On Sunday night I finally decided that I would have a solo game on Monday, with Monday being a public holiday here in the UK. I plumped on the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, 1745, as the only one of Old Fritz's major battles of the Silesian Wars that I haven't played. The Silesian Wars (and specifically in this case, the Second Silesian War) were part of the wider group of inter-linked conflicts known as the War of the Austrian Succession). The battle was fought between Frederick II's Prussians and an Austro-Saxon army led by Prince Charles of Lorraine (brother-in-law of the Empress Maria-Theresa) and the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. Old Fritz knocked the allies for six, but this didn't end the match let alone the series.
This was going to be a relatively 'overhead free' wargame. I have the books, I have the internet, I even had access to a scenario on the Honors of War forum. Quick refresh on the key points, do a bit of measuring and some sums to work out how many game units to deploy. Easy.
But I don't do easy. I'm far too anal for that. Give me half an excuse to indulge in analysis-paralysis and I'll take it before you can say Jack Procrastination. The first step was to build the orders of battle for the game. I had 3 Duffy books handy which cover the armies in some degree of detail, plus Wikipedia, the HoW scenario and then I later remembered Chandler's The Art of War in the Age of Marlborough has a schedule of battles up to 1745. The reason for having all three Duffy's handy will become clear later. I also have Denis Showalter's The Wars of Frederick the Great, but this has scant detail, though it is an excellent book if you want the bigger picture. Now I've just remembered I also have a book on the Austrian War of Succession (from the same series of books as the Showalter tome) which I need to quickly consult in case it has another version of the truth. 'Scuse me while I make the dash down the garden to the cabin......Back now. Waste of time. I'd forgotten it was mainly political history.
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| Three months after Hohenfriedberg, the Austrians prepare to tackle the Prussians at Soor. |
So how many were there?
I started off by deciding on which map to use. So here I hit the first problem. The 3 Duffy books are the first and second editions of the Army of Frederick the Great (henceforth "AOFG1" and "AOFG2") and Frederick the Great: A Military Life. All three have broadly the same numbers of battalions, squadrons and guns, and the same total numbers of troops. But the map in AOFG1 only shows the individual units for the Prussians (e.g. IR15, CR10 etc) whilst the other two Duffy books show the same detail for the Austrians. Or most of them. But not the Saxons. Was this a clever marketing trick when AOFG1 was published in the 70s to make you buy the sister volume, the Army of Maria-Theresa? I had never bought the Army of Maria-Theresa, it's out of print now and changes hand for £££ the last time I looked.
Even on the Prussian side there are differences in treatment between the books. AOFG2, whilst showing most of the Austrian units, does not show all of the units on the Prussian right, especially the cavalry. An additional anomaly I noticed is that AOFG1 doesn't show any Saxons by the village of Pilgramshain, but it does show Prussian infantry marching up to it. AOFG2 does show the Saxons, but only an outline. No matter, a blend of the two maps would work.
Missing Austrians
Then I hit the second problem. All the sources mentioned above give total numbers of troops engaged and/or the numbers of battalions, squadrons and guns. The number of battalions and squadrons for the Austrians appears greater than the number shown on the map in AOFG2. Fortunately I remembered reading in the Obscure Battles blog that in the Austrian War of Succession many Austrian infantry regiments had three battalions, and not two as they did in the Seven years War. Also Austrian cavalry regiments had six not five squadrons. But even with this I couldn't find 126 squadrons that Duffy says the Austrians had. Chandler (and Wiki, which cites Chandler) didn't help either. He gave them 164, though this might have included the hussars (not included in Duffy's 126). But they can't have been more than about 30 (2,500 in total). I counted 11 regiments on the Duffy map: 66 squadrons maximum. So maybe some cavalry was posted on the Austrian left, near the Saxons, though surely not more than half of the total.
