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Post by gunfreak on Jul 1, 2009 14:26:52 GMT -5
The prussian/German war of liberation
Or War of the Sixth Coalition
Was the penultimate war in the napoleonic period
I like this period partly because payback aspect and partly because that it directly lead to a new wave of german patriotism, german unification which directly lead to WW1, which again lead to WW2 So you can start to trace one of the reasons for WWW2 almost 200 years back.
Basicly in 1806 the once mighty prussians got their asses handed to them by the french. I real asswopping so to speak. This lead to prussia beeing not much more then a Satellite state of france, and forced them to suply france with large bodys of men for Napoleons wars Then Napoleon broke Monty's first rule, don't march on Moscow. He lost 650 000 men, and Prussia saw it's chance of getting rid of this pesky man. They rose up and started to train and arm men in the tens of thousands. The russians of prussians got Austira and Sweden on their side. And the most epic of epic campaigns started, With the most epic of battles in europe beeing the major battle. The battle of Leipzig or Battle of nations, with 550 000 thousand solderis fighting it out in and around Leipzig.
This was just to wet your appetite
Next up, The battle of Möckern
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Post by gunfreak on Jul 2, 2009 13:01:36 GMT -5
No takers?
Ok, Battle of Möckerns, there was infact two battles with that name, one in april and one during the battle of leipzig in the northern sector of the battlefield.
The battle saw two corps under Blücher against two corps under Marshal Ney(or to nearly full corps)
Whats so important about this battle is 1. It showed the prussians were strong once again, 2. it basicly made victory for the allies possible.
During the war in 1806 the prussian army was mostly badly led and very badly trained and with horrible morale. Infact during the battle of Auerstedt 27 000 french under command of Marshal Davout crushed a prussian force of 51 000. While Napoleon did the same at Jena the same day. Inn all the prussian lost 45 000 men that day while the french got away with 6000. The prussians tried to win battles using old 7yw type strategies againt the modern well run war machine of the french.
But now 7 years later the prussian(along with everybody els) had adopted French style command structure based around the corps system. They had also gotten a majorly huge moral boster, even the proory trained Landwehr had suoer morale compeard to 1806, and this is evident in the battle of möckern.
Blücher's 1 corps under command of Yorck along with the russian corps under Langeron battles the french all day, unlike the earlier war, the prussians fought just as hard as the french or even better, they were led againt the enemy with officers shouting for the fatherland. For liberation ect. The battle went back and forth, back and forth sevral hundred guns, over 150 battalions and over 100 squadron of cavalry fought until night. The town of Möckern became a hot spot, changeing hands over 4 times. while more and more troops were sent in to reinforce those that were already there. In the end the french left the town, over 7000 french and 9000 allies were killed or wounded, pluss 2000 french prisoners. The importance of the battle wasn't that the french finnaly left, but that the prussians of the old were back, the soldiers that had dominated europe from 1730s to the 1770s. A very cool and special battle, very important in modern german history.
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Post by airbornerocks on Jul 3, 2009 9:48:11 GMT -5
I'm interested !
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Post by gunfreak on Jul 3, 2009 13:49:14 GMT -5
Ok, then, but it might help to give a short introduction into Napoleoinc warfare.
