Friedland
Judges Blurb: June 14th 1807. Napoleon catches the Russians crossing the River Alle. Will the Russians win through to Konigsberg or be defeated and forced to surrender. Refight the battle that sent Napoleon to the apex of his carreer. 15mm Volley and Bayonet (Foundry Edition), 6-10 players, 8x6 table.
Historic Battle: After the indecisive fight at Elyau (modern Bagrationovsk, Russia) in February, both sides settled into winter quarters and made plans for the spring. The first clash was at Heilsburg (Lidzbark Warminski, Pol) on the Alle River on June 10th. The battle at Heilsburg was pretty much a tie, but it put the French astride the Russian lines of communication i.e. on the same side of the River Alle as Koningsburg (Kaliningrad, Russia) the main Russian supply base in the area. The Russian advance was to have been screened by the Prussians, but the French begin to push them back after the fight at Heilsberg. Benningsten now has to worry about his supply lines, because he has lost touch with the Prussians defending them. He decides to retreat to Koenigsburg. He begins moving on the South bank of the Alle and the French concentrate at Eylau waiting to see what the Russians plan to do. On the night of June 13-14 Napoleon sends Lannes Corps to scout along the North bank of the Alle. In the early hours of June 14th, they discover the Russians crossing the river at Friedland (Pravdinsk, Russia). At this point the battle becomes a rush for position on the field in the dark. Lannes in one of the best advanced guard actions in history manages to get the superior position and hold it till dawn despite Russian numerical superiority. When Napoleon is told of the Russian crossing that night he begins marching from Eylau to Friedland. The French army takes much of the day to arrive and mysteriously the Russians do nothing but skirmish.
At 4PM with the French army up Napoleon orders Ney to capture Friedland and the Alle bridges. As Ney's attack begins to be successful he then lets the rest of the army attack pushing the surrounded Russians into the Alle River with heavy losses. With the Russian army routed the Tsar sues for peace and the Treaty of Tilst is signed in the middle of the Niemen on June, 25th.
There are a number of special rules for the French Corps artillery, which did amazing things at this battle. Senarmont took the guns from Victors Corps and did an unsupported “charge” down the west bank of the Mulbach preventing the Russians from attacking Ney’s flank.
Ney’s corps battery single handedly takes on two Russian heavy batteries and drives them off.
It is the "what ifs" that attracted me to this battle. Historically Lannes does about as good as he can do (with a great amount of help from the Russians). What if he didn't do as good at bottling the Russians up until the rest of the French arrive? The Cossacks are probing ahead of the Russian army and are not involved in the fighting what if they did react to Benningsten crossing the river. Benningsten is not as aggressive as he needs to be given his situation i.e. crossing a river in the face of the enemy (most players will be much more aggressive). What if he was aggressive? The fight would then become more equal. The Russians have superior numbers early on. These can be used to defeat the French piecemeal. The greatest question to me about Friedland, is still why Benningsten crossed the river at all. There are two main theories of thought. The first is that he planned to hit Lannes in a spoiling attack (if so why didn’t he retreat when the French army started coming up). The second is that he needed take the short cut to Koningsburg (if so why didn’t the Russians ever mount an early serious attack up the road). Since Benningsten has never seemed to me to be the brightest lamp on the military scene, I have chosen the latter as the most likely scenario (and chalked his inactivity up to his personal failure as a commander).
