French Imperial Eagle

• 1. Introduction

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  The French Imperial Eagle stood just 310 mm tall and weighed under two kilograms. Yet Napoleon told his troops on the 5th of December 1804 that they must defend it with their lives. What was it about this bronze bird that made entire regiments swear such an oath? And what happened when they failed to keep it?

  The eagle was not merely a trophy or decoration. It occupied the same place in a French regiment's identity that the regimental colours held in a British one. To lose the eagle was to lose the regiment's honour. To capture one was among the highest feats a soldier could claim. This documentary follows the eagle from Napoleon's coronation ceremony through the battlefields of Europe and into the locked collections of museums on two continents, including one museum from which it has not been returned.

• 2. Born From Roman Tradition

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  Three days after his coronation, Napoleon I distributed the first eagles to his regiments. The design drew directly from the eagle standards carried by the legions of ancient Rome. Napoleon wanted his new Imperial regime to feel the weight of that history, and his speech at the presentation insisted that the troops treat these objects as something worth dying for. That event was painted by Jacques-Louis David and titled The Distribution of the Eagle Standards, completed in 1810.

  The original design was sculpted by Antoine-Denis Chaudet. The castings were produced in the workshop of Pierre-Philippe Thomire. Each eagle was a bronze figure with one claw resting on what the inscription called Jupiter's spindle. Six separately cast pieces assembled into a finished object 310 mm high and 255 mm wide, mounted at the top of a blue regimental flagpole. The regiment's number appeared on the base, or, for the Imperial Guard, the words Garde Imperiale.

  The total weight came to 1.85 kg. That a two-kilogram object could anchor the loyalty and courage of thousands of soldiers speaks to how powerfully Napoleon framed the ceremony of its presentation.

• 3. First Losses In the Field

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  Austerlitz in 1805, despite being one of Napoleon's greatest victories, saw the probable first loss of an eagle. Russian Imperial Guard cavalry under Grand Duke Konstantin overran the French 4th Line Infantry Regiment. France won the battle, but the Russians withdrew in good order, and the eagle was not recovered. Napoleon's personal regret at this loss is recorded in the sources.

  By 1807, the battlefield accounting grew more complicated. At the Battle of Heilsberg, one regiment was overrun by Prussian cavalry and Russian infantry together; the eagle was lost and several officers, including a colonel, were killed. Russian sources attributed the capture to a soldier named Anton Antonov. Prussian historians disagreed, crediting the Prittwitz Hussars instead. The competing claims were never resolved. At the Battle of Eylau, another regiment lost its eagle to a Russian unit. At the 1812 Battle of Krasnoi, the 18th Line Infantry Regiment lost its eagle when the regiment was described as being virtually destroyed.

  The Battle of Bailen in 1808 brought a different kind of loss. General Pierre Dupont de l'Etang surrendered an entire French corps to a Spanish army commanded by Francisco Javier Castanos and Theodor von Reding. Three eagles were handed over as part of the capitulation terms, stored in Seville Cathedral until French forces recovered them in 1810 and sent them back to Paris.

• 4. The British Captures

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  The first eagles taken by British troops fell during the 1809 invasion of Martinique, among them the eagle of the 82nd Line Infantry Regiment. But the most celebrated British capture came at the Battle of Barrosa on the 5th of March 1811.

  At Barrosa, Ensign Edward Keogh reached the eagle first. He managed to grip the shaft before he was shot and bayoneted, dying in the attempt. Sergeant Patrick Masterson of the 87th Regiment of Foot then killed several French soldiers and pulled the eagle from the hands of its bearer, a lieutenant named Gazan. The eagle was brought back to England and put on display at the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

  Some years later the eagle was stolen from the hospital, broken from its staff before disappearing. Rumours circulated that a Frenchman had taken it. More likely, the bronze was melted down and sold. The original staff survived and is now held at the Royal Irish Fusiliers Museum in Armagh, Northern Ireland.

  At Salamanca in July 1812, the Anglo-Portuguese Army took two more eagles. Credit for one of them was disputed for years. Ensign John Pratt of the 2/30th Regiment of Foot's light company was long said to have captured it, but that eagle was actually taken by Portuguese troops of the 12th Cacadores Battalion; it is displayed today at the Lancashire Infantry Museum in Preston. Lieutenant William Pearce of the 2/44th Regiment of Foot secured the other eagle at Salamanca; it is now in the Chelmsford Museum in Essex. Following the Allied recapture of Madrid on the 14th of August 1812, two more eagles were found, belonging to the 13th Dragoon Regiment.

• 5. Waterloo and the Final Eagles

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  When Napoleon returned to power during the Hundred Days in 1815, he had new eagles produced immediately. The originals had been destroyed on the orders of King Louis XVIII after Napoleon's first abdication. The replacement eagles were noticeably inferior: the beaks were closed rather than open, and the birds were set in a more crouched posture. The workmanship did not match the standards of Chaudet and Thomire.

  At Waterloo, two of these newer eagles fell. The French I Corps under Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d'Erlon was charged by British heavy cavalry commanded by Lord Uxbridge. Captain Alexander Kennedy Clark of the 1st The Royal Dragoons took one eagle; it is now held at the National Army Museum in Chelsea. Sergeant Charles Ewart of the Royal Scots Greys took the other; it is now at the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Museum in Edinburgh Castle.

  The eagle taken by Sergeant Masterson at Barrosa had a long afterlife, even in its absence. Before the Duke of Wellington died in 1852, he requested that all his battle trophies be carried in his funeral procession. Because Masterson's eagle had been stolen, a replica was commissioned. The mould was made by Garrard and Co, working from a sketch of the original drawn by an officer of the 87th Foot after Barrosa.

• 6. Living Regiments, Missing Birds

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  The regiments that captured eagles in battle carried that history forward in their uniforms and badges. The Blues and Royals, descended from the 1st Royal Dragoons, and the Royal Anglian Regiment, descended from the 44th Foot, both wear the eagle as an arm badge. The cap badge of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards carries an eagle in recognition of Ewart's capture at Waterloo. The Royal Irish Regiment wear the eagle of the 8th on the back pouch of the officers' black cross belt.

  One eagle has a very different kind of afterlife. A French Imperial Eagle belonging to the 1st Regiment de Grenadiers was among the items stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. That regiment had formed two squares at Waterloo, one of them around Napoleon himself. In May 2015, the museum offered a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for the eagle's safe return. It has not been found.