Since my last visit to Eastern Europe, travel restrictions to Napoleonic battlefields have eased considerably. As one follows Napoleon's march toward Jena (1806), one crosses the old border delineating the Iron Curtain not far from the Fulda Gap. Here, according to the U.S. Army, was where World War III would begin had the Russians decided to invade. Watch towers (those on the eastern side facing inward to keep people from fleeing to freedom) and border fortifications are visible but now abandoned. New perils exist. Eager to finance the cost of rebuilding Germany, police picked our non- German car from the traffic stream to stop and collect a hefty fine for "speeding". It used to be one bribed Communist border guards, now one pays the police. "Plus ca change, ca change rien." Oh, well... Still my travelling companion - veteran wargamer Ralph Reinertsen - and myself could not help but notice how the border today still delineates prosperity (financed by the Marshall Plan) from Communist squalor. This is changing fast. Evidence of West German investment in the east abounds. But while our focus was on events nearly 200 years distant, it was instructive to see, for a last time, what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. Suffice it to say, it's a good thing indeed that the West won the Cold War. In 1806 Napoleon arranged his army in the famous "battalion carre" - army corps spread out in diamond formation on parallel roads, all within one day's march of one another - and advanced on Leipzig. The indecisive Prussian high command first advanced and then retreated until reaching the ancient town in Weimar. From Weimar, the Prussian main body set off toward Auerstadt while a detatched wing went to Jena to act as flank guard. The main body took a terribly long time to accomplish it's march, even through it faced no opposition. We followed its route, expecting to find some explanation - a defile, swampy ground, numerous stream crossings - to account for this delay. Instead we found a well-drained, ridgetop road. The Prussian delay was completely due to poor staff work. Meanwhile, Marshal Lannes arrived in Jena and reported to Napoleon that he faced 30,000 men. Napoleon hastened to Lannes, and together they climbed the Landgrafenberg. From this vantage point, Napoleon deduced that he confronted the Prussian main body. It is easy to understand why. The Landgrafenberg is a dominating height (a partially dismantled Russian communications center sits atop it). Yet from it one can see the field only incompletely. A series of steep ridges compartmentalize the battlefield terrain. Action in one sector could not be viewed by officers in another sector. The Prussian picket line was about one kilometer distant atop a parallel ridge. Working from period map, after action reports, and the later work performed by the Prussian General Staff, we could rather percisely mark the rival positions. What Napoleon saw were some deployed light cavalry, a few batteries, and the heads of several infantry columns posted between the small woods on the far ridge. He guessed that behind them - that is behind the woods and on the backside of the ridge - was the balance of the Prussian host. He was wrong. Let me interject a wargaming note here. If one were to refight Jena in the conventional manner-figures laid out, the players having a bird's eye view - it would be a pretty dull affair, as Napoleon outnumbers his opponent 2.5 to 1. But give a wargamer the intelligence Napoleon possessed, and show him the view Napoleon saw (best done with terrain scopes) and it would be a bold player indeed who launched an immediate, all-out assault against the Prussian position. During the night, Napoleon packed his men behind the Landgrafenberg. Walking this ground today one appreciates how restricted was the French deployment area. Many French veterans recall that seldom were they ever massed in such a restricted area, with the noses of one division pressing the backsides of the division in front. Here, for a change, was a crowded scene like that one so often sees on the wargaming table! The main action at Jena centered around several small villages; Isserstadt, Lutzeroda, and Vierzehnheiligen. While Augereau attacked the first of these, Lannes assaulted the latter two villages. It was a tough fight. Augereau botched things up, his sector includes some particularly complex terrain, while Lannes captured and then lost Vierzehnheiligen. As the fighting ebbed and flowed, Ney ... de his celebrated appearance. Michael Ney is usually regarded as an inept hothead. The standard accounts of his Jena performance have him marching blindly onto the field and charging like an enraged bull. In fact, here as on most fields, he proved an exceedingly capable tactician. A Prussian battery had been enfilading Lanne's line of advance. Ney correctly saw it as the tactical key. He supervised a cavalry charge that skillfully took advantage of a covered flank approach. Walking the ground, one is reminded yet again, how a small terrain feature - in this case, a slight ravine- usually not shown on any battle map, can make an enormous difference. Once the battery fell, Lannes recaptured Vierzehnheiligen. Around that village took place one of the best known encounters of the Napoleonic Wars. It was a contest between the linear tactics of Frederick the Great and those of the French Revolution. The Prussian "walking muskets" stood in line and fired volleys, while the French in the village exhibited their light infantry tactics that relied upon the individual genius of the Grande Armee's well trained infantry. A church in Vierzehnheiligen, which surely served as a rallying point for the defenders, displays pitted scars from the Prussian volleys and one embedded cannon ball. Standing at