Couple of questions:
1. Having looked at these they all seem to require 1000 EPs - am I right in thinking that unless these are granted by some kind of event then each nation needs to save these up (and should avoid spending EPS in the meantime)?
2. In Austrias case the reforms cant be triggered until 1810? is this working as intended because Charles had reformed the Austrian army for the 1809 war (well he had tried his best)
PhilThib wrote:Hello
1. Yes, you better save the EP's, you don't get "gifts"...at worst, you can also buy EPs via options
2. WAD, the Austrian army reform will imply Charles' retirement, so I decided to postpone the reform till after 1809, or he'll miss that campaign
Thanks for the reply!
Dont you think re point 2 that it unfairly penalises the Austrians in 1809 as they will not have access to the improved army organisationlike they did historically (remember they arguably inflicted the first defeat on Napoleon at Aspern Essling).
I conceed the Austrians were still behind the French in army organisation but they had improved markedly since 1805 and the game should reflect that?
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Taillebois
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TC271 wrote:Thanks for the reply!
Dont you think re point 2 that it unfairly penalises the Austrians in 1809 as they will not have access to the improved army organisationlike they did historically (remember they arguably inflicted the first defeat on Napoleon at Aspern Essling).
I conceed the Austrians were still behind the French in army organisation but they had improved markedly since 1805 and the game should reflect that?
"Ever since Austerlitz the Austrian officers had been labouring to reconstitute and reform their army. Much had been done to create an efficient staff, but though the idea of an army corps command was now no new thing, the senior generals entrusted with these commands were far from having acquired the independence and initiative of their French opponents. Hence the extraordinary slowness of their manoeuvres, not because the Austrian infantry were bad marchers, but because the preparation and circulation of orders was still far behind the French standard."
Taillebois wrote:"Ever since Austerlitz the Austrian officers had been labouring to reconstitute and reform their army. Much had been done to create an efficient staff, but though the idea of an army corps command was now no new thing, the senior generals entrusted with these commands were far from having acquired the independence and initiative of their French opponents. Hence the extraordinary slowness of their manoeuvres, not because the Austrian infantry were bad marchers, but because the preparation and circulation of orders was still far behind the French standard."
Misses the point - by 1809 the Austrians had move away from having the brigade/regiment as the only permanent formation with ad hoc higher formations and had properly formed divisions and corps with permanent staff. The fact that the same aristocratic indifferent officers still lead these formations was a problem but one the game simulates well enough by the general low ratings given to most senior Austrian officers.
IMO the game should reflect this by bringing the Austrian reform year forward to 1809.
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Taillebois
- General of the Army
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- Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 8:09 pm
- Location: Nr GCHQ Cheltenham
I should have given the source of the quote which is an old Encylopedia Britannica:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Napoleonic_Campaigns
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Napoleonic_Campaigns
See http://www.napoleon-series.org Article The Austrian Imperial Royal Army 1805-1809 by Enrico Acerbi
Long article and you have to scroll a ways to get to the table and text showing post 1805 to 1809 reforms.
There should be some reforms. One of the main benefits was that the austrian army in 1809 was more cohesive, it was able to fight another day as it were.
Long article and you have to scroll a ways to get to the table and text showing post 1805 to 1809 reforms.
There should be some reforms. One of the main benefits was that the austrian army in 1809 was more cohesive, it was able to fight another day as it were.
http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/Austria/ArmyStudy/c_AustrianArmyOverview.html
The table, which I can't reproduce shows "before and after" reforms through 1809 and is useful
from the article:
The Charles Conscription System improved
When, in 1806, the Emperor Franz abdicated his title of Holy Roman Empire Emperor, Austria suspended the recruitments from the historical electoral (German) areas. In order to enroll again the “now foreign” citizens in its army, in 1807, they created the “Borders Levy” (Confinen-Werbung, instead of the former Reichs-Werbung), but the support of this additional Levy was unsatisfactory and unuseful. [9] Austria had to recruit soldiers mainly in its national lands, but volunteers were always welcome (from Netherlands, Rhinelands, Bavaria, Saxony, Italy and from all the previous lost territories.)
