The Last Days of the Grande Armee Copyright © 1999, OPERATIONAL STUDIES GROUP Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. Reprinted with permission from the publisher More information about OSG's board wargame is available on their web site: http://www.charm.net/~kzucker/osg/games.htm THE OPPOSING ARMIES The Anglo-Allied Army of the Low Countries Wellington’s Army comprised troops of many nationalities, speaking four principle languages—Englishmen, Dutch, Germans and French-speaking Belgians. The Germans were troops of the armies of Brunswick and Hanover. The King’s German Legion—raised also in Hanover—had served in the Peninsular War in the service of King George III who ruled as Duke of Hanover. The Netherlands had just been forcibly united with Belgium in March, upon word of Napoleon’s return to France. The unification forged between Dutch and Belgian units—many of which had fought under Napoleon the year before, and still wore their French-style uniforms—was necessarily fragile. Two Nassau units came from the German principality lying along the east bank of the Rhine opposite Koblenz. The line troops had been in the Netherlands service for a long time, and were commanded by a German Prince, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. The two Landwehr (militia) battalions under Kruse had just joined the army at the beginning of June. Among the English Troops, 15 understrength battalions remained in Holland after the 1814 campaign; in the Spring of 1815, these were shifted into Belgium and filled up with young conscripts. Three regiments had just returned from America upon the conclusion of the War of 1812-1814 (two of these were in Adam’s brigade of Clinton’s division). The cadre of these 26 battalions were veterans of the Spanish campaign, and they were the best troops available to Wellington. Veterans accounted for only about 60% of British troops; whereas all the KGL troops were veterans, most of the other contingents were green troops. Wellington welded this diverse force into a unified command by attaching one brigade of KGL and one of Hanoverian troops to each brigade of British regulars. These divisions were dispersed in their cantonments and needed half a day from receipt of their march orders to get underway. It would take days to assemble the entire army. The town of Quatre Bras was selected as the central concentration point, just five miles west of the Prussian Army's focus. The Prussian Army of the Lower Rhine Blücher’s Army included many troops from the minor German states who had fought on the other side in years past. About 57% of the Army were regular troops and the remainder militia or Landwehr. Some of these were solid veterans while those raised from territories recently-acquired by Prussia were of questionable reliability. There was no question about the leadership of the army however, beginning with the fire-breathing Marshal Blücher and his chief of staff, Gneisenau, who had been a part of the commission that re-built the Prussian Army after its defeat in 1807. Had Blücher not eluded capture at Ligny, however, it is unlikely that Gneisenau—who disliked the British—would have marched so speedily to their aid on the 18th. The Prussian Army occupied a wedge-shaped cantonment area along the Sambre and Meuse Rivers, with two brigades at its westernmost point extending to Charleroi and Fontaine l’Eveque, to cover the hinge with the Anglo-Allied cantonments. The objective of this deployment was to delay any advance through Charleroi long enough for the two armies to concentrate on Quatre Bras and Sombreffe, which lie just nine miles apart. If allowed to unite their forces, the Anglo-Prussians would be able to oppose the French in a single body of 220,000 men. The zone between Charleroi, Sombreffe, and Quatre Bras was the critical lynch-pin that the French would have to sieze. The French Armée du Nord The 128,165 men of L‘Armée du Nord, virtually all of them veterans, represented less than one-quarter of the manpower available to La Grande Armée. About 66,000 men of the line were required in the depots of the regiments, and up to 69,000 more line troops were assigned to other field armies, along with 50,000 mobilized National Guards. In the numerous fortresses on the frontiers, 85,500 National Guards were placed in garrison alongside 108,000 second and third line troops. A further 12,000 veterans, 46,000 conscripts, and 32,000 newly-mobilized National Guards stood in reserve or were still in formation in the depots. The quality and devotion of the rank and file of L’Armée du Nord was not matched by the skill and dedication of their commanders. The years of constant warfare had taken their toll, and many great leaders who had survived did not rally to Napoleon in 1815. The commanding generals of his I and II Corps, d’Erlon and Reille, had never before commanded at that level, though Vandamme and Gérard were experienced and capable. At Imperial Headquarters, among the 73 officers only 12 (17%) had as much as 8 years experience on the General Staff. The others were working together for the first time. Most notably absent was Marshal Berthier, who had taken care of the details for Napoleon since 1796. It is arguable that the critical errors committed