Schematic plan · War of the First Coalition

Battle of Neerwinden (1793)

18 March 1793
Austrian Netherlands
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.

France (French Army of the North, 45,000 men under Dumouriez) attacked Austria (Austrian Army, 43,000 men under Saxe-Coburg) in Austrian Netherlands. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 13 km, a frontal attack, single envelopment against prepared defense, and that Austria held. Losses: France 4,000 (9%), Austria 3,000 (7%).

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

Dumouriez

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	9,198
France centre	Infantry	12,264
France right wing	Infantry	9,198
France reserve	Infantry	7,665
France cavalry of the left	Cavalry	3,000
France cavalry of the right	Cavalry	3,000
France artillery (45 guns)	Artillery	675
Dumouriez	Commander	—
In this plan		45,000

Austria

Saxe-Coburg

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	7,920
Austria centre	Infantry	10,560
Austria right wing	Infantry	7,920
Austria reserve	Infantry	6,600
Austria cavalry of the left	Cavalry	5,000
Austria cavalry of the right	Cavalry	5,000
Saxe-Coburg	Commander	—
In this plan		43,000

What the sources report

	France	Austria
Strength, this plan	45,000	43,000
Losses, this plan	4,000	3,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 98, “Neerwinden”, 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 defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 13 km (attacker), 12 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Franceattacker	45,000	4,000	6,000	45	Frontal attack; Single envelopment; Repulse; Withdrew
Austriadefender	43,000	3,000	10,000	—	Defensive/offensive plan

Attacker’s advantages morale +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, and which flank the envelopment fell on is a guess. 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. 98 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Neerwinden (1793) · 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.