So, in order to reach the stated military strength, a Supreme Resolution Act (June 12, 1806) created the Reserve (Reserve-Anstalt). Its organization was strictly tracked by Charles himself, ending in 1808 with the creation of the Landwehr.
Every regiment had to maintain a force of 2 battalions as Reserve-Mannschaft (each with 600-700 men), which could have been asked to enroll again in the case of war. Every man of the Reserve had his Legitimationskarte and the Reserve Duty period now lasted from 17 till 40 years. [10]
This Reform, in 1809, was extended also into Hungary (neue Werbe-Instruction für Ungarn), where the recruitment was still free (voluntary). Now the Magyars were enrolled in the Counties areas, numbered with the same regiment numbers as in the hereditary lands. Insurrectio national units (a sort of Hungarian Landwehr already present since the end of the 18th Century) and the Grenzregiments of the Military Border maintained their own historical systems.
Charles then passed to his old project: the “shield against invaders”. But it was more probable that he would try to turn round the French prohibition to the Austrian rearmament by exploiting the territorial areas as the already existing Hungarian model. Basing on his personal experience in raising an own Legion (thanks to his faithful Bohemians) Charles suggested to raise a national defensive army force, similar to the Magyar Insurrectio army.
This was the first step along the stairway which would have had to bring to the rebirth of the imperial army. The provision for the Landwehr caused minimal alarm in France, as the system was structured as defensive. In addition, the new territorial army would have had to regulate the control and the command over the volunteers units (Freiwillige), which were various and numerous in the Austrian tradition.
The orders to establish the raising of the Landwehr were issued with the Imperial Patent of 9th June 1808. This act made compulsory the service in the militia, for all males of the hereditary lands (Austria, Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia and Galicia) aged between 18 and 45, unless exempted or already serving with the reserve units. In four provinces, Upper and Lower Austria, Bohemia and Inner Austria, were planned 170 battalions, however, actually, only around 70 battalions took the field. Each province was subdivided into districts, each required to raise between one and five battalions of six companies, organised as the line infantry and under the command of retired officers of the regular army or “self-commissioned” nobles and landowners.
Although some “Freikorps”, or volunteer battalions, were initially a military element completely separate from the Landwehr, being recruited from willing volunteers who signed only for the duration of the war, these units soon began to give the best recruits to the Landwehr, which, in fact, became the Cadre corps, around which the whole system operated. Napoleon strongly disagreed with this “secondary” army system and one of the clauses of the Vienna Treaty was the total Abolition of the Landwehr armies.
Out of the numerous arrangements which were early studied in 1808, with few exceptions, in this period there happened also another important attempt to improve the tactical arrangements and training of the whole army, indirectly revising the Mack “mistakes of the past”.
It was the introduction of the Corps-System by which Archduke Charles entirely erased the old traditions of Treffen (battlelines), Wings, Reserve Corps and so on. He wanted to give to the army this tactically deployment modelling it on what was applied in France. The aim was also the complete remake of the 1798 system of the large Legions, a primitive form of dividing armies in group of Divisions.
The Corps commander, so, could have had at disposition a small linear army to be led under the tactical old and well-known principles; the Line Divisions represented the “corps de bataille” (or the old Treffen) while the Light Division was employed for service of vanguard; there were also special “Corps de Réserve”, acting as strategical reserve force.
This rigid Ordre de Bataille put into evidence that Austrian Staff had not comprised the real nature of the new French Corps-system, having almost abandoned the aim to eventually create operative divisions capable to act as independent bodies, as the French did in campaign.
As an other proof of weakness subsequently appeared that the army commanders put nearly no value on the preservation of the Corps structure. The column formation, practiced in the former wars, emerged again without particular consideration for the new deployment in field. Also within the Corps the originally settled “Ordre de bataille” changed time by time, in spite of the Generalissimus orders, who forbade this arbitrary actions.
