SALUTE 08

Brian and I conducted the Battle of Aspern-Essling for Trumpeters Salute 08. Historically, it was as follows:

In 1809, Napoleon marched down the Danube valley while the Austrian army had escaped to the other side. Having taken Vienna, Austria refused to surrender since the Archduke Charles still maintained  a solid army. To get their surrender, Napoleon knew that he would have to defeat Charles so he build himself a pair of pontoon bridges, one going to the Isle of Lobau and another crossing from there to the far bank. On May 21 his army began to cross but no sooner did he have a few divisions across than the whole of the Austrian army descended upon him. As He tried pushing more troops into the narrow bridgehead, Austrians were floating objects downstream to smash his bridges.

The first photo shows the opening moves. The village of Aspern is on the left with Marshal Massena taking personal command of the infantry assigned to defend it. On the right is the village of Essling with its massive stone Granary. In the center is the raised road defended with cavalry because no other troops were available. At the bottom is the bridgehead where it can be seen that a single division had managed to arrive before the forward pontoon bridge was destroyed. Engineers were sent into the swift flowing river to conduct repairs. At the top of the map, there are dust clouds marking where Austrian reinforcements are approaching.

Here we see subject reinforcements. Yes, that is seven brigades of cavalry, half of it heavy. You might notice that the dust cloud has not been removed. To the north, Austrians have begun to mass themselves against the village of Aspern.

Archduke Charles, the Emperor of Austria's brother, personally supervises the concentration at Aspern.

The situation at 1700 from napoleon's point of view. That unit of troops nearest the Emperor is Young guardsmen, routed by artillery fire. The bridge remains down.

The bridge has been mended temporarily and French reinforcements are beginning to crowd the rear area. By now though, the western half of Aspern has fallen to the Austrians.

The height of the action of the first day

Night fell though and the French held on. As night falls, troops break off and disengage, seeking a few hours of sleep. So do the players.

Through the night, the bridge remained down. Dawn revealed this sight in the vicinity of Essling.

Near Aspern though, the French had massed six brigades of cuirass armoured heavy cavalry, the finest horsemen in Europe  and prepared to punch through what might be a thin section of the Austrian line.

In the face of this build up, the Austrian right flipped itself entirely into square so the Massed cavalry instead used interior lines and switched their attack in a flash to the right. What we see here is French cuirassier led personally by Marshal Lannes breaking through the Austrian left, pinning it entirely into square that advancing French infantry would rout.

What we don't have pictures of is firstly, a massive assault across the center of the battlefield by the Austrians, utilizing a double turn. The French repulsed the attack with heavy losses but held on. They had weakened their center to give them a chance on the right but it seemed to be paying off but then the Austrians launched an all-out assault by four Grenadier brigades right into the heart of the battered French center. Through some miracles and tenaciousness, the Grenadiers were all out sent reeling back disordered or routed but in the face of another double turn of Austrians smashing on the center, and a glance up at the clock on the wall, Napoleon offered Charles a Minor Victory, which he accepted.

The French Old Guard had just crossed the bridges but there were two complete Corps that never made it across. Time (and energy) permitting, we could have gone on for twelve more turns and the French might have pulled a draw out of it but I doubt it would have happened.

We got a historical result but, ahistorically, all the participants had a great time. As a bonus, we won Best in Show at the convention with a prize of $150 gift certificate to be split between us at Imperial Hobbies.