The loss of twelve Eagles in one battle made a deep and lasting impression upon Napoleon. That twelve of his cherished emblems, those mementoes of victorious Caesar, for whose prestige he had advanced such exacting claims, should have fallen en bloc into the hands of the enemy came as a galling blow to Napoleon’s military pride. Twelve Eagles reft from amid the bayonets of the Grand Army on one battlefield: twelve Eagles paraded together as trophies through the capital of an exulting foe! It was a poignantly felt humiliation for the mighty Imperator of the Field of Mars. And yet no default could be charged against the soldiers to whom these Eagles had been entrusted. All that men might do for their defence they had done. Most of the luckless battalions, indeed, had fought and fallen directly under the eyes of the Emperor himself, looking on from his post of vantage by the wall of Eylau churchyard.
Napoleon, however, had already realised that his distribution of an emblem to whose preservation he attached such extreme importance had been made on too lavish a scale. He had been imprudent in distributing such hostages to fortune broadcast; there were too many Eagles on offer to the enemy. Napoleon, indeed, had already tacitly admitted that. Within two months of the opening of the first campaign of the Grand Army—during the Austerlitz campaign—immediately after Murat’s daring gallop on Vienna, Napoleon had summarily directed all the light cavalry Eagles to be sent back from the front. Every Hussar and Chasseur regiment was ordered to return its three squadron Eagles to head-quarters forthwith, for sending back to France. In future, a new Army regulation laid down, those corps would not take their Eagles into the field at all. The regulation after that was extended to Dragoons; and later to all Light Infantry battalions. No doubt it was a step dictated by prudence. In these corps particularly, from the nature of the duties they had normally to perform, the Eagles were peculiarly exposed to risk of isolation and capture.
What had happened at Eylau, and several narrow escapes in hand-to-hand combats at Friedland, together with certain other incidents in that battle which had come under Napoleon’s personal notice, where, through a nervous anxiety for the safety of their Eagles, some battalion commanders had kept back round them men whose bayonets were badly wanted elsewhere, led to a further step. Napoleon took advantage of the general scheme for the reorganisation of the Grand Army, which he carried out in 1808, to recast entirely his original arrangement as to the Eagles. He reduced the numbers by two-thirds.
NO MORE BATTALION EAGLES
Battalion Eagles were to be withdrawn in favour of Regimental Eagles. In the infantry, under the reorganisation scheme, there were to be five battalions to each regiment instead of three as heretofore; but there would be only one Eagle in future for the entire regiment. The existing Second and Third battalions were ordered to give up the Eagles they had hitherto carried, which would find a resting-place at the Invalides. The Regimental Eagle would be borne by the First Battalion. The other battalions would carry only “fanions,” small pennon-shaped flags. Each would have one “fanion,” a plain serge flag, of a distinctive colour for each battalion, without any mark or device on it, beyond the number of the battalion.
The Imperial edict, issued early in 1808, laid down that for the special protection of the Regimental Eagle in battle a commissioned officer and two picked veterans were to be appointed as the “Eagle-Guard,” replacing the sergeant-major and escort of the Battalion Eagles. The three were to be known as the First, Second, and Third Eagle-Bearers or “Porte-Aigles.” The officer to whose special charge the Regimental Eagle itself was committed was to be a senior lieutenant, “a man of proved valour, with not less than ten years’ Army service, including service on the battlefield in four campaigns,” specified as those of Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland. He would receive captain’s pay, and wear a gold-laced cocked hat and gold epaulettes. The two other Porte-Aigles were to be, in Napoleon’s own words, “deux braves,” of ten years’ service in the ranks, and “non-lettrés.” On the last qualification, indeed, Napoleon laid peculiar stress. The two were to be, as the Emperor himself put it, “men who could neither read nor write, so that their only hope of promotion should be through acts of special courage and devotion.” They would receive lieutenants’ pay, have special privileges, and wear four gold lace chevrons on their arms. Only the Emperor could nominate or degrade Porte-Aigles.
PENNONS TO FRIGHTEN HORSES
The Second and Third Porte-Aigles were to carry no weapons except heavy pistols, “to blow out the brains of an enemy attempting to lay hands on an Eagle.” These were Napoleon’s own words as to that, in his order of February 18, 1808: “Pour éviter que l’ardeur dans la mêlée ne les détourne de leur unique objet, de la garde de l’Aigle, le sabre et l’épée leurs sont interdits. Ils n’auront d’autres armes que plusieurs paires de pistolets, d’emploi que de veiller froidement a brûler la cervelle de celui qui avancerait la main pour saisir l’Aigle.” After the Wagram campaign of 1809 Napoleon substituted a helmet and defensive brass scale-epaulettes as the First Porte-Aigle’s equipment. He gave the two soldiers of the Eagle-Guard a halberd each, with a pennon or banderol attached—Red for the Second Porte-Aigle, White for the Third—as well as a sword and a pair of large-bore pistols. The pennons were for use should mounted men attack the Eagle; “for fluttering in front of the horses in order to make them rear and plunge and upset their riders.”[19]
Two more soldiers were added to the Eagle-Guard in 1813, as the Fourth and Fifth Porte-Aigles. They were armed with the same weapons as the others, and had respectively Yellow and Green pennons on their halberds.
Yet further to add to the prestige of the Eagles, Napoleon, after Wagram, decreed the institution of a Special Order of Military Merit, which he called the “Order of the Trois Toisons d’Or”—something on the lines of our own Victoria Cross—certain of the provisions of which had direct reference to the Eagles. The decoration was to be conferred on men, whatever their rank, “distinguished in the defence of the Eagle of their regiment.” Also, according to the 6th Article of the Constitution of the Order, “Les Aigles des régiments qui ont assisté avec distinction aux grandes batailles seront décorés de l’Ordre des Trois Toisons d’Or.”[20]