The napoleonic style had developed during the french revolution, massed used of light infantry as skirmishes by the revolutionary french had made problems for austria, Napoleon later refined this. He aslo introdused Corps system, corps had been used a little before but it was often ad hoc, the armies during the 7 years war had grown so large they were often devided into corps of sorts but it was not realy a set formation, the buildingblocks were still the divions. Napoleon introduced corps a real set formation, buildt up long before wars were started. Infact the 5 corps used during the 1805 campaign had been created 3 years earlier. Corps were perfect, a single corps of 20-30 000 men could either fight a smaller battle on it own againt a force the same size or even a little larger, or more to it's design it could hold it's own for quite some time against a much larger force, to give Napoleon and his marshals time to come to the corps in question aid. A corps could hold its own for sevral hours or mabye even a day while the other corps moved inn to help. Napoleon was carefull(atleast the first few years) to allways keep his corps close enough so the could be massed on a single point with in a day. This help him bring superiour number of men against the enemy and bring the war to an end with a single desicive blow. The corps system not only helped while moving armies across the landscape, it help in the battles them self. You could asign a single or multible corps to one flank or fornt, and that all you need to do. the corps structure made it so that corps commander then tok over, no need to place every single divion on the field by the commander in chief. Napoleon gave order for 1st corp to attack the enemys left flank at 5 in the moring on the next day, and it did. the way the corps attacked was up to the corps commadner based on their assesment of the situation and ofcourse the tactics of the day. For the first 4 years of the Napoleonic war the French were the only ones with true corps. the Russians tried to make corps in 1807 with a little succes, and the austrians had come close to french style corps systems by 1809 and by 1812 all allies used it(except britsh which used so small armies they didn't need to(they did use it in 1815 at waterloo) This ofcourse ment that one of the biggest french atvantages had been neutralied, there is some doubt if the allies were quite as good with the corps system as the french, the french had the atvantage of a great chief of staff Berthier. I don't think any of the allies ever had one that raviled him.
One of the other "big" new things Napoleon did was the use of column formation, there is alot of descution weather it realy was such a great thing, or if it had to be used becasue of massed conscrip armies. There is also disagreement weather the point of the column was to batter its way though enemy lines like a bowling ball or if one was supose to move from column to line before angeging in mele. There is no agreement about it, some people say one thing others something els. What we do know is that when moving in column especaly when dealing with conscript armies was faster and it was easier to keep control. The britsh rearly use it, they often had the first front deployed in line while columns behind.
Napoleon also did something the britsh and later americans are realy good at, creating high morale though unit pride. The soldiers of the 85th Line regiment or the 13th light regiment were proud of their unit, not only their regiment, but their divion and corps. The 3rd corps of napoleon under Davout from 1805-1807 was probebly the single best fighting force on the planet at that time. This was because of Davout who in my opinion was second to non including Napoleon him self. And the fact that every divsion, regiment and battalion commander under him was superb in his own right. This gave almost every single soldier under him the best moral in the best army of it's time. Not only did the soldiers in all the corps under Napoleon have great moral but the best traing, since 1802 they had been traing to gether not only in single divions but whole army exorcises had been done. And this compeld with bad moral and leadership from his enemys made it possible for napoleon to win easly 1805-1806, but it help him win in 1807 and 1809, tho the 1809 campaing was alot harder.
Anyway, with the background out of the way, I'll take requests. any battle you want to know about, a type of unit, a leader?
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cairo1
Private 1st Class
Posts: 494
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Post by cairo1 on Jan 7, 2011 20:51:24 GMT -5
was there a standard German armament, i know of the 1809 musket but were they standard issue or did they really use so many captured French guns.
also how common were Rifles and the use of Jager
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Post by Fusilier on Jan 7, 2011 23:57:55 GMT -5
Have you ever played that abomination Empire by any chance??
I almost got into that black hole that is Napoleonics! ALMOST! lol!
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elder90
Private 1st Class
Posts: 643
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Post by elder90 on Jan 15, 2011 2:08:43 GMT -5
I was wondering about the Line of Fuiliers. please Forgive my lack of knowledge. I was wondering about them because they are my favorite unit in Napoleon Total war. What is thier history? What were they armed with? Where they just general infantry or somewhat better than regular line infantry? What kind Of training did they go through to become soldiers.
Sorry that this is coming from a game but I love this stuff and would love to know more about the Napoloenic era.
BTW (this is just family history being passed down from generation to generation but) Aparrently my last name is on the Arch De Triumph in Paris Or some version of my last name. It is Caillouet, the correct french spelling is Caillouette and Caillouet is cajun so I dont know any help is welcome!
