In July 1812, after the Battle of Salamanca, the French had evacuated Madrid, which Wellington's army entered on August 12, 1812. Deploying three divisions to guard the capital's southern approaches, Wellington then marched north with the rest of his army to lay siege to the fortress of Burgos, 140 miles (230 km) away, but he had under-estimated the enemy's strength and on October 21 he had to abandon the Siege of Burgos and retreat. By October 31 he had abandoned Madrid too, and retreated first to Salamanca then finally to Ciudad Rodrigo, near the Portuguese frontier, to avoid encirclement by French armies from the north-east and south-east.
Wellington spent the winter reorganising and strengthening his forces. By contrast, Napoleon withdrew many French soldiers to rebuild his main army after his disastrous invasion of Russia. The following year, Wellington marched 121,000 troops (53,749 British, 39,608 Spanish, and 27,569 Portuguese) from northern Portugal across the mountains of northern Spain and the Esla River, by May 20, 1813, to outflank Marshal Jourdan's army of 68,000 who were strung out between the Douro and the Tagus. The French retreated to Burgos, with Wellington's forces marching hard to cut them off from the road to France. Wellington himself commanded the small central force in a strategic feint, while Sir Thomas Graham conducted the bulk of the army around the French right flank over landscape considered impassable.
Wellington launched his attack at Vitoria on June 21, in four columns. After hard fighting, Thomas Picton's 3rd Division broke the enemy's centre and soon the French defence crumbled. About 5,000 French soldiers were killed or wounded and 3,000 were taken prisoner, while Wellington's forces suffered about 5,000 killed or wounded. 152 cannons were captured, but King Joseph Bonaparte narrowly escaped. The battle led to the collapse of Napoleonic rule in Spain.
Battle Report
So much for history! With Mark and myself running the British, there was no guarantee of similar success. Indeed, much of the battle simulated the Battle of Fredericksburg in the ACW, where Union forces tried to ford a river under artillery fire and take on entrenched troops in higher ground. The Union suffered a huge defeat in one of the most one-sided battles in history. I now know how Burnside felt!
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| The rightmost bridges - dominated by the hill |
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| The centre bridge and the left bridge (also dominated by a hill) |
What also didn't help was the general reluctance of the British commanders to get moving. We failed to move up on the left - thereby allowing the French time to take the town and the heights commanding the bridge on the left.
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| The French seal off the left bridge |
Similarly in the centre, Picton didn't want to move at all (at least 2 turns were lost) and by the time he did appear to threaten the centre, the French had already deployed two infantry units on the hill covering the two bridges on the right. The centre bridge was not contested but the problem facing us was that any unit crossing the river by bridge or ford became disordered and so easy meat for any opposing force (as we were to find out). We could only get 1-2 units over at any one time and to do so in penny packets would invite destruction for each sent across.
I'd lined up a few guns on the banks of the river by the rightmost bridge in order to whittle down (and push back) the French infantry to creat room for a crossing by our cavalry.
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| The units on the hill - covering two bridges and winning the battle for France |
However the French had moved the majority of their cannon to protect the same bridge (where Wellington was trying to get the forces moving) and so could pop away - and at greater range - than the cannons I'd lined up. As a result we lost one gun immediately so had to move around the river (out of range) and spent most of the battle sending ineffectual fire up the hill at the two units defending both bridges.
The only hope we had was Hill on the hill. To cut a long story short we made a mistake of taking on the French guarding the rightmost bridge (in another effort to clear some space) rather than riding to the top of the heights and then coming down the other side to cut off the line of exit and potentially clearing the French guarding the left bridge. Had Picton got his arse in gear, then we would have been in position in the centre to charge across if any forces were diverted from the centre to protect the French right flank. Similarly, if they took forces from their left flank, Wellington could shoot across the rightmost bridge. As it was though, Hill basically had to fight one and a half corps with one - and that with Spanish and Portuguese in the ranks - as no other British corps could get across the river without suffering catastrophic losses.
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| Mark in full Field Marshal mode |
The two units protecting the hill did a sterling job of keeping two British corps at bay. We did try to rush across with some cavalry and infantry and they died to a man as the French centre took them on and one unit trotted down the hill, routed the British then trotted back up again.
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| Hill's division moving around the river - they should have just gone up the hill to the right... |
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| Two corps held back as we can't cross without dying in droves |
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| The French can move units to oppose Hill as we can't cross anywhere! |
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| The French begin to swamp Hill - and we can't support. |
The British try to force the right-most bridge - and get massacred
The only bright spots for myself and Mark were seeing one French regiment lose their heads and rush in to attack us on our side of the right-most bridge (and were massacred in their turn) and also seeing a cavalry attack on the flank of a British regiment on top of the hill fail and fail miserably.
Apart from that it was the Frenchies day. Hill's corps was reduced to individual regiments and was likely to be picked off. Although the bulk of the British army was intact it was unable to get to grips - and so failed to meet its objectives. As a result, we can call it a strong French victory.
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| One bit of madness - and the French die in droves for a change |
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| Hill's corps being savaged as no other British unit can get near him |
As usual we had a great time. Mark laid on a marvellous spread and looked after us very well. Tactically we got a few things wrong - not getting over the river quick enough was the main one (I should have run a couple of regiments over to take the hill but feared the massed cannon). But we were hampered by appalling movement dice which crippled us from the start and we never recovered.
Still, lessons were learned - including keeping a close eye on Ian who tried to give his weak cavalry 9 attack dice by 'misreading' the unit strength and 'forgetting' that units lose an inch when going uphill. Indeed, Ian's Try It On tally reached 7 before the game ended.
Having said that, I tried to ride my cavalry over the mat at the side of the table - effectively going beyond the boundaries of the table!
Joking aside, the French played very well and deserved their victory. Well done!