OK so I consulted the HoW forum scenario. This was created by specialist War of the Austrian Succession wargaming blogger, Amtmann B. He has about 40% of the Austro-Saxon cavalry on the left flank. A quick bit of maths showed that this was only a partial answer. The Saxons provided 24 squadrons, so a total of 150 squadrons. 40% x 150 minus 24 is 36; way less than the missing 60 Austrian squadrons.
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| Six months after Hohenfriedberg, the Old Dessauer's bluecoats march out of the winter gloom to attack the Saxons at Kesselsdorf |
Saxon Over-counting?
Then I moved onto the Saxons, and I dug out volume one of Between Scylla and Charybdis, Pagan's work on the Saxon army. As well as describing the cavalry, it gives a brief account of the Silesian Wars from the Saxon perspective. Pagan and Duffy agree on the numbers of units. 24 squadrons and 18 battalions, plus Uhlans to the number of 22 companies (Pagan) or 2,600 (Duffy). Both agree that the number of horse and foot (i.e. excluding the Uhlans) was 22,500.
The total seems on the high side. If the units had 600 and 150 men respectively that would total 14,400 or c17,000 if you include the Uhlans, plus a few hundred in the train. The map in AOFG2 appears to show 22/23 Saxon battalions, not 18. Could it be 18 musketeer battalions with c 4 combined grenadier battalions? Pagan states there were 18 grenadier companies in addition to 18 line battalions. Presumably the grenadier companies were detached to form converged battalions. With a total of 22 battalions of 600, plus 24 squadrons of 150 the revised total would be 16,800 so c 18,000 with the train. Pagan gives the total as 22,530, but gives losses at 3,423 with 16,685 under the colours after the battle, so just over 20,000 in all. To reach the 22,500 figure the infantry must have been close to 800 per battalion at the start of the battle (i.e.paper strength). Using Pagan, a squadron was roughly 150 strong on average (again, paper strength) depending on the type of cavalry concerned. Uhlan companies had a paper strength of 100, so the 2,600 figure in Duffy appears too high for 22 companies.
Pagan helpfully lists the regiments involved, so you can work out the split between cuirassier types and dragoon types. He mentions that rankers in the Chevauxlegers (a confusing term) were referred to as 'dragoon', so I'll pop them into that category
Pause for Breath
With all these numbers flying around, the best thing was to put them in a table. Here is a summary.
Cavalry sq | Infantry Bn | Heavy Guns | Hussars/Croats/Uhlans | Total | |
Prussians | |||||
Duffy Summary | 111 | 64 | 54 | Inc in cav | 50,000 |
Duffy Summary | 19,000 | 38,600 | Inc in cav | 57,600 | |
Duffy Map | 116 | 65 | Inc in cav | ||
Wiki/Chandler | 151 | 69 | 58,500 | ||
Average size | 164 | 594 | |||
Austro-Saxons | |||||
Duffy Summary | 150 | 65 | 66,000 | ||
Duffy Summary Aust | 37,654 | 43 | 2,500 | 40,197 | |
Duffy Summary Sax | 22,500 | 2,600 | 25,100 | ||
60,154 | 43 | 5,100 | 65,297 | ||
Duffy Map incomplete | |||||
Wiki | 62,500 | ||||
Chandler | 164 | 61 | 58,700 | ||
Pagan | 22,530 | 2,200 included? | |||
Notice I've got different numbers of squadrons between the Duffy Summary and the Duffy Map. That is probably down to lack of clarity on the hussars. Three different regiments were present but the number of squadrons isn't obvious. Also note the hussars are included in the Prussian cavalry totals. There's also a difference in the number of battalions - I have counted the Garde (IR15) as having three battalions. The average size is taken from the Duffy figures.
The big revelation of this though is the total number of Prussians Duffy quotes and the sum of infantry plus cavalry. A discrepancy of 7,600! And that's before we add in a notional 1,000 for the train.
How does this translate to the table?
Well. With great difficulty. The simple way is to tot up the number of battalions and squadrons (or men) and divide by the requisite number to make a 'brigade' (the basic unit in the rules I'm using). But I'm still not clear on how many, and where they were and what they were, particularly with regards to the Austrian cavalry.
