Schematic plan · The Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube

20 March 1814
France
Victory for Austria

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 Army of Bohemia, 80,000 men under Schwarzenberg) attacked France (Fr Army, 30,000 men under Napoleon I) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 8.5 hours of fighting on a front of 4.8 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Austria won. Losses: Austria 3,000 (4%), France 5,000 (17%).

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	18,660
Austria centre	Infantry	24,880
Austria right wing	Infantry	18,660
Austria reserve	Infantry	15,550
Austria artillery (150 guns)	Artillery	2,250
Schwarzenberg	Commander	—
In this plan		80,000

France

Napoleon I

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	4,896
France centre	Infantry	6,528
France right wing	Infantry	4,896
France reserve	Infantry	4,080
France cavalry of the left	Cavalry	4,500
France cavalry of the right	Cavalry	4,500
France artillery (40 guns)	Artillery	600
Napoleon I	Commander	—
In this plan		30,000

What the sources report

	Austria	France
Strength, this plan	80,000	30,000
Losses, this plan	3,000	5,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 142, “Arcis-Sur-Aube”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 8.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 4.8 km (attacker), 4.8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Austriaattacker	80,000	3,000	—	150	Frontal attack; Penetration; Withdrew
Francedefender	30,000	5,000	9,000	40	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack

Attacker’s advantages training +1 · morale +1 · momentum +1 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2

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. 142 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube · 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.