Friedland

It was decided to start with a 'what if' scenario for this battle; that is what if the Russians had attacked immediately with Bagration's Advance Guard (17,000) and the available cavalry at about 5.30am rather than wait for the bulk of the Rusisan Army to get across the Alle and attack at 9am. The organisers decided to give the Russians 15-20 periods for this attack to do as much damage as possible, after which there would be an enforced game pause and a move to late afternoon for the arrival of Ney, Victor and the Guard.

The initial attack took place against Posthenen and the Russian cavalry got stuck in against Grouchy and later on Nansouty. There were mixed results for both sides, Lannes was severely mauled in Posthenen but held on to the town and the largely Light Russian Cavalry hardly shone against the French Heavies of Grouchy and Nansouty although the former took heavy losses. The Russian cavalry of the left wing was largely destroyed but it did disrupt the French reinforcement and their orders did specify that 'losses were irrelevant'.

The Russian Commander was disappointed with the progress of the initial attack; but this was more than compensated for by the arrival of the weak but colourful corps of Mortier which after a flank move arrived from the North. It advanced on its own towards the bulk of the unengaged Russian army which was settling into it defensive positions North of Friedland. The Russian Heavy Cavalry and its horse batteries immediately advanced to strip away the small contingent of Cavalry with the corps (Grouchy's Dragoons and Beaumonts Hussars had been taken away from Mortier and were in action on the other side of the battlefield).

With its cavalry gone, virtually the whole of Mortier's Corps had to form square in the face of 7 Regiments of Russan Heavy Cavalry and 5 Regiments of Light. The Russians lumbered up 5 batteries of artillery and pounded the French squares and as they broke the Russian Cavalry moved in. Only a Brigade managed to escape and headed towards Heinrichdorf.

It was at this point that the battle should have paused and moved forward several hours to allow the full French reinforcements to arrive. Fortunately for the Russians, Napoleon decided to carry on fighting with what he had immediately to hand; this was to prove not enough. The French attack was somewhat uncoordinated first the newly arrived Saxon Division attempted to assault the Russian line unsupported by artillery and came to grief; then Nansouty's Cuirassier Division became obsessed with trying to take on single handedly two Russian Position Batteries, persistence and a fair number of Cuirassier corpses later the guns were finally broken. By this time the Russians had already formed another line behind this and having so much artillery the loss was insignificant.

By the time the major French reinforcements started to arrive, the French found that they had wasted so much 'game time' on relatively ineffectual attacks that there was no time left to fight on with the new arrivals. The Umpires called a halt to the proceedings as the 'real' evening drew in and declared a marginal Russian victory, based on the steady Russian line and the destruction of a French Corps.

We are currently thinking of playing a Friedland II to allow the French to try and finish off their attack.

The battle involved the following figures:

French: 1150 Infantry, 140 Gunners, 330 Cavalry

Russian: 830 Infantry, 279 Gunners, 270 Cavalry