Friday, 5 June 2009

A tentative OOB for Pitschenberg

I have made some research... well, research is a too ambitious word: I have look at the books cited in the previous post about Pitschenberg, searching for the period comprised between the battle of Katzbach (August 26, 1813) and September, 5.
In those days, the demoralized French Army of the Bober commanded by the Marshall Macdonald, was retiring eastwards towards Bautzen closely pursued by the Bluecher's Army of Silesia. The retreat was only stopped by the arrival of Napoleon himself. He was accompanied by his Guard, the Marmont's VI Corps and the Latour-Maubourg's 1st Cavalry Corps. The French attacked the Allied advance guard but, Bluecher knew (from spy informations and from the reports of his advanced guards) of the presence of Napoleon and retired, in compliance with the Trachenberg Plan, leaving Napoleon without his general battle.
While in the real world the Pitschenberg combat was only a minor affaire, the battle of the Project Leipzig will be the general encounter wanted by Napoleon. In that battle will participate the following corps:


French
Napoleon
(87,400 men)
- Army of the Bober commanded by Macdonald
- III Corps (Souham) 27,200 men
- V Corps (Lauriston)
7,700 men
- XI Corps (Gerard) 18,700 men
- II Cavalry Corps (Sebastiani) 6,100 men
- I Cavalry Corps (Latour-Mauburg) commanded by Murat 7,600 men
- Imperial Guard (Mortier)
20,100 men

Allied
Bluecher's Armyy of Silesia
(85,000 men)
- Right Wing (Russian) commanded by Sacken
- 10th Infantry Corps (Vassil'shikov)
7,200 men
- Cavalry Corps (Tschaplitz) 2,900 men
- Cossacks (Karpov)
3,800 men
- 8th Corps (St. Priest) 12,000 men
- I Corps (Prussian) commanded by Yorck 32,600 men
- Left Wing (Russian) commanded by Langeron
- 6th Infantry Corps
7,200 men
- 9th Infantry Corps (Olsusiev) 6,200 men
- 10th Infantry Corps (Kapzevich) 7,200 men
- 1st Cavalry Corps (Korff) 5,900 men

The strengths of the different corps of the Army of the Bober have been calculated by using the losses given in Nafziger's 'Napoleon at Dresden. The Battles of August 1813' (The Emperor Press, Chicago, 1994). For the other armies or corps, we have used the numbers in the nearest available state of forces, corrected by an attrition of 1% daily.

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