Salah

Today I read of an incident that occurred in 1813, when Prussian soldiers refused to accept the surrender of a group of French soldiers and slaughtered them with their bayonets and musket-butts. Apparently the French died screaming for mercy.

How often did events like this occur during the Napoleonic Wars? What kind of treatment could a prisoner expect?

Nemowork

Prussians wore the deaths head for a reason!

As an aside i'm not sure why your asking, the morality of taking prisoners is specific to the time and place and not only to the morality of the time but to the physical capabilty of the unit who won!

If they dont have the spare manpower to guard prisoners, if they dont have the spare food to acccept another bunch of useless mouths behind the lines, if the force you belong to has so offended the morals of force you have surrendered to, then youve rolled the dice between living and dying and lost. Thems the breaks, it happens!

howard38

He's asking because he wants to know. It seems to have happened quite a bit. Sometimes it was expediency as Nemowork mentioned but other times it was simple hatred and/or revenge. During Napoleon's invasion of Russia it was reported that Cossacks would sell prisoners of war to Russian peasants who would then torture them to death.

caldrail

I don't know a great deal about this but I am aware that older warships were used by the british t house french prisoners in floating prisons. Conditions were understandably pretty horrendous.

There was however a purpose built prison constructed during that time to address that very issue. From the television documentary I saw it did little to achieve much as a sizeable proportion of the prisoners died from illness before they were repatriated, and there was little control of violence within the barrack rooms that served as cells.

xander.XVII

In Napoleon's biography I read that prisoners were frequently captured (Ulm above all) up to the point that Napoleon was amazed when, during 1812 campaign he hadn't captured many Russian prisoners.
Yet, lacking a specific rules, these episodes didn't have to be rare, unfortunately.
In Spain, prisoners were almost always slaughtered.

Rongo

In the Egyptian campaign at Jaffa, Napoleon ordered the execution of 2,500 Turkish soldiers who had surrendered. Supplies were short and he didn't have the capacity to handle them. They were taken to a secluded beach and shot or bayonetted.

There were other isolated incidents like this throughout the Napoleonic Wars (as there have been in most wars). But the vast majority of captured soldiers were held as prisoners of war.

howard38

Shortly before the Napoleonic Wars the British used old ships and converted buildings to house American prisoners (whom they regarded as traitors rather than POWs). The conditions were so atrocious that more Americans died in prisons than in battles.

harbinger

At austerlitz amazed at russian tenacity davout ordered to spare no prisoners and take none.

irishcrusader95

its funny enough the different views western armies had on prisoners to eastern ones. during the egyptian campaign most of the muslim forces didn't even seem to understand the concept of POWs. during the siege of Acre a group of about 100 french soldiers became cut off in a house in Acre and were soon surrounded by angry arabs who were baying for their blood. it took a group of british soldiers to come and take there surrender which spared there lives. it was in a sense racist that both sides would view the arabs as barbarians and so often not accommodate them POW status yet it should be remembered that the arabs neither expected such treatment or gave it in turn

Mosquito

During the Spanish campaign the British were accusing Polish soldiers, especially the lancers for not taking prisoners or/ and killing them. Not sure if its truth but it seems that some incidents really did happen. However during the pursuit after broken enemy regiment the uhlans were not supposed to stop and taking prisoners but to finish fleeing enemy.