Background
In the First Battle of Polotsk, which took place on 17–18 August 1812, Russian troops under the command of Peter Wittgenstein fought French and Bavarian troops led by Nicolas Oudinotnear the city of Polotsk, halting Oudinot’s advance toward Saint Petersburg. The First Battle of Polotsk should be distinguished from the Second Battle of Polotsk which took place during the same campaign two months later.
After the battle of Klyastitsy and several minor losses, Oudinot’s Corps retreated to Polotsk. In the early morning of 17 August, the 1st Infantry Corps led by Wittgenstein attacked the French positions near the village of Spas, forcing the French to retreat. Oudinot transported additional units to the sector of the attack and also counterattacked in the centre. By the night both the French and the Russians managed to keep their positions. Oudinot was wounded and had to hand over the command to Gouvion Saint-Cyr.
The next morning Gouvion Saint-Cyr undertook a major offensive. He managed to mislead Wittgenstein about the area of the offensive, regroup his troops and suddenly attack the left flank and centre of the Russian positions. In the beginning the offensive was a major success, the French troops crushed the Russians and captured seven cannons.
When defeat seemed imminent, Wittgenstein organized a cavalry counterattack. It caused a scare among the French, who ceased the offensive and retreated. Wittgenstein retreated to the Drissa. For the next two months both the French and the Russians did not attempt to upset the balance of powers.
French-Bavarian losses numbered 6,000 killed, wounded. The Russians lost 5,500. Bavarian general officer losses were heavy. General of Infantry Bernhard Erasmus von Deroy was mortally wounded and General-Major Siebein was killed. General-Majors Vincenti and Raglovitch were both wounded. Among the French, both Oudinot and General of Brigade François Valentin were wounded. Russian Generals Berg, Hamen, and Kazatchkowski suffered wounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Polotsk
The Game
In our search for “the right Napoleonics rules”, we decided to try out this game using Bloody Big Battles by Chris Pringle. The rules are designed for use in the late 19th century. However, looking at the weapon options and rules, it seemed that they would equally fit in the late Napoleonic period. The mechanics are straight forward, the basic unit is a Brigade and you can scale as needed. With that, it is pretty easy to convert most any OOB or scenario using these rules into a game. In this case, we thought we would try a scenario out of the newest release from the Wargame Company, “Didn’t Dare Do Anything, 1812 in Russia”. This book allows you to play a number of the battles on the southern front during the 1812 campaign. The GM selected Polosk, as it was one of the larger scenarios from the book. The troop scale was set to 500 per base to better reflect the strengths of the formations. All Russians were rated as Aggressive and Veteran to help them overcome their numerical disadvantage. All Russians infantry brigades were also given skirmishers. The Bavarians were all rated Average and had passive command. They also all had infantry skirmishers. The French and Swiss were rated average with skirmish infantry also.
The game began with the Russians launching their attack to try to take the bridges before the French forces organized. The attack was concentrated and seemed to start off well. However, the Bavarians decided not to wait for the French to activate on the other side of the river and immediately attacked to the Russians. This caused the Russians to get bogged down and placed their flank in difficulty. The Russians gave as well as they got from the Bavarians, but their attack was now a bit of a shambles. At this point, the French started to slowly move across the river in strength and immediately attacked to support the exposed Bavarians. The converging attacks were too much for the Russians, who tried to fall back to more defensible positions. However, the withdrawal became a route and it was over the Russians on this day. A historical win by the French, so Oudinot would receive his Marschal’s baton!
Well, we played the game to completion in about three hours. The rules worked well and most of the players got the basics during play. I was very happy with the play and the feel. We will try something different with BBB and see if they are a keeper for Naponeonics.
- Manteuffel