The French column attack was the signature tactic of Napoleonic infantry warfare. A French infantry battalion advanced to contact with the enemy in column of divisions — two companies abreast, about sixty to eighty men across the front, six to nine ranks deep — preceded by a cloud of voltigeur skirmishers picking at the enemy line and supported by artillery firing canister at point-blank range. The column delivered shock rather than firepower; only the first two ranks could actually use their muskets, but the depth and mass were intended to drive into the enemy formation with bayonets fixed and break it on contact. The tactic worked spectacularly against Continental armies still trained in the eighteenth-century line tradition — the columns broke open the Austrian and Prussian armies through Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram. It worked less well against the British, whose two-rank linear formation could deliver concentrated musketry from a wider frontage and stop the column before it reached bayonet range. From the Peninsula through Waterloo, the French column attack became the central tactical question of the war: would the column reach the line before the line broke it? The answer at Waterloo, on the slopes below the Allied position on Mont-Saint-Jean, was that the British line held.

This King & Country figure shows a French light infantryman advancing at port arms — the Charleville musket held diagonally across the body with bayonet fixed, the standard infantry position for moving forward in formation when ready to engage but not yet firing. The left foot is forward in mid-stride; the body is square to the line of advance; the eyes are forward on the objective. He wears the légère regulation: dark blue coat with red collar, cuffs, and turnbacks; red epaulettes; white waistcoat; white breeches; black tall gaiters; the tall black shako with red plume, red cords, and brass plate. The 1812-pattern sac with rolled greatcoat rides high on his back. He marches in the column behind the FLI Advancing Drummer beating the Pas de Charge, past the cover of the European Walls and Gates, toward the European Farmhouse ahead — the classic Napoleonic column attack on a fortified strongpoint.

Model: NA531 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set