Saturday 4 October 2014

Dessau for Lasalle. The map


The combat of Dessau was fought in the same general area that the combat of Thiessen, i.e. near the Elbe River, but this time on the southern bank and near its confluence with the Mulde River and the twon of Dessau.
A visit to the GeoGREIF site, a map repository of the German Univesity of Greifswald, and a search for Dessau provided for several  maps, located on the MTBL sub-repositories (4140 4139-4239-4240). The subsequent downloading and assembling with Photoshop, provided a map, dated from ca. 1906:

Map of the area (ca. 1910)
The combat took place in the area around Polnitz and Jonitz, where was located the bridge over the Mulde River leading to the town of Dessau. The narrative found in Nafziger and Fabry, allows to locate the focal points of the combat, shown in the following map:

Zoom of the map with main points of the narrative
At last, the final tablemap was drawn with PowerPoint:

The Mulde R. is impassable except by the bridge at Dessau. Woods and streams are rough terrain for cavalry and infantry and impassable for artillery except by roads or bridges, respectively. Each built-up area may contain one infantry unit

Next, the troops. Watch this space!



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