In April of 1757, Frederick launched a four pronged invasion of Bohemia. In a sense, this was a preemptive strike as Browne oversaw the assembly of troops and the gathering of supplies for the Austrian “liberation” of Saxony. Our campaign will focuses on the smaller conflicts between the Prussian and Austrian forces at the opening of the Bohemian campaign in April 1757 to its close at the end of June.
In a brief 13 weeks, Frederick had surprised the Austrians with four columns spread over 113 mile front to skillfully converge on Prague twelve days later. Following the disastrous battle outside the city, Charles withdrew inside Prague’s walls with 46,000 troops and Frederick settled down for a siege. A Prussian screening force alerted Frederick of a relief force under Daun. Gathering sufficient strength, Frederick seized the initiative to intercept Daun’s force 50 km away on the road to Vienna. The ensuing battle was not only Frederick’s first set back, but meant the siege of Prague was no longer tenable.
Less than two weeks later, the Prussians were back in Saxony and on the defense.
2 opmerkingen:
A nice "theatre" to explore.
-- Jeff
This is our third campaign, with the Invasion of Britain behind us and the Americas is still ongoing, we decided to start another in the European theater with modifications to the original campaign system.
Bohemia is much more than moving armies which was the case with the previous two campaigns. There the brigade was the smallest operating unit that could make map moves, now we can move regiments and battalions, which will be useful in the second phase.
Like chess, we split the campaign into an opening, a middle game and an end game, each having a set time frame. This would offer an opportunity to fine tune our administrative techniques; at what time we start marching will determine the time of day we make conntact with the enemy which will also influence our decision to do battle that day or the next. Of course, there is the risk the enemy may slip away during the night. How can you counter this?
The Battle of Reichenberg will illustrate how well our previous days planning worked.
cheers,
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