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Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1914)

Battle of Le Cateau

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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 groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveGuns05 km10 kmN

Germany (Ger 1st Army, 250,000 men under Gen Kluck) attacked Great Britain (Br Exped Force, 40,000 men under Fm French) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 23 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against hasty defense and withdrawal, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 8,970 (4%), Great Britain 7,800 (20%).

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 Kluck

UnitArmMen
Germany left wingInfantry60,000
Germany centreInfantry80,000
Germany right wingInfantry60,000
Germany reserveInfantry50,000
Gen KluckCommander—
In this plan250,000

Great Britain

Fm French

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry9,060
Great Britain centreInfantry12,080
Great Britain right wingInfantry9,060
Great Britain reserveInfantry7,550
Great Britain artillery (150 guns)Artillery2,250
Fm FrenchCommander—
In this plan40,000

What the sources report

GermanyGreat Britain
Strength, this plan250,00040,000
Losses, this plan8,9707,800

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 267, “Le Cateau”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
12 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense, Withdrawal
Front width
23 km (attacker), 23 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Germanyattacker250,0008,9700—Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Penetration
Great Britaindefender40,0007,8000150Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages momentum +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.