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Schematic plan · War of Austria with France and Piedmont

Battle of Solferino

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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 groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveGunsHorseHorseGuns02 km4 kmN

France (Fr & Pied Army, 143,000 men under Napoleon III) attacked Austria (Aus Army, 130,000 men under Franz Joseph I) in Lombardy. The CAA Database of Battles records 11.5 hours of fighting on a front of 11 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that France won. Losses: France 17,400 (12%), Austria 21,800 (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

France

Napoleon III

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry29,208
France centreInfantry38,944
France right wingInfantry29,208
France reserveInfantry24,340
France cavalry of the leftCavalry7,500
France cavalry of the rightCavalry7,500
France artillery (420 guns)Artillery6,300
Napoleon IIICommander—
In this plan143,000

Austria

Franz Joseph I

UnitArmMen
Austria left wingInfantry29,270
Austria centreInfantry39,027
Austria right wingInfantry29,270
Austria reserveInfantry24,392
Austria artillery (536 guns)Artillery8,040
Franz Joseph ICommander—
In this plan129,999

What the sources report

FranceAustria
Strength, this plan143,000130,000
Losses, this plan17,40021,800

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 168, “Solferino”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
11.5 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
11 km (attacker), 11 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Franceattacker143,00017,40015,000420Frontal attack; Penetration
Austriadefender130,00021,800—536Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages initiative +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.