It was a problem of a new system with old Generals.
The army arrangement in large operative independent unities required a new organization with moving depots; each independent Corps had its own carriage park with bread, rusk, oat and hay, and, as permanently subordinates, some supply columns. The Corps commanders now had to be familiar with the Supply chains, had to dispose the daily transports (Tagesstaffeln) of the supply trains. The bad communications demanded the accumulation of several depots behind the lines, and the utter changes in the operative plans caused deadly confusion. Under these circumstances it would have been better if the Army command had reserved itself the leading of the depots, occasionally sending separate columns to supply the corps.
This was a major fault in the Charles Army reorganization, which probably led directly to the campaigns’ defeats. Charles had reformed the old stationary Austrian supply system raising a new, reasonably mobile structure, smaller than the old one and split among the Corps. But Napoléon (and Eugène) were still faster in moving, manoeuvering and supplying and Charles did not have any hope to beat the French other than in immobile field deployment or by exploiting some exceptional leaks in the enemy logistic system (remember the bridges at Aspern)
The table, which I can't reproduce shows "before and after" reforms through 1809 and is useful
from the article:
The Charles Conscription System improved
When, in 1806, the Emperor Franz abdicated his title of Holy Roman Empire Emperor, Austria suspended the recruitments from the historical electoral (German) areas. In order to enroll again the “now foreign” citizens in its army, in 1807, they created the “Borders Levy” (Confinen-Werbung, instead of the former Reichs-Werbung), but the support of this additional Levy was unsatisfactory and unuseful. [9] Austria had to recruit soldiers mainly in its national lands, but volunteers were always welcome (from Netherlands, Rhinelands, Bavaria, Saxony, Italy and from all the previous lost territories.)
So, in order to reach the stated military strength, a Supreme Resolution Act (June 12, 1806) created the Reserve (Reserve-Anstalt). Its organization was strictly tracked by Charles himself, ending in 1808 with the creation of the Landwehr.
Every regiment had to maintain a force of 2 battalions as Reserve-Mannschaft (each with 600-700 men), which could have been asked to enroll again in the case of war. Every man of the Reserve had his Legitimationskarte and the Reserve Duty period now lasted from 17 till 40 years. [10]
This Reform, in 1809, was extended also into Hungary (neue Werbe-Instruction für Ungarn), where the recruitment was still free (voluntary). Now the Magyars were enrolled in the Counties areas, numbered with the same regiment numbers as in the hereditary lands. Insurrectio national units (a sort of Hungarian Landwehr already present since the end of the 18th Century) and the Grenzregiments of the Military Border maintained their own historical systems.
Charles then passed to his old project: the “shield against invaders”. But it was more probable that he would try to turn round the French prohibition to the Austrian rearmament by exploiting the territorial areas as the already existing Hungarian model. Basing on his personal experience in raising an own Legion (thanks to his faithful Bohemians) Charles suggested to raise a national defensive army force, similar to the Magyar Insurrectio army.
This was the first step along the stairway which would have had to bring to the rebirth of the imperial army. The provision for the Landwehr caused minimal alarm in France, as the system was structured as defensive. In addition, the new territorial army would have had to regulate the control and the command over the volunteers units (Freiwillige), which were various and numerous in the Austrian tradition.
The orders to establish the raising of the Landwehr were issued with the Imperial Patent of 9th June 1808. This act made compulsory the service in the militia, for all males of the hereditary lands (Austria, Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia and Galicia) aged between 18 and 45, unless exempted or already serving with the reserve units. In four provinces, Upper and Lower Austria, Bohemia and Inner Austria, were planned 170 battalions, however, actually, only around 70 battalions took the field. Each province was subdivided into districts, each required to raise between one and five battalions of six companies, organised as the line infantry and under the command of retired officers of the regular army or “self-commissioned” nobles and landowners.
