8 AM - The weather is Fine. Visibility on the table increases to 84”.
Austrian Headquarters - French brigades are clearly forming up in readiness for a prepared attack. There appears to be a particularly significant concentration of troops below the slopes in front of the village. If the French gain those slopes their artillery will get command of the battlefield. We are reliant on 2nd Cavalry and IR 36 keeping hold of that ground until we are ready to evacuate the village.
French headquarters - the Austrians look to be making a determined stand here. All orders and objectives still stand. Marulaz’s cavalry will wait for Bouquet’s 4th Infantry Division before assaulting the slopes.
Molitor voices his reluctance to an attack amongst the vineyards below the village, citing the heavy casualties already suffered by 2nd Line. Messina does not show any patience as 16th Infantry Regiment and a battery of guns are moving up to support the attack. He eventually compromises and allows Molitor to defer the attack until Lasalle’s 1st Cavalry Brigade (Bruyére) also arrive, but then the attack must be made.
A message is sent to Lasalle to move his cavalry division up at best speed.
Summary - The French forces gather, while the Austrians can do no more than wait!
9 AM - The weather is fine. Visibility on the table increases to 104”.
Austrian Headquarters - the sound of cannonade signals the opening attacks. Klenau senses that the weight of attack will soon drive him from the village. All orders stand!
French Headquarters - Masséna is content that the infantry brigade at the village will likely see him have control of Klein Stetteldorf and the associated bridge by late morning.
French 37th and 67th Line Infantry Regiments with supporting artillery have started their assault on the village. Bruyére has arrived on the right with his cavalry brigade to support Molitor’s advances into the vineyards.
At the slopes in front of the village, Austrian horse artillery enters a gunnery duel with Marulaz, while the foot artillery fires down at the village at the assaulting French formations - with some effect it must be said.
At the village, Hohenfeld defends with just four battalions. They face six French battalions and a foot artillery battery. Over the next hour, the buildings are bitterly contested. As the French break into the village, one of their battalions takes heavy casualties and retires. A counter-attack pushes the French back out, but they quickly regain the lower half of Klein Stetteldorf.
The Austrians at Klein Stetteldorf are on their knees. IR 59, unsteady through high casualties, retreats, crossing the bridge, leaving IR 14 with the task of holding the top half of the village, but it is not all going the French way. Despite their superiority in numbers, they are taking serious losses. Viviez is killed and for a while, the French right are disordered. Ledru takes command and attempts to restore order by personally leading a battalion from 37th to skirt around the right side of the village.
After an hour of fighting, the French are still holding the lower half of Klein Stetteldorf, but 67th Line Regiment has become too unsteady to continue fighting with any reliability. The responsibility of taking the town and its river crossing now rests with 37th Line Regiment alone! As bad as that might sound, they are in better shape than the Austrians (IR 14) who now need all the luck that they can get.
Beneath the village amongst the vineyards, Molitor makes his attack. The vegetation makes for difficult going.
Above - the view of the opening positions from the Austrian perspective. The French infantry that can be seen up on the hill (right) are the 2nd Line Infantry who were mauled just a few hours ago and they are not particularly enthusiastic about advancing!
Everything else in this sector is fresh. Lasalle’s cavalry can be noted on the French right, alongside the river. The Austrians are defending with three infantry battalions and an artillery battery.
But things go wrong for the Austrians from the start. The artillery battery gets confused orders (Random Event) and pull out, but immediately become entangle with the reluctant 2nd Line Regiment, however the artillery are able to keep 2nd Line at bay.
Slowly, over the difficult ground, the Austrian infantry are gradually pushed back. Then their 1st Battalion are suddenly assailed by 24th Chasseurs, things happen so quickly they are unable to react, taking losses and falling back, the rest of the regiment follows.
Gyulai, commander of IR 60, wishing to preserve the fighting capability of the regiment, orders a retreat back to the bridge. They are his last words, he is shot from the saddle, but fortunately Froon is immediately on hand to take command and ensure that the retreat order is properly executed. IR 60 disengage.
Summary - The Austrian centre (the village) is under great pressure and quite likely to collapse, though if that happens, the French would struggle to find enough immediate strength at hand to take full advantage of that. To the South, Gyulai / Froon have fought a successful rearguard action but, if the centre and its bridge falls, Froon is in danger of becoming isolated.
The bombardment at the slopes reduces in intensity - the French below look like they are ready to assault.
Admin note 1 - As I play the campaign I am developing a couple of rules. One is to tie the actions into what else is going on in the bigger picture. Using my own rules, in game, an infantry unit in assault column can move 10” per turn over open ground (minus 2” for difficult ground). So assuming each section of the map to be a 6’x4’ table and clear terrain, such a unit unopposed could travel the length of it in around 7 turns and the width in 5 turns.
So, I am setting each action on the table to play for 7 turns and then play stops or pauses while the Campaign Turn is played out over the pinboard, so the things going on around the battlefield come into play, which could include reinforcements arriving on the battlefield and in any case, just the general progress of the campaign.
At the end of the 7 turns the pins on the battlefield are also moved to their current locations within the battlefield AND all casualties and states (disordered) for each unit are recorded. This allows the gamer to clear the table and fight any other actions that need doing during the current campaign hour and then returning to the original action in the next Campaign Turn. It does obviously mean the re-setting up of battlefields to continue their fight in the next Campaign Turn (Hour).
Admin note 2 - During the campaign moves stage on the pinboard, I use a deck of playing cards to activate formations one at a time. Black for Austrians and Red for French. So for example, red is drawn, one French formation can move. I choose Molitor’s 3rd Infantry Division and any associated artillery. They make their pinboard move. Draw again, it is red again, so the lucky French move another formation, perhaps Lasalle’s Cavalry Division etc. This becomes important because pursuing troops might catch up to retreating units, locking them down so they can’t move away in their own activation. It particularly helps solo play and brings a sense of order to the proceedings in face to face games to avoid any argument.
Resources -
My other piece of webspace is called COMMANDERS, it has a variety of snippet based type pieces there. LINK
https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html
The previous campaign turn (7 AM) can be found here - LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/02/7-am-pursuit-of-vi-korps.html
