Heretical Gaming is my blog about my gaming life, featuring small skirmishes and big battles from many historical periods (and some in the mythic past or the far future too). The focus is on battle reports using a wide variety of rules, with the occasional rules review, book review and odd musing about the gaming and history. Most of the battles use 6mm-sized figures and vehicles, but occasionally 15mm and 28mm figures appear too.

Friday 8 April 2016

Peninsular War Campaign Summary - end of May 1809

Situation at the end of May 1809:

 Summary of Events:
Another month without any battles but with significant strategic moves,  Joseph initially moved eastwards towards Madrid hoping to scare off Elio's IV Army or even better, defeat him, before occupying the Madrid area and re-establishing a line of communication to Bayonne running through the passes towards Avila then Burgos and abandoning the Plasencia-Salamanca-Valladolid-Burgos line.  However, Elio withdrew a little and Wellington pursued.  The difficulties of the situation - particularly the devastation around Madrid - re-asserted themselves and Joseph has now committed to trying to force Wellington into retreat, then withdrawing into Leon before re-establishing his logistical network, training and reinforcing before resuming the invasion of southern Spain and Portugal.  Cuesta has brought his Army of the Centre northwards and will soon be able to support Wellington directly.

The key problem for Joseph is that he must keep his remaining troops concentrated to overmatch Wellington, but this robs him of any other offensive capability.  He is therefore instructing Moncey to continue the rebuilding of his III Corps from garrison troops in Northern Spain to provide him with that extra offensive capability.

In the East, the Armies of Valenica and Catalonia, having been reinforced from Andalusia have jointly threatened St-Cyr's positions around Valencia.  He has withdrawn to Castellon anda abandoned, for the time being, any thoughts of blockading Sagunto and Valencia.  St-Cyr is considering withdrawing to Tortosa to aid Junot in the final reduction of those fortresses before beginning a much larger invasion of Valencia.
Soult and Mahy remain watching each other in the passes of Galicia.

Imperial Order of Battle

 Army of Spain (Joseph): 4000 Infantry, 5000 Cavalry at Almaraz
Merlen's Bde: 1000 Cavalry at Burgos

I Corps (Suchet): 15000 Infantry, 3000 Cavalry, 36 guns at Almaraz
IV Corps (Lefebvre): 7000 Infantry, 2000 Cavalry, 36 guns at Almaraz
V Corps (Mortier): 9000 Infantry, 3000 Cavalry, 36 guns at Almaraz
VI Corps (Ney): 13000 Infantry, 1000 Cavalry, 36 guns at Almaraz

III Corps (Moncey): 11000 Infantry, 24 guns  at Zamora

II Corps (Soult): 16000 Infantry, 4000 Cavalry, 24 guns at Astorga
Merle's Div: 6000 Infantry west of Zamora

VII Corps (St-Cyr): 16000 Infantry, 2000 Cavalry, 36 guns at Castellon

VII Corps (Junot): 5000 Infantry, 1000 Cavalry, 24 guns at Gerona
Decaen's Div: 3000 Infantry at Tortosa
Travot's Div: 5000 Infantry at Tarragona
Chabot's and Souham's Divs: 9000 Infantry at Hostalrich
Habert's Div: 9000 Infantry at Hostalrich

Garrisons:
Rosas - 1000 Infantry
Figueras - 2000 Infantry
Gerona - 1000 Infantry
Barcelona - 1000 Infantry
Oropesa - 1000 Infantry
Burgos - 3000 Infantry
San Sebastian - 2000 Infantry
Pamplona - 4000 Infantry
Tudela - 1000 Infantry
Zaragoza - 7000 Infantry
Valladolid - 3000 Infantry
Bayonne - 5000 Infantry
Perpignan - 2000 Infantry

Allied Order of Battle

IV Army (Elio): 19000 Infantry, 4000 Cavalry, 12 Guns south of Toledo

Army of Andalusia (Castanos): 3000 Infantry, 2000 Cavalry, 12 Guns in Cadiz
Reding's Div: 2000 Infantry  in Seville

Army of the Centre (Cuesta): 8000 Infantry, 3000 Cavalry, 12 Guns west of Caceres

Army of Galicia (Mahy): 30000 Infantry, 24 guns at Lugo
Adorno's Div: 1000 Infantry at Porto

Army of Valencia (Cervellon): 7000 Infantry, 1000 Cavalry, 24 guns in Alicante
Woster's Div: 4000 Infantry at Sagunto
Rovira's Div: 4000 Infantry east of Murcia

Army of Catalonia (Sarsfield): 7000 Infantry, 12 guns south of Valencia

The Anglo-Portuguese Army (Wellington):  40000 Infantry, 7000 Cavalry, 84 guns east of Coria
Hamilton's Div: 6000 Infantry in Lisbon
Silveira: 8000 Militia East of Coria
Trant: 8000 Militia in Elvas
Miller: 8000 Militia in Almeida

Spanish Garrisons:
Seville - 6000 Infantry
Malaga - 2000 Infantry
Granada - 1000 Infantry
Ciudad Rodrigo - 2000 Infantry
Badajoz - 6000 Infantry
La Coruna - 2000 Infantry
Cartagena - 2000 Infantry
Valencia - 3000 Infantry
Tarragona - 3000 Infantry
Hostalrich - 1000 Infantry
Tortosa - 4000 Infantry

Anglo-Portuguese Garrisons:
Santarem - 2000 Infantry
Gibraltar - 6000 Infantry
Almeida - 1000 Infantry
Lisbon - 2000 Infantry











2 comments:

  1. Just one point if you use the Labels Option like I have on my own blog you can categorise all your posts and allow people to search by subject thread instead of trawling through all the posts

    ReplyDelete
  2. I use the label "Peninsular Campaign" for all of the posts about the campaign if any readers wish to search that way.

    ReplyDelete