Portable Napoleonic Wargames: La Souffel (2)

The Allied forces arriving over the first four turns of the battle, the action developed slowly. The first to arrive, along the Lampertheim road, Palombini's Division was soonest in organising an assault upon the 16th Division river defences. Voyrol stood off the first attacks at Lampertheim itself, but a second drove his brigade back across the stream.  A counterattack recovered the village, which the Division's light infantry garrisoned.  Meanwhile, the garrison at Mundolsheim startled the light horse approaching the town's river bridge by a quick attack across it. The chevauleger scuttling back were replaced by half of Koch's infantry (Hohenlohe and Misany's brigades).  Beurmann retired across the river into Mundolsheim.

Allies close up to the Souffel river line

By this time, Prince Adam's cavalry had pushed down rapidly towards Souffelweyersheim, where von Moltke's dragoons tried to bounce the French skirmishers back from the opposite riverbank. In this they were successful, but at prohibitive cost. The depleted dragoons fell back to the north side of the stream. Passing through Reichstett village, the Division's horse artillery deployed into battery along the southern edge of the place, whence they began a bombardment of Montagnier's brigade standing between Souffelweyersheim and the woods a short distance east of the place. Montagnier shuffled his troops into shelter behind the village. 

Prinz Emile coming up to add weight to 
Palombini's assault

So far, matters seemed to be going well enough for the Allies, though Palombini was not strong enough, it seemed, to be sure of forcing the river line. He was encouraged by the arrival of Prince Emile's elite brigade and light troops, including its skirmishing companies.

(Note: I really have no idea, now, where I got the idea that Prince Emile's command included light troops, nor how I overlooked - I even wrote it down - that Hugel's brigade were all of light infantry. Be that as it may, we carry on. I gave Prince Emile a brigade of grenadiers, represented the 'light' brigade by grenzer, and the skirmishers by a pair of jager. It looked a fine little Division, advancing down the Lampertheim road...)

Prince Emile's Division

Not before time. Czollich's brigade attempted several assaults upon the 15th Division artillery position.  Aided by the flanking skirmishers, the artillery threw back several charges, and maintain a devastating fire upon the hapless Hungarians. Suddenly, Palombini's prospects looked much less rosy.

The Hungarians destroyed by gunfire and musketry
from the French skirmishers

They were not improved when Beurmann's aforementioned transpontine counterattack threw back Palombini's light horse brigade.

Beurmann's brigade sees off the Allied light horse

Such early successes were encouraging for the defenders, but the Allies had hardly begun any serious assault upon their lines.

Beurmann's brigade facing odds of at least three to one

The defenders had not much longer to wait. Splitting Koch's Division in two, Prince Eugene ordered Koch himself to lead two brigades to attack the French still on the north side of the Mundolsheim river bridge, whilst the other two brigades were to cross the river west of Souffelweyersheim, thence to attack that village supported by horse and guns.

(Note: Really, this was questionable - violating the 'unit integrity' rule that ought equally at this level to apply to formations. The whole Division ought to have gone one way or the other.  I didn't even notice until after the action.) 

Facing Koch's resolute advance, Beurmann quickly fell back into Mundolsheim, there to face a direct assault by more than three times their numbers. What remained to attack Souffelweyersheim seemed sufficient although Merlin's cavalry were to be quickly on the scene, and Grandjean's column could at last be seen trudging up the Strasbourg road.

The arrival of Grandjean's 17th Division

Supported by the depleted brigade of dragoons, Lalance's brigade splashed through the river to assault the western face of the village. They were stopped cold. On the other hand, the Allies scored a measure of success, their counter-battery finally silencing Rottembourg's guns.  

In an effort to keep Merlin's cavalry off his attacking infantry, Prince Eugene ordered forward the depleted chevauleger from Palombini's Division, Kinski's brigade (formation integrity be damned), backed up by the fresh light horse of Jett's Brigade (the uhlans in the picture).  Very quickly braving the flanking fore from Allied artillery, Merlin's cavalry, four times the strength Jett had remaining, attacked.  

Attack and counterattack around Souffelweyersheim

Under cover of the cavalry battle nearby, Hugel's brigade was fed through Lalance's depleted formation to renew yet another assault upon the town. By now, however, the lead elements of Grandjean's Division were already deployed east of Souffelweyersheim, and pushing forward. The signs of anxiety were already beginning to etch themselves across the Prince Royal's visage.

He might have been reassured by events upon his right flank. Following up the French withdrawal across the river into Mundolsheim, Koch's command scattered the garrison's hasty defence, passed through the village, and began an assault upon the rear of Albert's gun line. Just then, Emile's light troops were engaging the guns from across the river.  

The fall of Mundolsheim, and the beginning of the 
end of 16th Division

At this time, French skirmishers were still grimly clinging on to Lampertheim - the Allies couldn't buy a six! - whilst Voyrol waited on the opposite river bank.

Before Voyrol could lend his assistance, the Allied light infantry overran the guns.  In an effort to recover something from the battle, Albert led Voyrol's brigade into a counterattack. Outnumbered eight to one, it was always going to be a forlorn hope, and what remained of 16th Division collapsed. The Allies had taken the whole of 16th Division's defence line, barring the skirmishers holed up in Lampertheim.

Matters were not going so well at Souffelweyersheim. It was gradually becoming apparent that the Allies simply lacked the strength to take the place. Even were the town to fall, the strength General Rapp could call upon was rather greater than the attacking Allies could muster. At about this time, Prince Eugene called off the attack.

At the time, I calculated that the Allies had reached their exhaustion point, but looking at the pictures now, it seems that the Allied total losses amount to 18 SP lost - 9 from both wings of attack. For their part, if you could write off the entire Albert Division except its commander - 8SP, Rottembourg lost just 3SP;  Eleven - 14 if you added in Albert himself.  Fourteen was still (just) short of V Corps exhaustion point.  Eighteen would have left 3 more before the Allied corps reached the same condition.  

How do we assess the result, then?  Until I wrote this up, I was certain this was a French victory - unexpected given the disparity of overall strengths. On reflection it seems to have been something of a tactical draw - the Allied undoubtedly carrying the French left, but taking heavy losses for scant reward at Souffelsheim. 

Situation at day's end.

But really, I made a mess of this action, in many respects. In adapting the polyglot Allied III Corps to my own Austrian collection, I made a couple of bad mistakes, although not, at least, in the matter of respective strengths. I also forgot, twice, the issue of formation integrity. Having said that, even if Koch's Division had remained en bloc to take Mundolsheim, Grandjean's Division would have been on hand to counter any attempt to roll up the French river line. So I'm not going to beat myself up too hard about my slip-ups.

For anyone minded to try out this battle in this format I suggest you take a look first at these sites:

https://napoleonicscenarios.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/7/7/2377799/la_souffel_1815.pdf

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/2b00d6c2-086d-458a-bc05-fc390be0c5a3/downloads/1c0tsdvf3_17723.pdf

I used the former of these two, but I think the latter, which I discovered only today, the more informative perhaps. The Strength Points I calculated by dividing the Age of Eagles SPs by 3. 

In my next posting I'll see what the respective armies would have looked like, adapted from the second AofE scenario.  Otherwise, apart from a 'List of Postings' or 'Table of contents' posting, that will be the end of this occasional series under the overall title 'Hundred Days'.