Time Astra

Schematic plan · King William's War

Battle of Fleurus (1690)

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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 wingReserveLeft wingRight wingReserveWaldeck02 km4 kmN

France (Fr Army, 50,000 men under Luxembourg) attacked Dutch Republic (Allied Army, 38,000 men under Waldeck) in Netherlands. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 6.3 km, a double envelopment against hasty defense, and that France won. Losses: France 6,000 (12%), Dutch Republic 19,000 (50%).

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

Luxembourg

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry12,000
France centreInfantry16,000
France right wingInfantry12,000
France reserveInfantry10,000
LuxembourgCommander—
In this plan50,000

Dutch Republic

Waldeck

UnitArmMen
Dutch Republic left wingInfantry9,120
Dutch Republic centreInfantry12,160
Dutch Republic right wingInfantry9,120
Dutch Republic reserveInfantry7,600
WaldeckCommander—
In this plan38,000

What the sources report

FranceDutch Republic
Strength, this plan50,00038,000
Losses, this plan6,00019,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 42, “Fleurus”, 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
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Franceattacker50,0006,000——Double envelopment; Breakthrough; Pursued
Dutch Republicdefender38,00019,000——Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · 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.