Game 89 : Gross Beeren 23rd August 1813

 This battle occurred around the time that Napoleon was fighting Dresden. His ultimate failure in these battles negated all the bonuses of his victory at Dresden.

Gross Beeren was in fact really two battle, Gross Beeren & Blankenfeld, fought the same day a few miles apart from each other.

This is part one of a trilogy. The battle of Blankenfeld will be reported separately as will the 2nd Battle of Gross Beeren. The forces involved can be found from the casualty table which details both armies involved in the engagements. Those in Bold actually are those in the described battle, those in Italics are not present.

This battle was also unusual in that weather, rain precisely, plays an important part affecting movement, charging and firing. For example, heavy rain results in no musketry in the open. The Gross Beeren II game played out in 22 turns, 7 of them in clear weather, 9 of them in Light rain and 6 of them in Heavy rain.

The battlefield of Gross Beeren has 4 main features. The village itself, lies astride the road to Berlin which the Allies must hold. To the east is Klein Beeren and to the west is Neu Beeren. The approach, from the south is masked by woods and there are gentle hills between Gross Beeren and Neu Beeren.

The French force is Reynier's Corps with Lorge's Light Cavalry in support. Facing the French, or better Saxons, are the Prussians of Bulow's Corps. The battle starts at about 2.00pm in the afternoon and ends around 9.00pm, each turn being 20 minutes.

No subtlety on the French side. Durutte launches his whole division against Gross Beeren. This assault lasted the whole battle. Durutte is composed largely of "Marie Louises" and are 2nd class line. Taking the Gross Beeren by coup de main proved a stretch too far and it eventually fell to persistent musketry.

After the repulse of the initial assault, Durutte advances on either side of Gross Beeren to try and isolate the village before renewing any assault. 

This is the Saxon attack on Klein Beeren. The Saxons have to be careful because of the open easterly flank as the Prussian do have cavalry superiority. The assaults here went much the same way as Durutte's attack on Gross Beeren. Both sides fight to an impasse.

The shows Klein Beeren from the Prussian side. You see how the Saxons keep their advance within the bounds of the fields to try and protect themselves from being visible to Prussian cavalry.

This is from the Prussian side at Neu Beeren on the allied right. Initially, 2 full brigades held this area and the hill between Nu & Gross Beeren was held by the Russian artillery. The Saxons facing these batteries had some luck and forced them retire with counter-battery fire. This force Bulow to commit/transfer an infantry brigade to hold these hills. At the same time, an infantry brigade, at the top of the pic, launched an attack on the Saxon Division holding the French left flank opposite Neu Beeren.

The front half of Gross Beeren is now held by the French. The other part of the village is still solidly held by the Prussians and nightfall is approaching. Both sides consolidate their positions.

The Saxon assault on Klein Beeren has been checked and the Saxons redeploy. Both sides bring up their cavalry reserves, but the ground over which they deploy is now dominated by artillery from both sides. The action in this area quietly dies down.

Over at Neu Beeren, the Prussians are advancing, but the Saxons now have a gun line and the rest of the division deployed. With nightfall approaching, the advance is halted.

The result was an impasse. We decided that the battle would go on to the second day. With this in mind, we now had to fight the battle of Blankenfeld to see how thw result of that battle might influence the second day of this battle.

The casualty table is shown below, the battle was a Corps on Corps action.

French Formations	Losses %			Prussian Formations	Losses%
	Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery		Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery
OUDINOT				BERNADOTTE
Bertrand			0	Bulow
Fontanelli	0	-	0	Hesse-Homburg	1	0	0
Morand	0	-	0	Thumen	3	0	1
Franquemont	0	-	0	Borstell	13	15	3
Briche	-	0	0	Krafft	5	0	13
				Tschaplitz	-	2	44
Reynier			13	Holtzendorf	-	-	8
Le Coq	3	-	8
Von Sahr	4	-	13	Tauenzien
Durutte	14	-	25	Dobschultz	0	0	0
Gablenz	-	0	0	Lindenau	0	0	0
				Wobeser	0	0	0
Oudinot				Hirschfeldt	0	0	0
Pacthod	0	-	0
Guilleminot	0	-	0
Raglovich	0	-	0
Arrighi
Lorge	-	0	21
Fournier	-	0	0
Defrance	-	0	0
GROSS BEEREN I ITALICS:NOT PRESENT

The last pic is of the battling Generals, all regulars of the Situation room. It would be the same Generals for the battle of Blankenfeld. 

As the following battles have been fought, I will be posting the other battles in quick succession.