Friedland

The Battle (Pictures)

This was our first drawn battle of the 200th anniversary series, and an interesting one it was too – we played the 2n Day and gave the Austrians the hope that AD John would arrive with his Corps in time to be of some use. Armed with this knowledge the Austrian commander decided to hold his ground on the right and centre and wait for John’s arrival on that flank. Not wishing to sit entirely on his hands all morning he ordered and attack on his left flank with the Austrian III Corp and committed all his reserve cavalry to that flank.

The French neatly fitted into these plans by choosing to attack where the Austrians were defending and defending where they were attacking – it was as if Napoleon and Charles had had breakfast together. The French reserve cavalry was also moved to their left flank to square up to the Austrians a monstrous cavalry engagement was in the offing. The main French attack on their right flank was to be with Davout’s mighty III Corps (not a hard choice to make for the French) with the Italians and Saxons messing about in the centre.

The Reserve Cavalry engagement started early and was evenly matched; fortunately for the French the Austrians chose to deploy their frontline regiments in single lines enabling the French to get 2 regiments (in two ranks) against a single Austrian Regiment – consequently the French got the better of most of the melees. Ultimately the Austrian Cavalry was virtually destroyed but the remaining French was so denuded that they would take no further part in the battle either. On the plus side for the Austrians, the large amount of space taken up by these ebbing and flowing cavalry melees prevented the Bavarian Corp from getting at the Austrian flank until the towards end of the afternoon. Whilst all this was happening Austrian Corps was putting in faltering attacks against the French division in front of them; these were ultimately successful but any following up of this success was thwarted by the Bavarians that had managed to get round the Cavalry melee and some Guard Cavalry and Artillery sent to plug the hole. After the cavalry had cleared out of the way; the bulk of the Bavarians advanced and Austrian III Corps was forced to retreat intoa defensive posture. The battle here was soon a stalemate.

Meanwhile on the other flank Davout’s III Corp was making heavy work of attacking the Austrian Left flank; this was made even more difficult when AD John’s Corps arrived shortly after lunch; after this fortuitous event the boot was on the other foot and by the end of the day III Corp was in retreat.

The battle involved the following figures:

French: 2424 Infantry, 325 Gunners, 521 Cavalry

Austrian: 2203 Infantry, 336 Gunners, 277 Cavalry