The mounted officer rallying his men with drawn sword was the visible center of any Napoleonic infantry attack. Battalion and brigade commanders rode forward at the head of their units to lead from the front by personal example — a tactical necessity in an age when verbal orders could not carry through the noise of musketry and the commander's visible presence at a key moment could rally a wavering company or break a moment of panic. The cost was proportionally heavy: senior officers were specifically targeted by enemy sharpshooters with rifled weapons, were the natural focus of cavalry charges, and were almost as likely as private soldiers to be killed in action. Marshal Bessières's death at Rippach in 1813 — killed by a cannonball as he reconnoitered ahead of the army — was the kind of loss the French army absorbed regularly through the Napoleonic Wars. Of the eighteen marshals named by Napoleon in 1804, ten died in combat or from combat wounds during the Empire; many more general officers below that rank suffered the same fate. The mounted officer at the head of the line was the army's most exposed combat position. This King & Country figure shows a senior French officer mounted at the head of his command — bicorne hat worn fore-and-aft in the regulation officer's manner rather than Napoleon's athwartships habit, dark blue dress coat heavily laced with gold across the chest and at the collar and cuffs, gold epaulettes at the shoulders, white waistcoat with red sash, white breeches, black tall riding boots. The sword is drawn and raised in the rallying gesture; the brown horse stands ready beneath him; the gold-trimmed buff shabraque marks his Imperial Guard rank. He rallies his battalion of light infantry forward at the head of the column — the FLI Advancing Drummer beating the cadence and the FLI Advancing w/Musket Levelled infantryman advancing past him toward the European Farmhouse ahead. Model: NA367 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set
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