Schematic plan · The Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Dresden

26 August 1813
Saxony
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.

Austria (Allied (Aus, Russ, Pr), 170,000 men under Schwarzenberg) attacked France (Fr Army, 120,000 men under Napoleon I) in Saxony. The CAA Database of Battles records 22 hours of fighting on a front of 13 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that France held. Losses: Austria 40,000 (24%), France 10,000 (8%).

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

Schwarzenberg

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	34,560
Austria centre	Infantry	46,080
Austria right wing	Infantry	34,560
Austria reserve	Infantry	28,800
Austria cavalry of the left	Cavalry	10,000
Austria cavalry of the right	Cavalry	10,000
Austria artillery (400 guns)	Artillery	6,000
Schwarzenberg	Commander	—
In this plan		170,000

France

Napoleon I

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	25,500
France centre	Infantry	34,000
France right wing	Infantry	25,500
France reserve	Infantry	21,250
France cavalry of the left	Cavalry	5,000
France cavalry of the right	Cavalry	5,000
France artillery (250 guns)	Artillery	3,750
Napoleon I	Commander	—
In this plan		120,000

What the sources report

	Austria	France
Strength, this plan	170,000	120,000
Losses, this plan	40,000	10,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 137, “Dresden”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 22 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 13 km (attacker), 13 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Austriaattacker	170,000	40,000	20,000	400	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Francedefender	120,000	10,000	10,000	250	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Penetration

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. 137 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Dresden · 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.