Going by the Duffy breakdown of numbers, the Austro-Saxons have about 7,000 more men (c.5,000 of the difference is in the Austrian lights and Saxon Uhlans. The infantry is even in terms of numbers of infantry battalions. The big imbalance seems to be in the regular cavalry: 116 Prussians including hussars v 150 Austro-Saxons (excluding hussars/uhlans). Assuming equal numbers of infantry there should be a difference of around 2,000 in regular cavalry which would be 1-2 brigades. But the maps do not show where. I can only get to an estimated 126 Austro-Saxon squadrons not 150. The average Prussian squadron (164) and battalion (600) strength seems high compared to the Austrians. To make the numbers stack up to around 40,000 Austrian troops, you would need to have c 125 per squadron (15,120) and 450 per battalion (21,150) plus 2,500 irregulars and c.1,400 in the train.
Jeff Berry in his Obscure Battles page for the Battle of Soor (1745) gives Austrian battalions an average strength of 378 and for Chotusitz (1742) 518, so 450 seems a reasonable figure for Hohenfriedberg a few months before Soor. Using the OOB from Soor and cross-referencing against the map for Hohenfriedberg I can get to a total of 36 or 37 battalions only. It may be that by Soor some 3 battalion regiments had been reduced to 2 battalions strong. On balance it seems sensible to regard each Austrian 3 battalion regiment as only as strong as a Prussian 2 battalion regiment and simply count each pair of regiments as a brigade making a total of 8 brigades (16 regiments), plus 1 brigade of converged grenadier companies (usually 1 company per regiment).
The Saxons, at 18 battalions, have been allocated 4 brigades, 2 of which are large. Amtmann classes Saxon grenadiers as ‘Standard’ quality and line battalions as inferior. He gives the allies 6 cavalry Honours of War units on the right and 4 on the left. Given all of this I have increased the Austrians on the right from 3 cuirassier and 2 dragoon brigades, by a dragoon brigade. On the left I’ve given the Austrians 2 cuirassier and 1 dragoon brigade alongside the 2 cuirassier and 1 dragoon brigade of the Saxons. Overall this gives 12 heavy brigades for the allies versus 9 for the Prussians, and 3 allied irregular cavalry versus 2 hussars for the Prussians. I think this balance is about right going by the overall numbers.
This matches up with the prospective average numbers referred to earlier. Let’s assume all brigades were a standard 2 regiments. Whilst admitting there was no such thing as a standard brigade as all formations above a regiment at this time were as hoc, we have to start somewhere and a ‘brigade’ occupying a set frontage in the rules I’m using is the basic manoeuvre unit.
Prussian cavalry brigade = 164 x 10 = 1640
Austrian cavalry brigade = 125 x 12 = 1500
The Prussian brigade is nearly 10% bigger. So if I allow the Austrians proportionately fewer brigades, we end up with 126 / 12 = 10.5. X 90% = 9.45, rounded off to 9. Plus the 3 Saxon brigades = 12.
This is what I landed on finally:
Right | Centre | Left | Total | ||
Prussians | |||||
Cuirassiers | 3 | 0 | 2 | 5 | Right: 1 small bde elite cuirassiers |
Dragoons | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Centre: Bayreuth Dragoons |
Hussars | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | Right: Large bde hussars |
Garde/Grenadiers | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |
Musketeers | 5 | 7 | 0 | 12 | Right: 1 small bde musketeers |
Heavy Guns | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||
Austrians | |||||
Cuirassiers | 3 | 0 | 2 | 5 | |
Dragoons | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 | |
Hussars | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
Garde/Grenadiers | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 co per regiment = 16 co.s |
Musketeers | 0 | 6 | 2 | 8 | |
Heavy Guns | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
Saxons | |||||
Cuirassiers | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 is half made up of Garde |
Dragoons | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | Classing Chevau-légers as same ‘weight class’ as dragoons |
Uhlans | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
Garde/Grenadiers | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | Standard (trained) |
Musketeers | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | Inferior, 2 large |
Heavy Guns | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Summarised here:
Totals | ||
Prussians | Austro-Saxons | |
Cuirassiers | 5 | 7 |
Dragoons | 4 | 5 |
Hussars | 2 | 1 |
Uhlans | 0 | 2 |
Garde/Grenadiers | 5 | 2 |
Musketeers | 12 | 12 |
Croats | 0 | 1 |
Heavy Guns | 3 | 2 |
31 | 32 | |
By the time I'd finished figuring all that out it was after 8PM and through the day I'd spent about 9 hours on it, plus a bit more since tweaking the final figures. Far more time than I'll ever spend playing the game. I have to ask myself why I do it. The short answer is I like things to be "right". I want to get as close as I reasonably can to making the scenario reflective of the battle scenario subject to all the usual caveats about not being really able to make a "realistic" portrayal in a wargame."
