Mr. Zucker's first obligation was the four seminars of the War College: these took about two hours to present and at least as many to prepare, given the 20 pounds of research notes brought along. Two seminars plus a run to stock The Gamers booth, consumed the first day. (Great thanks to 'The Gamers' for representing us at the show and to 'The Guard Tower' of Columbus for acting as a ship point for our games.)

Thursday, 5 July

2:30-4:30 pm: Belgium, June 1815: The Waterloo Campaign Starts to unravel The critical battles of Quatre Bras & Ligny may have been determined as much by the chance encounters, accidents and delays of the day preceeding them as by the tactical skill of the fighting men in battle.

Historians have regarded the concentration of the French Army prior to the 16th as a masterpiece of brilliant planning, but when we examine the actual results of the day, critical goals were not met, and this in turn allowed the Prussian I Corps to escape, to cover the concentration of their comrades at Sombreffe and Ligny, and prevented an entire French Corps from being able to engage on the 16th.

The presentation examined the terrain, the armies, the marches of concentration, delays of 13 June, and the mishaps of 15 June, including Bourmont's defection and Vandamme's missing orders. Go to http://www.NapoleonGames.com/

7:30-9:30 pm: Saxony, 1813: From Dresden to Leipzig

The 1813 Campaign was the only Napoleonic campaign interrupted by an armistice and then resumed. After the disastrous Russian campaign, a brand new army had to be created and those troops needed more training. That new army was especially weak in cavalry and Napoleon used the period of the armistice to attempt to build up the cavalry arm, as well as strengthening the other arms.

The 1813 campaign is also marked by an instance rare in Napoleonic campaigns, in that the Elbe River served as both the army's supply lifeline and at times as the strategic screen behind which the army defended. This had hazards which showed themselves in October when Blucher's Army did cross the Elbe, cutting off Dresden from its barge traffic up the Elbe.

Napoleon's Army was thereby forced to withdraw from Southern Germany, as his administration could no longer supply the troops in the vicinity of Dresden. The battle of Leipzig was the result of the withdrawal back toward the army's supply source at Erfurt.

Friday, 6 July 10:30-12:30 pm: Russia, 1812. The Opening Moves and Massive Attrition

Because of the scarcity of the road network, in 1812 Napoleon made the mistake of concentrating a huge force along a single road in the opening of the campaign. In the first 45 days his main army lost 90,000 men to attrition.

Please go to the following website location where you can read a synopsis of the campaign: http://www.napoleongames.com/HTK_Hist.html

3:00-6:00 pm:

In Hall D, in a table space kindly shared by The Gamers, I demonstrated a few turns of Highway to the Kremlin. John Prados was kind enough to join me, and a bunch of other Napoleonic enthusiasts as well (see attached jpeg photo of K Zucker.

Photo Credit: Russ Lockwood of http://www.MagWeb.com)

In the evening I met Mario Valee and Luc Olivier for dinner. Our waitress, who greeted us with a gum-smacking midwestern twang, soon overheard our table talk, and thenceforth spoke to us in perfectly beautiful French.

Saturday, 7 July 8:30-10:30 am. East Prussia, 1807. The Russians Learn How to Beat Napoleon

This could be better said, 'The Russians Learned how to beat the French,' or 'Learned How to Avoid Defeat by Napoleon.'

The Russians developed a method of operations that would later, in 1813, be codified as the Tractenberg Plan. Simply stated, if an allied force is facing a French force commanded by Napoleon in person, then that force will withdraw along its LOC while other allied forces advance against Napoleon's subordinates in other areas.

In 1807 however the Russian and Prussian forces were so small, particular the Prussian army (a small corps in size) and with but one army the Allies did not have the opportunity to advance on secondary fronts, except before Eylau, when they made a sneak march across the strategic front. This almost succeeded in the destruction of Bernadotte's I Corps; and in addition, at the battle of Pultusk, Bennigsen was successful in fighting a battle against the lone corps of Lannes.

The Tractenberg plan was also known as the Fabian strategy (after the Roman general Fabius, who did everything but fight against the Carthaginians invading Italy). This Fabian strategy was very successful in 1813, and whether through intention or sheer accident, was also the strategy employed by Barclay in 1812. It is certain that Barclay was familiar with the Fabian strategy. He had long discussions with the amateur historian and state banker, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, while recovering from his wounds in Koenigsberg in 1807.

A lively discussion ensued in Q&A format at the end of each seminar. One topic was the question of what happened to Davout. Why was not Davout used operationally after 1812?

Marshal Davout was commander of Hamburg in 1813, of critical strategic import because it was the port of entry into the Elbe. He was commander of besieged Hamburg until the end of the 1814 campaign. In 1815 he played no active role in the campaign, instead he was in charge of an important base, that being Paris. Napoleon viewed him as a person he could trust implicitly in an important role, but not as an active force leader in the field. Napoleon never addressed this issue in any memoir, perhaps to spare Davout's reputation. Marshal Davout was commander of the rearguard toward the end of October, 1812. He was held to have abandoned Ney, and his reputation was besmirched. Shortly after that Davout's I Corps dissolved when they reached Smolensk, turning into a band of marauders. Davout may have lost his edge somewhere along the way home in 1812.

Saturday 9:00 pm 'til dawn

Attended an epic game of 'La Guerre de l'Empereur,' between ... Dan Raspler (France), Christopher Moeller (Prussia), Sean Smith (Russia), Brian Woodward (Spain), Jeff Yandora (Britain), Kurt Mericli (Ottomans), Paul Kraus (Austria).