Background
The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Franco-Austrian War, Austro-Sardinian War or Italian War of 1859 (French: Campagne d’Italie), was fought by the French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia against the Austrian Empire in 1859 and played a crucial part in the process of Italian unification
The Battle of Magenta was fought on 4 June 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence, resulting in a French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III against the Austrians under Marshal Ferencz Gyulai.
It took place near the town of Magenta in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, a crown land of the Austrian Empire on 4 June 1859. Napoleon III’s army crossed the Ticino River and outflanked the Austrian right forcing the Austrian army under Gyulai to retreat. The confined nature of the country, a vast spread of orchards cut up by streams and irrigation canals, precluded elaborate maneuver. The Austrians turned every house into a miniature fortress.
The brunt of the fighting was borne by 5,000 grenadiers of the French Imperial Guard, still mostly in their First Empire style of uniforms. The battle of Magenta was not a particularly large battle, but it was a decisive victory for the Franco-Sardinian alliance. Patrice Maurice de MacMahon was created Duke of Magenta for his role in this battle, and would later go on to serve as one of the French President of the Third French Republic.
An overwhelming majority of the French-Piedmontese coalition soldiers were French (1,100 were Piedmontese and 58,000 were French).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Magenta
The Game
Set up: We set up the game straight from the Bloody Big Battles “Bloody Big European Battles” scenario expansion. Our ground cloth was a little larger, so we spread out the terrain a few inches here and there to get it to fit properly. Since the plateau is were all the fighting takes place, we did not bother representing the lower ground in the swamp and woods on the board edge. The Austrians were never going to go into the terrain everywhere, so we figured it was a small compromise.
We just through around trees and vineyards on top of our ground cloth to better represent the terrain visually for the game, as the main terrain in the scenario was covered in vineyards and fields. Unfortunately, I forgot my emplacements, so we just used some lichen to represent the two Austrian trenches.
Specail Rules: We did make a change on the OB, as it seemed the ratio of cavalry and artillery straight up caused some issues. As such, we added 50% more to the cavalry units and added 50% more artillery units to each side to allow more coverage. The cavalry worked fine. It thickened up the units, so they looked more like units) and did not have any negative impact, since there was so little cavalry anyway. The artillery turned out to the a mistake. The added firepower really provided the Austrians with effective fire and made things harder for the French. Should we try this again, we would just double the batteries and make them all half strength. This would give the flexibility, without adding firepower.
We picked the option for the Sardinian and Austrian reinforcements. We just wanted to use some Italians! However, both sides failed their die rolls, so so much for that!
Deployment: The Austrians set up their forces as stipulated in the scenario. There was an option to set up a unit forward and this was taken. The plan was to defend the forward towns to delay the French as long as possible. All units in the rear were to move up and join the I Korps to defend the line from Magenta to the river. Once the reinforcing Korps arrived on turns 2-4, their job was to relieve any battered units on the front and cover the flanks, We would see how the French attacked and adjust accordingly and react with the turn seven forces as needed.
The French opted for the right flank units to attack and take the flanking fortified town and to march to join the main French elements attacking from the open side of the table. The optional guard brigades were assigned to this attack and did not attack through the swamps.
Early Game: The French began their attack and had some initial success against the lead Austrians. The cleared the screening Austrian forces and took the first objective and river crossing. The Austrian sacrifice was not in vain, as this did give time for the Austrians to position their forced in a solid front to face the French. This was helped by the French having challenges moving a number of their units forward (poor command die rolls). It also gave enough time for the Austrian reserves to come up and fill in the and position a reserve before the French could launch their main attack.
Mid Game: When the main assault came in, the Austrian were in position and were able to through back the attacks with their fire (a number of high die rolls helped!. The French attacks that did close were either repulsed or resulted in minor wins that just pushed the Austrians back without casualties. After a few turns the French firepower was started to cause some issues for the Austrians, so the reserves moved in to fill in the gaps and relieved the shot up units on the front line. With the adjustments, the Austrians had stabilized their line.
Late Game: At this point, the French had been shot up and had lost a number of units. More Austrian reserves were now arriving from the flank, so it was clear that an immediate attack was needed to have any hope of clearing another objective. So the French went all in across the line in the hope of spreading out the Austrian fire enough to ensure a breakthrough. While this strategy was successful in getting more units into contact, it also diverted units away from attacking the objectives. A number of attacks did go in, but the French were not able to win them decisively and more importantly, they could not break into Magenta to steal the objective. With the Austrian reserves moving into position, it was clear that time had run out and the French no longer had the strength to clear Magenta or break through. The French then decided to quit the field. An un-historic Austrian victory!
- Manteuffel