3 PM. The weather is fair and visibility is 114”
Austrian Headquarters - Klenau’s headquarters remains at the farm and he is now in the frontline. To defend the farm he only has a worn battalion from IR 14, a fresh landwehr battalion and a relatively fresh gun battery. They are faced by overwhelming numbers and it is a tough decision whether to retire now and concede, or whether to hold out and just hope that Schwarzenberg arrives in time to save the situation. If the farm is abandoned, the rearguard will have failed and so reluctantly, Klenau tells his local commanders that they will fight on as help is close-by.
[note - A campaign turn is equal to 7 game turns on the table, so Klenau is gambling that his small force will be able to survive that long and that in the next campaign turn, Schwarzenberg will arrive as a reinforcement with his cavalry division - I must say, I am equally in two minds about what is best to do, but if I were to jump off the fence, I would have to agree with Klenau].
Orders - None
Above - This is what Masséna can see. (1) the farm is lightly defended. (2) Schwarzenberg’s 2nd Cavalry are approaching to reinforce the farm. (3) Messéna needs to control the road to Theya. (The original map Graphic copyright of Henry Hyde)
French Headquarters - Messéna has moved up onto the high ground at the church and can see the predicament that the Austrians face. His force is now galvanising as elements of 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions, plus Lasalle’s cavalry converge on the battlefield. Understanding that Schwarzenberg is close to assisting Klenau, there is an urgency in getting on with the attack before the Austrians can be reinforced.
While his massed ranks look impressive, the troops are worn as casualties and the breakdown of cohesion are being felt, with some battalions already considered ‘unsteady’.
Orders - attack the farm at once and secure the road to Thaya
Kis-Megyer Farm - As the French columns advance (above), the opening Austrian fire is not particularly effective. The French assault the walled pond, pushing the Austrians back into the farm, but on the flanks, the Landwehr and artillery give a fairly good account of themselves and those French units that were unsteady now falter.
For a short time, it becomes almost believable that Klenau will be able to hold out long enough for his reinforcement to arrive, but then the battalion holding the farm break and flee, while at the same time 8th Hussars make a reckless frontal charge at the Austrian gun battery.
The guns fail to stop the charge and the results are devastating. The gunners take 4 hits (a lot for these rules in one go) and their resulting flight turns into a rout.
The relatively fresh Austrian Landwehr are now isolated, with French cavalry freely roaming the area, so they retire in an orderly fashion towards the Schwarzenberg reinforcement.
The French have secured the farm, importantly, it is the last defensive obstacle that the Austrians could have used to give an effective rearguard. The cavalry move on ahead and secure the Thaya Road.
The reinforcement - Schwarzenberg has been making best speed with his cavalry division and he is confident that he will be at the farm in battle order by 4 PM. However, in making best speed, his attached infantry (a lone line infantry battalion from IR 36 and a Landwehr battalion) are lagging behind and they will not reach the farm before 5 PM.
Summary - Messéna has decided to attack the farm at once, before the Austrians can be reinforced and he successfully captures it and controls the road leading north, with the defenders fleeing.
Decisions, Decisions!
4 PM. The weather is fair and visibility is 90” (still easily a full 6’ table length is visible).
Overview and conclusion - The last couple of hours have been a race to ensure the control of Kis-Megyer Farm and the road to Thaya - a race that that the French have won …… just!
Schwarzenberg’s cavalry could now attack, but without their infantry they would meet overwhelming numbers and they would not physically be able to take and hold the farm. To wait for the infantry to catch up would give the French an additional hour to fortify their position and strengthen their control of the road.
Even then, it is not particularly likely that the Austrian attack would be strong enough to wrest control from the French.
Had the Austrian infantry been with Schwarzenberg in time for an attack this hour (4 PM), I would likely have diced for that eventuality, with a slight weighting of the dice towards attack to reflect the aggressive nature of the cavalry commander.
However as it stands the odds for an Austrian success are not good and I feel that self preservation of his force would now be upper-most in Schwarzenberg’s mind. With that said, the campaign will conclude.
Schwarzenberg cannot use the Thaya road itself to escape, as it is French controlled, so he will start to move north, cross-country making best speed. If the French were in a better state than they are now, there would be a very active pursuit and most of the Austrian rearguard would be ‘mopped’ up, with a high level of surrender likely.
But as it is, the French Corps is in no fit state to pursue and so that leads us to the question of victory and to the success or otherwise of Klenau’s rearguard action.
Casualties - The French suffered 1500 losses. The Austrians 950. There is a very clear disparity in the favour of the Austrians.
Time - The Austrian objective for the rearguard was to delay the French pursuit by a day, to allow the bulk of the Austrian army to escape. However, by 4 PM they have lost the field and their cohesion. On the face of it, this would appear to be in favour of the French, but due to losses in men and cohesion, the French were in no state to pursue, so they cannot take advantage of their victory on the battlefield.
Tactical Decisions (Austrian) - Short of troops from the outset, Klenau probably made a good stab at defending all three river crossings, but he should have ordered Schwarzenberg’s 2nd Cavalry Division to leave the slopes and fall back on the ford, earlier than he did. Also posting Infantry Regiment 36 to the slopes to support the cavalry was misjudged and that unit would have been better kept as a reserve immediately behind the village. Klenau’s biggest headache was having fixed his deployment and being without a reserve, he was hostage to whatever the French either chose to do or were successful at doing.
