La Bataille de Aspern-Essling 1809

Player’s Aide: The Troops at Aspern-Essling

Operations Against the Hapsburg Empire

Elsewhere there have been a few comments regarding the Austrians from the Household, because we are currently introducing their Armee into Leipzig, Raszyn and Aspern-Essling The House of Habsburg-Lorraine brought a very large armee into the field and many of the battalions begin the campaign at their table of organization strengths of 900 – 1100 souls. What in the world does the competent Imperial French Player do in the face of these huge white coated infantry battalions, while defending the freedom of Central Germany? There are opportunities and the roadmap to them is most easily found in the organization of the Austrian Armeekorps and its divisions. For the most part there are 3 types of Korps organizations for the Austrians at this time; Reserve, Advance Guard, and Line Infantry Divisions. The Reserve formations are comprised of Divisions of either Grenadier Battalions, or Heavy Cavalry. Their quality is very good but limited in number. They are used for the counterattack. Second the Advance Guard are comprised of Light Divisions of mixed organization, light infantry and light cavalry, and third the Line Divisions which are the basic element of attack and defense. Very large battalions, a few brigade guns and no cavalry.

For the most part this renders an Armee which is proportionately weighted toward infantry and disproportionately weighed against cavalry. The fact the Austrians embraced this organization is not by chance but circumstance. The treasury of Austrian could mobilize, equip and maintain in the field a large infantry armee, but Cavalry costs are much greater per man and therefore they lowered the relationship between Infantry and Cavalry to the lowest levels found by a major combatant in the period. This fact is the guide that permits the French Player to interact with the Austrian field armies with a reasonable chance to have a level of success. To counteract this, the Archduke Karl and Adjutantgeneral Grunne developed a couple of specialized infantry formations. The Battalion Masse and the Division Masse . Both of these formations are designed around the positioning of the companies of individual battalions. These formations had a much better chance against enemy cavalry than a column, or a line and the doctrine was to fight in Line. The Battalion Masse allows the Austrian Infantry to move over open country in the face of enemy cavalry. When deployed in square movement is severely limited. Remember every formation has its pluses and minuses. To bring things into perspective some writings outline the battalions when in column were taught, in the face of cavalry to form line and then form Carre from their line formation. This double action was found to be hazardous, in earlier campaigns

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