Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1914)

Battle of Charleroi

22 August 1914
Belgium
Victory for Germany

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.

Germany (Ger 2nd & 3rd Armies, 440,000 men under Gen Buelow) attacked France (Fr 5th Army, 254,000 men under Gen Lanrezac) in Belgium. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 53 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 21,018 (5%), France 8,000 (3%).

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

Germany

Gen Buelow

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	105,600
Germany centre	Infantry	140,800
Germany right wing	Infantry	105,600
Germany reserve	Infantry	88,000
Gen Buelow	Commander	—
In this plan		440,000

France

Gen Lanrezac

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	60,960
France centre	Infantry	81,280
France right wing	Infantry	60,960
France reserve	Infantry	50,800
Gen Lanrezac	Commander	—
In this plan		254,000

What the sources report

	Germany	France
Strength, this plan	440,000	254,000
Losses, this plan	21,018	8,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 265, “The Sambre”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 53 km (attacker), 53 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	440,000	21,018	0	—	Frontal attack; Penetration; Pursued
Francedefender	254,000	8,000	0	—	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew

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