Tactical Decisions (French) - throughout the day, Masséna found it easier to get orders to the troops that needed them, by being where he needed to be at the time and using high ground to his advantage. His most serious error was in rushing at everything and relying heavily on the infantry columns for doing that and as a result his formations suffered grievous losses as they engaged determined Austrians, which left his forces increasingly brittle and subject to routing. His advantage in artillery was never really exploited, as there was insufficient artillery preparation or support for the major attacks.
While his infantry suffered heavily, Lasalle’s cavalry performed superbly from their action at the lower ford to securing the area at the farm and ensuring the road to Thaya was controlled. His decision to push against all three river crossings did stretch the Austrians, but one wonders whether the attacks amongst the vineyards below the village and against the lower bridge were necessary, as a successful attack against the village would surely have unhinged the Austrian defence in those places and allowed the French to cross the bridge at the village in greater numbers earlier. As it was, once he captured the lower bridge, Leguay’s Brigade from Molitor’s 3rd Division was effectively out of the fight for the rest of the day as it would take them too long to reach the church / farm.
Fortunes of war - At the lower bridge, Froon (Austrian) was routed and so later, the Austrians defending at the church / farm were denied those troops. There was a fairly generous chance (33% twice) that they might return to the campaign and reinforce the church or farm, but the dice said no!
The village fell to the French rather faster than anticipated (by me!). That second assault took the place by storm! (Lucky / unlucky dice). It then became suddenly obvious, just how weak the Austrian centre was and that the other Austrian troops were now in the wrong place (on the slopes).
The random activation system in the Campaign Movement Phase was particularly important in the 1 PM turn when it gave the Austrian the first activation and they promptly moved their artillery up to the church, before Lasalle’s cavalry could pin it down. That one act meant that the fight at the church was not over in a single hour, but rather (just) ran over into a second hour and gave Klenau at Kis-Megyer Farm an increased …. but ultimately false sense of hope.
The charge by 8th Hussars against the Austrian artillery at the farm, was bold, reckless, ill-advised and amazingly successful. Had the artillery repelled the hussars (perhaps with equally heavy loss!), then there was the prospect that the artillery could have kept the French back long enough for Schwarzenberg to arrive and join a determined defence.
So who won! - Judging from all that is said above, both sides might claim they won! The whole point of the campaign was for Klenau’s VI Corps to act as a rearguard and prevent the French from a pursuit of the main Austrian army. Klenau might say that in effect that was done - Messéna was left in no fit state to pursue and had suffered very heavy casualties ….. but to get to this point, Klenau had pretty much lost VI Corps and surely that is not the sort of thing that will get him any medals!
A narrow view takes me towards a draw, but you just have to jump off the fence sometimes and I think we shall say that Messéna unhinged the Austrian defence and practically destroyed VI Corps, giving him the edge in any claims of winning :-)
Campaign system - The campaign as presented in Henry Hyde’s book, worked out really well. The dynamic of three crossings divided our small area into three distinct area for action and each was telling a story that contributed to the whole. I modified the stated movement rates to make things a bit easier and brought orders and order delay to bring a discipline of movement.
The idea of using ordinary playing cards to manage the order of activation during the Campaign Moves Phase, comes from the book, as does the weather determination - which came very close to light rain (and then heavy rain), but the die rolls kept it at ‘fair weather’ throughout.
Thumbs up for the campaign, I will definitely be doing this again.
Rules - Well, I used my own. I am very familiar with them and they mostly work. One thing that I like is that hits are accrued and the more hits, the less capable the unit becomes and more susceptible to routing. This worked well for the campaign as it shows formations tiring and losing cohesion. The one area that always seemed okay in a throw down game, but I think came to plague this campaign (or the French anyway) is that in close combat, the target unit takes a test, if they pass, they make a defensive fire at short range …. which is 4 dice. What was repeatedly happening was that French columns were getting hammered and thrown back, taking those high casualties that we see in the final analysis.
Now maybe this is fair as the French did not support the attacks with artillery or pre-charge fire, or spend more time in line firing, but never-the-less, it just sucked the colour out of the French day! So something to think about there …. Perhaps I should run a couple of the actions again, but with a commercial set of rules and see if the French casualty rate gets a more gentle handling while still using columns.
Finally - thank you Henry Hyde, your booklet has given me a few weeks of pleasure at and away from the gaming table. For something that I cobbled together and ran as a solo affair, it gave a really tight game. I was still unsure in the 3 PM turn whether to allow Schwarzenberg to counter-attack and had he had his infantry with him, I think I would have gone with that, such was the closeness in my mind of outcome - and that says much about a good playing experience to me.
Thanks to all those who have followed this over a number of posts - you have earned your Field Marshal’s Baton!
Resources;
The previous post covering the 1 PM turn. LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/02/fighting-at-church-pursuit-of-vi-corps.html
My COMMANDERS site, which is another bit of webspace I use for snippet based stuff. LINK
https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html
