the misfortune of being dragged more than fifteen steps by soldiers. soldiers who tore off his boots. It is useless for me to relate here his old injuries, nor to dwell on the dangers he ran in his treatment; the man of the art by examining it gets a fair idea of ​​it. » (source: Defense Historical Service, SHD, GR 8 Yd 1458, career file of Brigadier General Béteille).

(A) The hypochondria are two regions of the abdomen.

(B) These injuries are presented in presumably chronological order: one to the stomach, six to the head with simultaneously five to the upper limbs. Thus it is possible to deduce that the rider fell from his horse following the first wound to the stomach and that he then received injuries to the head, caused by the blows of the enemy riders. At the same time, Béteille protected himself as confirmed by the defensive wounds present on his upper limbs.

Status of General Béteille's services

Béteille (Jean-Alexis, knight), brigadier general, horseman and gendarme. General Béteille was born in Rodez on August 7, 1763, and died in Paris on February 13, 1847, at the age of 84. He enlisted as a trooper in the Berri regiment on April 4, 1782. He was discharged on September 23, 1785. During the Revolution, he was appointed lieutenant in the 2nd battalion of Aveyron volunteers on January 23, 1792. He was promoted to captain on June 28, 1792. From 1792 to 1798, he was assigned to the Army of the Alps and Italy. Béteille was wounded by a bayonet in the left hand at the siege of Toulon in December 1793. He was transferred to the 56th half-brigade of battle on February 18, 1794; then to the 85th line demi-brigade on June 19, 1796. In May 1798, this officer served in the Army of the Orient and fought at the Battle of the Pyramids on July 21, 1798, then at the sieges of Jaffa and Saint-Jean of Acre. On September 25, 1799, he was injured by two shrapnel in the defense of Fort Marabout: one in the spine, the other on the left leg. On this occasion, he demonstrated bravery and tenacity in his command. On June 21, 1801, Béteille was promoted to battalion commander and returned to France at the end of that same year with the Army of the Orient. On March 30, 1802, he was assigned, at his request, as squadron leader to the 11th Gendarmerie Legion and served in the interior until the end of 1806. In 1804, Béteille was part of the first promotion of the Legion of Honor. From 1807 to 1808, he was appointed commander of the gendarmerie under Bernadotte in Germany. On September 5, 1809, Béteille was appointed commander of the 4th squadron of the Spanish gendarmerie. January 13, 1811, he was promoted to colonel, commanding the Burgos Legion which became the 1st Gendarmerie Legion in Spain. From 1810 to 1812, Béteille served under Drouet d'Erlon, then under Bessières in the army of Portugal, then that of the north. At the end of 1812, he was again in the Portuguese army. On October 23, 1812, Colonel Béteille received a wound in the abdomen, six wounds in the head, and five in the arms and hands while charging into the battle of Villodrigo where he was left for dead. On January 5, 1813, he was authorized to go to Rodez to restore his health.

He was appointed brigadier general on March 2, 1813, and received the Cross of the Legion of Honor. He was employed in the 9th military division on March 17 and took command of the department of Aveyron on April 14, then of a mobile column on August 21. General Béteille took part in the French campaign. On January 10, 1814, he was employed in the army of Lyon under Marshal Augereau. On April 28, 1814, General Béteille was placed on non-active duty. On July 29, 1814, he was made Knight of Saint-Louis and on August 23, 1814, Commander of the Legion of Honor. Béteille was employed on September 30 in the first military division and on February 16, 1815, he was appointed president of the review board of the 1st military division. During the Hundred Days, he was kept in the 1st military division (March 30). During the second Restoration, on September 14, 1815, he was placed in non-activity. On May 20, 1818, General Béteille was retired. Placed in the reserve cadre under Louis-Philippe, he retired again on March 22, 1831. General Béteille died on February 13, 1847, in Paris and was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in the 1st division. His ashes were transferred on October 23, 2009, Villodrigo's birthday, to the Rodez cemetery. The gendarmerie pays him military honors during this ceremony. Two barracks bear his name in the latter part of the 20th century (source: Defense Historical Service, SHD, GR 8 Yd 1458, career file of Brigadier General Béteille).