On a quiet Saturday evening, I stepped into the shoes of a Prussian general to relive a battle against Napoleon. Invented by Prussian army in the 1800s, Kriegsspiel is still an entertaining exercise today and an increasingly popular hobby it seems. I had the opportunity to participate in a wargame hosted by the International Kriegsspiel Society. The scenario was based on the Battle of Rivoli. Here is a video about the historical battle:
In short, the Austrian army marches south where Napoleon sieges Mantua. Napoleon tries to stop them while still in mountainous terrain. At the city of Rivoli, they clash.
The announcement in Discord said:
all players are welcome to join unannounced
Setting up the Game
So, at 17:00 real time I joined their Discord voice channel. My preparation was essentially to watch the video above.
More people than expected turned up, so the host needed more volunteer "umpires" to help him run the game. Umpires collect orders, move players between channels, and maintain the board game state. Still, there were more people than commander positions in the armies, so the rest became "runners" with the task to pass verbal messages between commanders. Usually in Kriegsspiel, written dispatches get passed around between players. I got the role of Generalmajor Heinrich XV, Prince of Reuss-Plauen, one of the historical commanders under command of Feldmarschall-Lieutenant Quosdanovich.
We got a link to this, a module for Tabletop Simulator. While I didn't have that tool, fortunately my more experienced colleagues did and by screen sharing we formed a plan.
The deployment and starting time already differs from history, so this will certainly be a very different battle. We don't even know if Napoleon is as outnumbered as historically or if the incoming reinforcements are already in play.
In contrast to history, we would not bother to attack along the river Adige. Instead, we wanted to make a stronger attack on Rivoli from the west. My part was the "most western one": March south towards Affi and then swing around, essentially what Franz de Lusignan did historically but with more troops on my side.
By this point, two hours had passed. One has to bring some patience to games with forty people, most of them newbies. It takes time to sort things out.
The Battle Begins
My first screenshot at the start (0900 in game time) shows my "Reuss" troops marching behind Joseph Ocskay and Peter Quosdanovich. The screenshots are from "my point of view" looking south, so all the names on the map are flipped.
I ordered to march through Costermano on the road to Affi.
Surprise at 0920 in-game: Twenty minutes later we are already past Costermano. Where is the rest of my troops though?
My umpire explained to me that I ordered to march, so me and my front cavalry raced ahead. Oops, that had not been my intention. Well, my next order was to wait for the infantry at the next crossroads.
By 0940 in-game, my infantry had caught up. We didn't advance to the crossroad though, because we spotted some enemies ahead. Just two battalions alone? On my left, Ocskay marched along.
With such a force, we should be able to break through easily, so I ordered an attack: A frontal assault with my infantry, while my cavalry shall flank from the right.
Enemy Contact
At 1000 in-game, I realized it was five instead of two battalions. My cavalry made a wider swing than I intended but it worked out fine. I guess, the problem of imprecise orders is a problem for real world battles too.
Still, this is not a strong defense, so my order was simply "fight on!"
By 1020, the infantry was broken and my cavalry was cleaning up the rest. A runner informed me that Ocskay had also fought. I could see he had turned his troops to the left, so I assumed he faced some oppositions form the ridge in the east. In the debrief I learned this was just a misunderstanding with Quosdanovich.
At this point my superior, Quosdanovich, visited me. This means we didn't need to communicate with runners, but were in the same voice channel and could strategize with screensharing.
We had not received any news from the western army. Suspicious about so little resistance, we suspected a major defense at Monte Moscal in the south, a nice defensive hill and Napoleon has heavy artillery. Quosdanovich wanted to take me east to Gazzoli for a meeting with Ocskay, so I ordered my troops to advance a little further until Albare and hold there.
At 1040 the whole eastern command congregated in Gazzoli.
In the distance, I could see my troops fighting but it seemed to be a minor force still. I was quite relaxed. Quosdanovich wanted some intel about the west, so he ordered Ocskay with cavalry up the ridge. I would take over his artillery and infantry to advance south towards Monte Moscal.
Now even our command in chief, Feldzeugmeister Alvinczi, visited us. He informed us that there was little resistance around Rivoli as well.
I ordered my additional troops to join up with the rest and advance south. It felt like a promotion to command so many men. At 1100, we found them.
My troops had advanced further than I intended was already engaged with the enemy. The men, especially the cavalry, was quite disordered by now, so should I really presss on? The french troops didn't look good either though and we still seemed to have more forces. On the top of the hill, that seems to be Napoleon himself. That artillery on my left looked very intimidating though.
With Quosdanovich and Alvinczi looking over my shoulder, my orders were:
- The fitter half of my cavalry shall attack their right flank while the other half gets a few minutes of rest.
- My center infantry shall charge ahead. This will cost but this doesn't seems to be the decisive moment.
- My left flank shall stay put. Endure and return the fire.
A few minutes later, we were all moved to lobby voice channel for debriefing. The game was over after 4,5 hours at 21:30 real time.
Debrief
Here the umpires showed as the full truth (flipped around, now facing north):
Essentially, we had crushed Napoleon's army. On the left, you can see my cavalry and infantry ripping into the french.
If we had continued, Napoleon would have received reinforcements from the south. So there was some discussion if Austria could really press on now against fresh troops. Historically, Napoleon also was losing. Then he allegedly said "now they are ours" and routed the Austrians.
Still the general conclusion was that the french were spread too wide and it resulted in a defeat in detail.
Conclusions
It was roughly as chaotic as I imagined it to be. I fear "my runner" did not really enjoy the game because he had nothing to do. Apparently, many people are interested in playing, but there is a shortage of hosts and umpires.
And that concludes my game experience. I intend to do more Kriegsspiel. Next time I should try umpiring and I should get Tabletop Simulator running.