La Bataille d' Heilsberg 1807

most famous of Napoleonic victories at Friedland. Though considered a French victory, its victory status appears to be only because the Russians decided to withdraw from their fortified positions just outside of Heilsberg on the June 11, after surviving Lannes night assault on June 10. Napoleon’s involvement appears to have been minimal. Other than ordering Savary and the Fusilier Guards to rescue the reckless Murat, Napoleon’s behavior was strangely passive for most of June 10. Murat; Soult; and then Lannes appear to have violated direct orders from Napoleon not to get too engaged. Yet they did at great cost. Soult and Murat’s commands took heavy casualties and were not at Friedland just four days later.

Whatever the reason, the literature on Heilsberg is hazy and minimal and ultimately the record is unclear.

Here is our review of the history of the battle using our game for the reference points. The history put into convenient using the first three scenarios to outline the events. Our review of the strategic situation took us to the failure of Bennigsen’s June offensive with its overly convoluted six-pronged offensive against Marshal Ney. Bennigsen’s offensive petered out about 12 miles east of Heilsberg, at Guttstadt on June 7. Napoleon’s army enters that town on June 9 and decides to seek out the Russian rear guard.

Scenario One-The French Advance

This is a one map scenario of only 11 turns with a small number of forces on both sides. Marshal Murat starts his day at dawn by pursuing Borozdin with the Russian Advance Guard. At 10:00 (turn one) Borozdin enters the map in road order on the Road to Launau retreating towards Bewernick. Bewernick has a small garrison of mainly infantry under Prince Lvov. Langweisse also has a small garrison from the Advance Guard just north of Bewernick. About nine hexes east of Bewernick, Bagration is racing to reinforce the area. At 10:20 start arriving. General Latour-Maubourg comes onto the mapboard with his dragoon division and some horse-guns. Marshal Murat comes onto the mapboard at 11:00 am along with LaSalle’s division.

Russians take advantage of the terrain. As might be expected, Murat was too impatient to wait for Soult's infantry, which is marching towards Bewernick. Murat rashly moves forward without proper support. He cannot quickly take Bewernick and Langwiese. In the playtests, Russians tend to be a little stronger due to the favorable position of woods. Can easily be played in one sitting.

Scenario Two Uvarov Forward aka Murat's Boot

We really like Scenario Two. It is chock-filled with action and has considerable room for maneuver, yet it is still compact enough to be on one (West) map. The scenario starts at 14:20

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