by the inexperienced staff, and their inept Chief, Marshal Soult, cost Napoleon the campaign. The Emperor himself was not at his best in these warm early days of summer. His physical condition was deteriorating, leaving him without the stamina for long hours in the saddle and nights spent dictating orders. Aside from making a poor choice of Marshals—Ney and Grouchy—to lead the Army’s two wings, he compounded this by directing Marshal Grouchy beyond supporting distance after Ligny, detaching more than one third of his army in the wrong direction, and then failing to provide further orders to that Marshal during the 17th. Having chosen Marshal Ney—whose great tactical skill was only for defensive fights—to lead his offensive battle at Waterloo, he retired for a nap at a crucial moment. Ney conducted the mid-phase of the battle like a rear-guard action in the Peninsular Campaign, failing to provide infantry support for his spectacular cavalry charges. Wellington’s achievements in Spain loomed darkly over the heads of all Frenchmen who had fought against him. With too much respect for the Allied generalissimo, each man had come to expect a British trap over the next rise. In the end that turned out to be the case. THE CAMPAIGN Like a well-constructed tragedy, the campaign unfolded in five acts with Prologue and Epilogue. Prologue: The French forces began converging on the border with Belgium, and the border was sealed. On the 12th, Napoleon left Paris and moved to his Army’s Center of Operations at Avesnes. Act One: The French march of concentration: On June 15th, the French Army was unleashed across the Sambre River. At their first encounter, Allied screening forces sent out the warning to their respective Headquarters, and fell back toward their advancing compatriots. Act Two: Allied reaction and French Advance: The Allies executed a forward concentration behind the cover of their respective screens. As the 16th dawned, troops of both sides still converged on the battlefields of Ligny and Quatre Bras. The French had marched 16 miles since the previous morning. Act Three: The Battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny: The French attacked on two fronts simultaneously. The tenacious defense of Quatre Bras by the Anglo-Allied troops saved the Prussians from receiving the full weight of the Armée du Nord. Napoleon’s hoped-for knock-out blow remained undelivered. The Campaign would continue. Act Four: The Allied retreat and French pursuit: The Allies withdrew in tandem, on parallel routes north, and Napoleon separated the two wings of his army, ordering Marshal Grouchy on the track on the Prussians while he pursued Wellington. Grouchy’s prescribed route, through Gembloux, was wide of the mark, and took him to the outer flank, allowing the Prussians to interpose themselves between the two French wings. Act Five: The Battle of Waterloo: While Grouchy engaged the Prussian rear-guard at Wavre, Wellington fought a successful defensive battle at Waterloo, managing to cling to his ridge until the arrival of Blücher. Epilogue: The French retreated—the routed forces of Napoleon back toward Charleroi; the intact wing of Grouchy in a south-easterly direction, toward Namur. PROLOGUE: JUNE 9th, 1815 Napoleon ordered a general concentration of the army around Beaumont on June 9th. The initial concentration area given to the left wing—I and II Corps—was west of Charleroi, at Valenciennes and Avenes, about 44 and 34 miles west of Charleroi, respectively. This concentration was designed to portend an attack near Mons, threatening Wellington’s communications, which ran toward the North Sea coast at Ostend. On the right wing, III Corps moved up to Rocroi, 40 miles south of Charleroi, and IV Corps approached from Metz. The cavalry and VI Corps bivouacked in the center, while Rapp’s V Corps remained on the Rhine to face the oncoming Austrians. Napoleon with his Imperial Guard remained in Paris as long as possible, finally departing Paris en route to the army at 03.30 on June 12, 1815. His departure would announce to the whole world the commencement of the campaign. Passing through Soissons, depot for the Armée du Nord, the Emperor arrived in Laon, another important stage on the line of communications, at Noon the same day. He spent the 13th at Avesnes, the Army’s Center of Operations, looking to the administrative arrangements for his army’s supply. Napoleon arrived with the Guard at Beaumont on the 14th, the concentration point of his army. The formation adopted by Napoleon for this campaign comprised two wings and a reserve—the left, under Ney, with two corps and the Guard light cavalry; the right, under Grouchy, also with two corps and an extra division of cavalry; and the reserve, comprising the Guard, the Cavalry Reserve, and the understrength VI Corps. In comparison to the formation of prior years, this one lacked a critical element, namely, an advanced guard of two corps at the point. To Continue: Go to OSG's web site: http://www.charm.net/~kzucker/osg/ld_hn3.htm The intermix between game and history unfolds on OSG's pages. Back to Wargame Design List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Operational Studies Group. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com