The Waterloo Kriegsspiel: Turn Zero (14th of June)

 

Map showing the dispositions of the French (blue), Anglo-Dutch (red) and Prussian (green) armies on the 14th of June

With the campaign overview out of the way, let's look at how the campaign opened.

This is post two in a series of seven; the others are:

As in history, the French crossed the Sambre on the 15th of June attacking northward. 

In order to give them a chance of achieving the same sort of tactical surprise as they did historically, prior to the 15th I let all the players rejig their dispositions within roughly the same area as they really did occupy.

I had four French players, playing Napoleon, Marshals Ney & Grouchy, and General d'Erlon.

The French plan was much the same as it was historically - to split the two Allied armies and defeat one then the other. This time though, believing that it would be impossible to prevent the Prussians from concentrating, they decided instead to hit the Anglo-Dutch army first and defeat it before it could concentrate, then swing around East to hit the Prussians.

To this end, instead of concentrating the whole army at Beaumont to cross the Sambre at Charleroi, they massed their forces at Maubeuge to strike North at Mons and Binche, with a smaller force positioned further East to take Charleroi and block the Prussians from advancing West along the Charleroi-Mons road.

The French left wing - under the command of Marshal Ney, was itself split between a left wing advancing on Mons from Maubeuge and a right wing advancing on Binche from Beaumont.

The left wing, consisting of d'Erlon's I Corps backed up by Exelmans' II Cavalry Corps, was positioned with its lead elements close to the border, which this far East is actually North of the Sambre. This force was under the command of General d'Erlon, and totalled some 22,000 men.

The Binche force was under Marshal Ney's direct command, and consisted of  Reille's II Corps backed up by Lobau's weak II Corps and Kellermann's elite III Cavalry Corps (technically part of the Reserve) - a total of 36,000 men.

The French right wing was led by the Young Guard and Guard Light Cavalry divisions (to ensure speed and aggression crossing the Sambre), followed up by Vandamme's III Corps, and then Gerard's IV Corps. They were to advance north from the vicinity of Philippeville and capture Charleroi, then push on to pin down the Prussians. 

Including the two Guard divisions detached from the Reserve this force consisted of about 39,000 men, and was commanded by Marshal Grouchy.

Backing up the right wing, the Reserve fell under Napoleon's direct command. It consisted of the Imperial Guard (minus the two divisions attached to the right wing), Pajol's I Cavalry Corps and Milhaud's IV Cavalry Corps - 20,000 men in all.

Overall this was a fairly sensible strategy, cognisant of the strategic challenges they faced.  

I had three British players, playing Wellington, Orange and Hill.

The British opted against shuffling too much of their forces around, instead deploying nearly as they did historically.

I Corps, under the Prince of Orange, had 26,000 men centred on Braine-le-Comte - the furthest south of the Corps.

II Corps was quartered over a wide area to the West and Northwest, guarding the routes to Ghent and Brussels from Lille and Tournai. It had 24,000 men under General 'Daddy' Hill.

The Cavalry Corps under General Uxbridge was encamped to I Corps' North, clustered around the crossroads between an old Roman road that led South to Mons and the Brussels road. It mustered 16,000 men.

Finally, the Reserve Corps was under Wellington's direct control. A large part of the Corps is quartered in Brussels, but detachments are scattered over a wide area including garrisons in Ghent and Antwerp. All told the Corps had 31,000 men.

The British plan was to be aggressive; to concentrate as quickly and as far forward as possible to put pressure on the French, who they thought would probably begin by attacking the Prussians.  

I had three Prussian players, playing Marshall Blucher and Generals Ziethen & Thielmann.

The Prussians also opted not to change from their historical deployments.

II Corps  were further east along the Rhine road, bivouacked over a much wider area. Under General Pirch's command were 33,000 men, with Marshall Blucher placing his headquarters here.

III Corps had perhaps the most exposed position, south of the Sambre (if at least separated from the French by the Meuse. General Thielmann had 27,000 men - the smallest of the four Prussian Corps.

IV Corps under the very experienced von Bulow was the army reserve. Headquarted in Liege but spread out over a large expanse of the North bank of the Sambre, it mustered 34,000 men.

The Prussian plan was much more defensive than the British. Expecting the French to focus their attack on them, Thielmann was to give up any attempt at attacking French supply lines and withdraw North of the Sambre at Namur while Ziethen was to hold the river for as long as possible before falling back on Ligny. 

Ligny was chosen in the knowledge that the British would be concentrating on Braine-le-Comte, and thus the Nivelles-Namur road would need keeping open for the two armies to link up.

II and IV Corps would concentrate on Ligny from the other direction, and once the army was assembled in sufficient strength, the plan was to attack Charleroi and force the French back over the Sambre.

Aside from starting dispositions, the other variable that I wanted to obfuscate was the weather - I didn't want the Allies to be able to rely on heavy rain on the 17th of June, or the French player to plan around it.

Instead, I built a Markov Chain to generate a series of atmospheric pressures and used them as a basis for some simple weather descriptions for morning, afternoon and night of each day.

This gave me a period of decent weather for most of the first four days of the campaign, with a storm on the fifth day - the day after the real Battle of Waterloo. 

At dawn, midday and dusk I let all the players know the pressure and gave them a brief one-sentence description of the weather.