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Schematic plan · War of the First Coalition

Battle of Fleurus (1794)

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A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.
Rolling, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingHorseHorseReserveHorseHorse05 km10 kmN

Austria (Austrian Army, 46,000 men under Saxe-Coburg) attacked France (French Army of the North, 73,000 men under Jourdan) in Austrian Netherlands. The CAA Database of Battles records 6 hours of fighting on a front of 16 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that France held. Losses: Austria 4,000 (9%), France 7,000 (10%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Austria

Saxe-Coburg

UnitArmMen
Austria left wingInfantry7,680
Austria centreInfantry10,240
Austria right wingInfantry7,680
Austria reserveInfantry6,400
Austria cavalry of the leftCavalry7,000
Austria cavalry of the rightCavalry7,000
Saxe-CoburgCommander—
In this plan46,000

France

Jourdan

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry15,120
France centreInfantry20,160
France right wingInfantry15,120
France reserveInfantry12,600
France cavalry of the leftCavalry5,000
France cavalry of the rightCavalry5,000
JourdanCommander—
In this plan73,000

What the sources report

AustriaFrance
Strength, this plan46,00073,000
Losses, this plan4,0007,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 101, “Fleurus”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
6 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
16 km (attacker), 20 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Austriaattacker46,0004,00014,000—Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew
Francedefender73,0007,00010,000—Defensive plan

Attacker’s advantages morale +1

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.