Schematic plan · War of the First Coalition

Battle of Mount Tabor (1799)

16 April 1799
Palestine
Victory for France

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

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.

Ottoman Empire (Turk Army, 35,000 men under Abdallah Pasha) attacked France (Fr Army, 4,500 men under Bonaparte) in Palestine. The CAA Database of Battles records 10 hours of fighting on a front of 15 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that France held. Losses: Ottoman Empire 6,500 (19%), France 60 (1%).

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

Ottoman Empire

Abdallah Pasha

Unit	Arm	Men
Ottoman Empire left wing	Infantry	4,193
Ottoman Empire centre	Infantry	5,590
Ottoman Empire right wing	Infantry	4,193
Ottoman Empire reserve	Infantry	3,494
Ottoman Empire cavalry of the left	Cavalry	8,750
Ottoman Empire cavalry of the right	Cavalry	8,750
Ottoman Empire artillery (2 guns)	Artillery	30
Abdallah Pasha	Commander	—
In this plan		35,000

France

Bonaparte

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	1,015
France centre	Infantry	1,354
France right wing	Infantry	1,015
France reserve	Infantry	846
France artillery (18 guns)	Artillery	270
Bonaparte	Commander	—
In this plan		4,500

What the sources report

	Ottoman Empire	France
Strength, this plan	35,000	4,500
Losses, this plan	6,500	60

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 110, “Mount Tabor”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 10 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 15 km (attacker), 6.4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Ottoman Empireattacker	35,000	6,500	25,000	2	Frontal attack; Withdrew with heavy losses
Francedefender	4,500	60	—	18	Defensive/offensive plan; Breakthrough

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 110 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Mount Tabor (1799) · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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.