Although some “Freikorps”, or volunteer battalions, were initially a military element completely separate from the Landwehr, being recruited from willing volunteers who signed only for the duration of the war, these units soon began to give the best recruits to the Landwehr, which, in fact, became the Cadre corps, around which the whole system operated. Napoleon strongly disagreed with this “secondary” army system and one of the clauses of the Vienna Treaty was the total Abolition of the Landwehr armies.
Out of the numerous arrangements which were early studied in 1808, with few exceptions, in this period there happened also another important attempt to improve the tactical arrangements and training of the whole army, indirectly revising the Mack “mistakes of the past”.
It was the introduction of the Corps-System by which Archduke Charles entirely erased the old traditions of Treffen (battlelines), Wings, Reserve Corps and so on. He wanted to give to the army this tactically deployment modelling it on what was applied in France. The aim was also the complete remake of the 1798 system of the large Legions, a primitive form of dividing armies in group of Divisions.
The Corps commander, so, could have had at disposition a small linear army to be led under the tactical old and well-known principles; the Line Divisions represented the “corps de bataille” (or the old Treffen) while the Light Division was employed for service of vanguard; there were also special “Corps de Réserve”, acting as strategical reserve force.
This rigid Ordre de Bataille put into evidence that Austrian Staff had not comprised the real nature of the new French Corps-system, having almost abandoned the aim to eventually create operative divisions capable to act as independent bodies, as the French did in campaign.
As an other proof of weakness subsequently appeared that the army commanders put nearly no value on the preservation of the Corps structure. The column formation, practiced in the former wars, emerged again without particular consideration for the new deployment in field. Also within the Corps the originally settled “Ordre de bataille” changed time by time, in spite of the Generalissimus orders, who forbade this arbitrary actions.
It was a problem of a new system with old Generals.
The army arrangement in large operative independent unities required a new organization with moving depots; each independent Corps had its own carriage park with bread, rusk, oat and hay, and, as permanently subordinates, some supply columns. The Corps commanders now had to be familiar with the Supply chains, had to dispose the daily transports (Tagesstaffeln) of the supply trains. The bad communications demanded the accumulation of several depots behind the lines, and the utter changes in the operative plans caused deadly confusion. Under these circumstances it would have been better if the Army command had reserved itself the leading of the depots, occasionally sending separate columns to supply the corps.
This was a major fault in the Charles Army reorganization, which probably led directly to the campaigns’ defeats. Charles had reformed the old stationary Austrian supply system raising a new, reasonably mobile structure, smaller than the old one and split among the Corps. But Napoléon (and Eugène) were still faster in moving, manoeuvering and supplying and Charles did not have any hope to beat the French other than in immobile field deployment or by exploiting some exceptional leaks in the enemy logistic system (remember the bridges at Aspern)
Yup.
The Corps structure was ordered formed on February 2, 1809, with huge staffs to compensate for lack of adequate division-level staffs, but the commanders had no idea how to use the Corps system on the level of the French.
SOURCE:
Rothenburg, Gunther E., "Napoleon's Great Adversaries, The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792-1814," Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IL, 1982.
The Corps structure was ordered formed on February 2, 1809, with huge staffs to compensate for lack of adequate division-level staffs, but the commanders had no idea how to use the Corps system on the level of the French.
SOURCE:
Rothenburg, Gunther E., "Napoleon's Great Adversaries, The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792-1814," Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IL, 1982.
Reading from the above, the summary is that Charles' reforms before 1809 were not achieving parity with the French. The Landwehr and Insurrection corps system is already present in the game through the invasion events and various other events.
So my decision to postpone the reform post 1810 is giving a rather close simulation of history...if Austria in the game does NOT declare war in 1809 and wait 1810, it will have the reform full swing and the extra year will represent the time needed for Austrian commanders to grasp the real meaning of the new army organization and train with it...
So my decision to postpone the reform post 1810 is giving a rather close simulation of history...if Austria in the game does NOT declare war in 1809 and wait 1810, it will have the reform full swing and the extra year will represent the time needed for Austrian commanders to grasp the real meaning of the new army organization and train with it...
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