SYW Wargame Campaign Report: Week 3

The massed grenadiers of the King of Prussia at Schwibus

Dear Reader,

Today, I am reporting on the third week of the Seven Years War campaign which I have been umpiring over the past month and a half. You can find links to the previous weeks' at the bottom of the post.  Beginning in the middle of March, the campaign is still in progress now. The period of time covered in today's post is roughly April 1st-7th. Here is the map for those dates. After heavy fighting in the north, and continuing siege operations in the south, additional forces began arriving in Saxony and Bohemia, as an Austrian Army commanded by the Freiherr von Loudon, a Reichs-Execution Armee commanded by Gen d' Kav Serbelloni, and a Prussian Army commanded by Prinz Henri of Prussia appeared on the map.

As in previous weeks, we will be working our way down the map, starting with the northern sector with the Russian armies, and then moving in to the southern sector with the Austrian armies. The signal event on the northern sector of the map occurred on April 1st, as the Prussian and Russian armies clashed again, this time near Schwibus. In this battle, the King of Prussia and the main Prussian Army attacked General Tchernychev and the Russian Army, as reinforcements under Buturlin and Zieten also rushed to the field.

A rare snapshot from the actual campaign map,
rather than one reconstructed after the fact

The situation at the beginning of the battle is visible below, with the approximate front-lines of each force drawn.

 Here is a description of events, taken from the letters of an anonymous Prussian officer at the battle:

8am. The Royal Army under the command of the King of Prussia launched an attack with their best forces, (12,000 grenadiers and guard troops) upon the Russian left flank, which was guarding the road to Bretz. A furious artillery bombardment of approximately 80 guns proceeded this attack. This bombardment succeeded in disorganizing the forces defending the fleches in that sector of the field. On the Russian right flank, a sharp fight began between Prussian dragoons and the dragoons of the enemy, eventually, though the fighting was relatively even, the Russian dragoons withdrew.

9am. The King of Prussia committed his elite troops to the assault of the fleches along the Russian left wing. These troops succeeded in driving off the remaining defenders. Realizing the extreme danger to the left wing, General Tchernychev immediately committed his reserve forces from both wings of the army to the left.

10am. A Russian counterattack, spearheaded by the grenadiers of their army produced uneven results, driving some enemy grenadiers before them, and briefly recapturing the frontline fleches. With the breathing space provided by this attack, General Tchernychev reorganized the left wing, creating a new defensive line. The Russian grenadiers’ counterattack succeeded in taking 1,000 of the Prussian grenadiers as prisoners of war.

11am. Prussian forces resumed their attack, moving a large body of mustketeers from their center to support the attack on the Russian left. They succeeded in badly mauling the new defensive line, but could not break through. General Buturlin arrived on the field in advance of his forces at 11:30am.

12pm. A mass attack by the remaining Prussian grenadiers succeeded in breaking the Russian left, but resulted in the most of these grenadiers becoming casualties. The King of Prussia's grenadiers have paid a fearful cost for this victory. General Buturlin’s forces arrived, and Buturlin immediately committed his Corps d’Observation in order to buy time. The Prussian forces begin to waver.

1pm. Zieten’s forces arrive and begin the attack, saving the king and driving off the enemy. General Tcherychev’s forces succeeded in withdrawing from the field, and with the Corps d’ Observation on the north side of the city of Schwibus in a new defensive line, the Prussians broke off the attack.

Casualties were heavy on both sides, with 17,000 Prussians and 20,000 Russians killed, wounded, or captured in this engagement. The Russians retired in the direction of Meseritz, and established a new entrenched camp there. After spending a few days on the battlefield, the King of Prussian began slowly moving south in the direction of Kargow.

Upper Silesian/Bohemian Theater of Operations

In the Upper Silesian and Bohemian theater, a Prussian army under the Duke of Bevern reached Königgrätz, and occupied the city. The Austrians continued their siege operations around Neisse, and sent a raiding party north to Brieg and Breslau. The ever-resourceful Lacy commanded this detachment.

Neisse was now under serious attack, with the wet ditches slowly drying after the destruction of the sluices, and ~90,000 Austrians committed to the attack.

The most decisive moment of this week, and possibly the entire campaign so far, did not occur on the battlefield,  but in diplomatic correspondence between the Russian and Austrian courts. Intentionally or not, there was a implication that one side was shouldering more of the burden of the war effort. As a result, offense was taken on both sides, and correspondence between the two courts slackened. The Russians, on the verge of deploying a corps of reinforcements to the Austrian theater of war, redeployed those troops, regardless of the additional month of travel required to reach their new destination.  Though individual generals in both camps maintained a warm correspondence, the two armed camps now seemed less inclined to cooperate. Both were now conducting more or less individual wars against the King of Prussia, with fewer shared objectives.

The coming week would see the Austrians confronted on the battlefield by a Prussian Army for the first time, and some explosive developments at the siege of Neisse.

Background and Week 1

Week 2

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Thanks for Reading, 

Alex Burns