Bagration vs. Lannes

Introduction

by Chris J. Hahn

A Shako Treatment of the Austro-Russian Right at Austerlitz

December 2nd of this year will mark the 197th anniversary of The Battle of Austerlitz. This decisive engagement is also known as The Battle of the Three Emperors, as Napoleon drove - in no little disorder - the combined armies of Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Kaiser Franz I of Austria from the frozen field.

It is purely a coincidence then that I sit down in mid-June to prepare this solo wargame narrative. A little over a month ago, I had no ideas about an end of year submission for the pages of MWAN. And then, (as happens more often than not, I'm discovering) while thumbing through the pages of the August 1999 issue of Wargames Illustrated, I ran across a short article by A. N. Other.

Mr. Other's article was really two separate pieces. The first concerned amendments to the popular and much-adapted-to-other-periods, Fire & Fury ACW Rules. The second piece of his article reconstructed the orders of battle for French and AustroRussian forces, using Fire & Fury scales, for the aforementioned encounter.

Initially, I considered following in Mr. Other's foot steps and drafted plans to re-fight this "pure" Napoleonic battle. He labels Austerlitz as more representative of the era and personage, for the encounter was won with forethought and finesse as opposed to frontal attacks, massed grand batteries and no finesse. Mr. Other adds that the battle is all the more "special" as Napoleon won against a numerically superior enemy. (30)

I will not argue against Mr. Other's opinion of The Battle of Austerlitz. He is, like each of us, entitled to have that opinion. I will however, argue against his statement concerning the "numerically superior enemy." This argument made in a friendly way though, as I must admit that it was his article which "started the ball rolling" on this current project.

RESEARCH AND SOURCE MATERIALSI

In examining the orders of battle provider by Mr. Other, I was perplexed by the almost complete lack of artillery for the armies involved. Taking the larger scale offered in Fire & Fury and calculating the number of French cannon on the field, I arrived at the less-than-100 number of 96 pieces. This struck me as simply wrong, for this was The Grande Armee that had marched from the coast of France, surrounded thousands of Austrians at Ulm and captured a number of other depots as well. Granted, there would have had to be a strong logistics train involved in the transport and supply of the army's batteries, but we are talking about Napoleon Bonaparte here. The Emperor of France did, after all, have first-hand knowledge of the workings of the artillery arm.

In an attempt to find evidence to counter the numbers cited by Mr. Other, I reviewed texts from my very small wargame / military history library. In Chapter 24, "It All Began with Austerlitz," of Alan Schom's very good Napoleon Bonaparte, it is reported that at the end of November, the artillery park of the Grande Armee numbered 139 guns. (409) While this text does support the contention that Napoleon was in fact outnumbered, two other sources contradict the finding.

I found the first of these two sources in a search of the Internet. I must confess my surprise and disappointment here, as there was a serious lack of source material found under the subject search, "order of battle, Austerlitz." There were a number of out of print books about the battle, but I was looking for something in print and something that was more current, in terms of scholarship. Failing then, at least for the moment, to secure reference works from a search of the Web, I took myself to Borders Books and Music and the often perused Military History section of that store.

In short order, I found a large collection of Osprey Campaign books. I was very happy to find a specific volume dedicated to the battle under consideration: Austerlitz 1805: The fate of empires, by Ian Castle and illustrated by Christa Hook. This text was reasonably priced, appeared to be well researched and more importantly, contained a detailed order of battle for the combatants as well as a number of maps covering the three main areas of the battle. It was subsequently purchased.

During the first reading of this text, I decided that I would use the SHAKO Rules for Napoleonic Wargaming, by Arty Conliffe. The reader may remember that these same rules (with scenario-specific modifications) were used to recreate the action at Quatre Bras. (Please see MWAN 107, pages 82-104.) Using the "scale" established in Mr. Conliffe's excellent rules set, I began to flesh-out an order of battle for this second SHAKO solo project.

Once again, artillery proved to be a point of contention during this phase of research. For example, in the Osprey text, Lannes ad-hoc corps of two infantry divisions and an attached cavalry division, has 23 pieces of artillery. Adding one to this number (historical license, I know ...) would provide three batteries of eight guns for each command. It seemed reasonable enough to think that each division would have its own artillery. The same logic could be applied to the divisions of the Cavalry Reserve under Murat. On review of the initial draft however, I wondered if this kind of logic was appropriate. That is to ask, if one is trying to reconstruct a major military engagement on the wargames table, would it not be best to find out just how many cannon Suchet had in support of his Line Regiments; how many cannon Nansouty had in support of his heavy cavalry? And likewise, what of Kellermann, Milhaud and the rest?

And so, a second trip was made to Borders.

On the very top shelf in a back-corner section of the Military History section, I found THE book on the battle. Scott Bowden's "The Glory Years" of 1805-1807, Volume I: Napoleon and Austerlitz, was secured and quickly perused during a lunch break. I was stunned by the size of the text. I was stunned by the depth of detail contained in the appendices. Mr. Bowden gives orders of battles - in the most complete form - for the forces involved in the campaign leading up to the action at Austerlitz and not just at Austerlitz itself. I was impressed by the apparent level of scholarship as well as by the fact that the foreword was by John R. Elting, Colonel (USA Ret).

I was also stunned and impressed by the price of the book.

Over the next few days, I mulled over the pros and cons of making the purchase and putting the money toward something else, like a Christmas fund. The Internet was revisited, now that I had a specific book title and author, in the hopes of finding a less expensive version of the Bowden text. "Used" copies were indeed available, but the problem here was one of time; up to six weeks for shipping in some cases. At the end of the third day of debate with myself, I decided that the book was an investment; that if I wanted to have a credible article for MWAN I had better utilize the best reference material(s) available; that I could use the text for other wargaming ideas, like gaming the action on the southern flank or in the center on the heights - or even the entire battle; and that "new" was definitely preferred over "used." It was back to Borders then, with a fair number of twenty dollar bills.

I was stunned yet again, for on this return visit, I was informed that someone had purchased the book the day before! When inquiries were made about ordering the book, I was informed that I could expect similar time lines to those involved with Internet orders. Barely containing my chagrin over this situation, I drove to another bookstore. Here again, I was informed that there would be a delay, but it would be days instead of weeks. I gave my name and number to the sales person and returned to the office.

In a little over a week, I received a call from the store, informing me that my order had arrived. In another week, having poured over the details of the orders of battle provided by Mr. Bowden's exhaustive and comprehensive research, I was ready to start building the forces for each side in the planned solo re-fight.

It is Bowden's text then, that became my main reference for this project. More specifically, it is the sub-chapter titled "Fighting on the Northern Flank" (pages 385 - 411), within the body of Chapter VIII, "It is Impossible to Make a Good Omelet Without Breaking a Great Many Eggs!" The Epic Battle of Austerlitz, that became the foundation for what follows.

Bagration vs. Lannes Shako Treatment of Right of Austerlitz

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© Copyright 2002 Hal Thinglum
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