the end of one of the alleys facing the Prussian line, one can squint and see the ghosts of the brave Prussian musketeers standing 100 years away on dead level ground as they close ranks on their colors while the concealed and dispersed French fusiliers fire from within this ancient barn or behind the banked hedge just over there. Auerstadt In contrast to the confused, undulating terrain of Jena is the field of Auerstadt. Here Davout's corps fought the balance of Brunswick's army while Davout's master won Jena. The village of Hassenhausen provided some shelter to the French infantry, but most of the field is devoid of useful cover. The ground where Blucher dashed his cavalry into impotence against Gudin's squares is slightly sloping. Blucher could clearly see what he was up against, but instead of waiting for artillery and infantry support, chose to charge. Friant's decisive flank march skirted some wooded ridges and a series of small villages. His movement would have been hard to see from the Prussian position, particularly since frontal pressure from Gudin and Morand occupied Prussian attention. After examining this ground, one can only condemn the Prussian officers and praise the tactical flexibility of the French. Unlike Jena, Auerstsdt itself is a monument to the Prussian fallen during the 1870 war. Certain family names recur repeatedly; that war took a fearful harvest from the local people. Ralph translated the monument's inscription for me: through their conduct the fallen "in 1870 revenged the stain of 1806". Dresden Our tour continued to Dresden where the bridge over which Napoleon galloped in 1813 to receive the cheers of St. Cyr's hard pressed defenders stands, but little else remains. Dresden's suburban sprawl covers the battlefield, allied bombers in WWII leveled most of the Saxon Royal Palace in the city center. Only the rubble remains where Napoleon met with the loyal King of Saxony. The Grosser Garten, that key feature jutting out from Dresden toward the Allied line from which handy French columns could strike the flank of the attackers, remains. Because it featured such prolonged fighting and because the West Point Atlas shows a solid line around its borders, I expected the Grosser Garten to be contained within a formidable wall. Not! St. Cyr's ability to delay the allies had to be due to the skirmish skill of the 1813 conscript relative to the still stiff tactics of the reformed Prussian Army. Even though the new Prussian organization assigned over one-third of its battle strength to the skirmish role, in the tree-studded Grosser Garten, the French remained their masters. Leipzig, that greatest of all Napoleonic battles, proved a disappointment. Here, too, the village center has expanded to cover most of the fighting fields. However, the terrain is remarkably flat and reminds that there were generally two types of battlefields during the Napoleonic Wars: rolling, spacious terrain like Jena and Austerlitz; and compact, flat terrain like Leipzig and Wagram. Maneuver dominated the former, artillery - that great killer of Napoleonic battle - - held sway on the latter. Lutzen, the first engagement of 1813, is well worth a visit. The justly criticized French failure to scout the terrain south of Gross Gorschen (the direction from where the surprise allied offensive struck) becomes a little more explicable. From Gross Gorschen toward the south, the terrain appears level and seemingly cannot conceal a large enemy force. In fact, if one follows the farm tracks running south, after a march of less than a mile, an entirely new vista emerges. The French encamped on a plateau, although this is not apparent from the villages where the tired conscripts rested. South, beyond view of Gross Gorschen, lies a vast sunken plain that could and did conceal an army. In wargaming terms, this is one of the few battles where one player should be allowed to charge from off the tabletop onto the battlefield. Bautzen Bautzen also rewards the visitor. As with all Napoleonic battlefields, one must work out the maneuvers oneself. They are not signed and posted like an American Civil War field. But I think this teaches a deeper understanding. We stood in the midst of the allied battleline, the front slope of a vast but gentle ridge. Our maps and battle accounts clearly spoke of extensive allied field works. Gazing around we saw nothing except some small copses. Climbing the gentle slope, as did the soldiers of Marmont, Oudinot, and later the Imperial Guard, we reached a heretofore concealed embankment and fell into the Russian artillery redoubts! Eroded by time, but still quite recognizable, they offered a superb field of fire. It is moments like these that make special battlefield visits. Much of what today's wargamers know about a historical period seems to derive from published rule sets. But there is much more information available that will increase understanding and enhance the pleasure of wargaming a particular period. Histories, maps, orders of battle, and first-hand accounts may or may not be at your local library and bookstore. They can be borrowed by inter-library loan or purchased through special order. Prepare your campaign as did the great captains of history by study and analysis. Then visit as many battlefields as you can, whether here in North America or in Europe. Nothing is more instructive than a walk over the ground that we wargamers try to recreate on our tabletops. You will return full of ideas about how to model the field's features, with a deeper appreciation of the era's tactics, and with an informed opinion of the triumphs and errors of the soldiers who commanded on the battlefields of history. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #58 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com