Thanks gunfreak for bringing up this era!
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Post by gunfreak on Jan 15, 2011 8:28:01 GMT -5
Fusiliers had diffrent meaning in Diffrent countries.
I'm assumuing you mean the French fusiliers, they were standard infantry in the french army, the backbone so to speak, basicly french fusiliers were what the british called line infantry, each line battalion in the french army had 4 companies of fusiliers and 2 elite companyies, one of grenadiers and one of Voltigeurs
In other countries fusiliers ment diffrent things, in the British army fusiliers were in theory elite infantry, some fusilier regiments had history going back to 1704, like the 23rd regiment of foot, AKA royal welch fusiliers, they had been in battles like Blenheim, Minden, most of the battles in the American revolution, and now the Napoleoinc period, they really weren't that special at this time, it was more in the name then in ability.
In prussia fusiliers were light infantry, or a mix of line and light, they weren't quite 100% light infantry like jegers but were trained to do light infantry stuff.
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Post by Fusilier on Jan 15, 2011 11:30:23 GMT -5
Austrian line infantry were fusiliers as well. I wanna say The Kingdom of Italy as well.
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Post by gunfreak on Jan 15, 2011 11:44:18 GMT -5
Jupp, forgot about them, the Austrians had both German Fusiliers and Hungeraian Fusiliers.
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elder90
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Posts: 643
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Post by elder90 on Jan 15, 2011 11:55:04 GMT -5
Ok thanks gunfreak!
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Post by gunfreak on Jan 15, 2011 12:07:41 GMT -5
The French had 2 types of regular infantry battalion, the fusilier battalion or line battalion( ligne in french) that is allready menitoned and Light battalion(legere in french)
The big obvious diffrence is that the line battalion had blue coats and white trousers, while the light battalion had all blue uniforms, in theory the light battalion was trained to go 100% into skirmish order, but they VERY rearly did this, the only real diffrence was that the light battalions had a slightly higher opinion of them self, and to some degree they had reason for it, the best regular regiments in the french army were all light(legere) mabye with the exeption of the 85th line regiment.
A french regiment had between 2 and 5 battalions, in early wars it had 2 battalions in the field, while a 3rd was back home, as "depot battalion" by 1812, regiments had 5 battalions in the field, this ment that the quality of a reigment was very unpredictable.
Often only 2 of the 5 battalions had seen any serious combat, this ment that in a regiment of 5, only 2 battalions could be counted on to do exactly what they were told and had a high % of vetrans. the 3rd battalion might be ok, but not great, and the 4th and 5th were probebly not very good.
A french battalion on paper had 720 solddiers and officers, or 120 soldiers and officers pr. company, in reality it was often much less, in 1805, yes you could see full compliment of soliders, but in most other periods the size were anywere from 600 down to 450, at waterloo the avrage size was 520 soldier.
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Post by Fusilier on Jan 15, 2011 18:25:38 GMT -5
Jupp, forgot about them, the Austrians had both German Fusiliers and Hungeraian Fusiliers. >> I used to do Austria in 15mm. Now I'm waiting for Victrix to come out with them!
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Post by gunfreak on Jan 16, 2011 14:47:17 GMT -5
Austrians you say, you are the second North American I know of that did/do those, Normal people from acorss the pond do British.
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Post by Fusilier on Jan 16, 2011 18:05:48 GMT -5
Austrians you say, you are the second North American I know of that did/do those, Normal people from acorss the pond do British. >> Thats just it,EVERYBODY does British! Napoleon fought the Austrians a heck of a lot more than he did the British as you know. I used to have SOME French,Bavarians,Saxons,Polish,Hessians,and a large army of Austrians. Sold them all,as it was just getting too BIG,and my one friend I game with wasn't really into Nappy's. Now I'm getting into 28mm 1812. Most figs will be OG,and most of the Brits will be Victrix,and some Perry's.
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