The Last Arrow At Dawn

segolden · The Last Arrow At Dawn

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Plate above is of a Cossack light cavalry trooper, steel engraving c. 1850, from ATARN website’s photo archive. The typical Cossack dress is obvious, as are the Asian Steppe composite bow, covered quiver, saber and horsewhip. Not shown but part of every Cossack trooper’s kit is the two-foot-long .70-caliber flintlock horse-pistol that was so popular with most clan members prior to the general issue of short muskets.

No member of Napoleon’s 591,000-man Grand Army would have suspected at the beginning of Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia that such warriors from another era would become their nemesis, much less that only 22,000 French soldiers would survive the campaign. Then again, nothing about the Emperor’s plans seemed to go as he’d thought.

There are many websites and thousands of books devoted to the Napoleonic wars. Buried in the data and among a few soldiers’ diaries are comments about the slash-and-retreat tactics of the Cossack cavalry during the retreat from Moscow, how whole units of French troops were isolated and cut down by saber and bayonet, some disappearing amongst the cold, deadly white of the Russian winter without any clue of their fate. Many died trying to beg food from peasants, kidnapped and executed ruthlessly. Many more perished from eating frozen rations, or wounds kept from healing by the artic temperatures. Huge losses at contested river crossings and major battles contributed to the disaster, as did each small skirmish that left a few more to be buried anonymously under the snow until Spring.

Still, despite shell and musket ball, shrapnel and grapeshot, freezing sleet and smothering snow, the strangest and most dreaded killer was the Cossack arrow. The diaries tell of how the Steppe-riders came in sudden rushes from ambush, their ponies fit on field stubble and foraged grass from under the snow, wearing leather and felt snowshoes over their hooves. Officers and subalterns fell first under the archers’ fire, allowing sword and pistol to do their work among the rest in a lightning charge. Then the riders would vanish among the barren trees and falling flakes, not to be seen again for hours or days. It was death by a thousand cuts, never stopping, only momentary in relenting.

One French officer, writing long after the miserable end of the campaign, said that for every man in his regiment that died of a bullet, another died of a Cossack arrow. It was a common theme, but long ignored, the last great contribution of military archery before the dawn of total warfare.

Liam

You got me hooked now Steve, archery history rolled into a war story, now thats my cup of tea, I could sit here for hours reading stuff like this

JimN

Poor Dawn

Liam

You gonna be in trouble when she gets back

segolden

Oh boy, there went the free drinks.

Liam