So next up I’ll cover scenario design. By which I mean, how I set the game up to capture the peculiar features of this battle. It's not a straightforward battle and it's not quite an encounter battle, but something in between the two. More on that in the next instalment.
Post Script
I have managed to find the whole of the German General Staff map of the battle. It is causing me to revise what I had. The Austrian cavalry with the Saxons are 4 cuirassier regiments, but other than those shown on the AOFG2 map, there are no more Austrian cavalry - so it appears far less than the 126 squadrons quoted by Duffy. In fact Pagan has less Austro-Saxon cavalry than Duffy has Prussians. Pagan says there were 18,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry versus 19,000 and 38,600 respectively for the Prussians in Duffy.
I think I can also make out the Uhlans on that wing, and I can place names on most of the Saxon heavy cavalry. The 18 Saxon infantry battalions are all clearly shown as are the 18 companies of grenadiers (located at the village of Pilgramsheim).
There are also 4 Prussian cavalry regiments shown by Striegau (yet to identify whether cuirassiers or dragoons) and these would add to the 111/116 squadrons of the Prussians.
Finally, the Obscure Battles page for Soor has Austrian cavalry regiments at over 800 strong, so that might have an effect. Might because it looks like there were fewer but larger squadrons.
I will have to reflect on all this and have another look at the cavalry numbers.
References
Books
Christopher Duffy, The Army of Frederick the Great, 1st edition. (1974)
Christopher Duffy, The Army of Frederick the Great, 2nd edition. (2020)
Christopher Duffy, Frederick the Great: A Military Life. (1985)
David Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough. (1990)
Marco Pagan, Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Army of Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony, 1733-1763, Part I: Staff and Cavalry. (2018)
Denis Showalter, The Wars of Frederick the Great. (1996)
M.S. Anderson, The War of the Austrian Succession 1740-1748. (1995)
Internet
Obscure Battles: http://obscurebattles.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-battle-of-soor-1745_23.html
Wackershofen Anno Domini: https://wackershofenannodomini.blogspot.com
Honors of War Forum: http://honoursofwar.com
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hohenfriedberg
British Battles: https://www.britishbattles.com/frederick-the-great-wars/the-battle-of-hohenfriedberg/
[This last one is a bit of an oddity. Hohenfriedberg clearly has no British involvement, other than subsidies to Austria. The map it provides is a bit misleading - don't take the numbers of blocks shown as necessarily representative of the number of units. The text itself seems OK, and there's some nice pictures.]
A couple of other resources I just discovered:
A blog post showing a game report for a recreation of the battle and a potentially useful map from the German General Staff history of Frederick's wars - https://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/2019/09/was-battle-of-hohenfriedberg-june-4-1745.html
German Historical Documents & Images - I haven't had time to explore this yet. https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/section.cfm?section_id=8 There is a map of the battle but it isn't vey clear - https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2945
A Wiki version of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. The map isn't much use for my purposes, but it is interesting nonetheless. The settlement pattern (lots of long straggling villages) is typical of Silesia according to Duffy, and still is as a glance at a satellite map of the area today.
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