1600 Something – Bavarians and Austrians

Politics, we may say, is a strange business conducted by rather odd people. This might be true now (the reader can establish that for themselves by perusing their local news feeds), but is certainly true of the past. The 1600 campaign has now proceeded to Spring 1601, and strange things are afoot diplomatically.

Now, it has to be admitted that the campaign is set up for things to evolve quite slowly. The initial density of armed forces is quite low, and in many places in Europe, they are far apart. Not only that, but with initiative rolls to do anything between 40 and 85%, and only a one in four chance then of moving a military force, things are going to be slow.

Still, the first central European crisis of the game has arrived. The Bavarians, for reasons best known to themselves, raised a second army in Winter 1600. That is, of course, all fine and dandy, except that they cannot afford to support two armies, having only one province, Bavaria itself. From the point of view of the Holy Roman Empire, this looks a bit suspicious. Austria (the said HRE, of course) has just raised a second army in Bohemia and, being a large empire, can certainly afford it. On the other hand, armies sitting around with nothing to do are a bit of a menace to all and sundry.

The round of diplomacy in Spring 1601 did not help. The Austrians attempted to subvert the Palatine away from their friendship with Bavaria, and that did not work, but further raised suspicions. After all, one of the routes to Bavarian expansion is via the Upper Palatinate. A round of general Bavarian diplomacy did not assist either, as the Austrian view of Bavaria slumped to hostility, while the Bavarian view of Austria was hostile.

At this point, the Emperor stepped in. Another initiative roll indicated that military action was viable, and so a punitive force was dispatched from Austria into Bavaria, supported by the new army in Bohemia. The Austrian objective was to maintain the peace of the Empire by preventing the Bavarians from invading anywhere. The Bavarian forces, an army and a garrison, came to meet them, and so the second battle of the campaign came to pass.

Given that the Austrians had a supporting army and the Bavarians had a supporting garrison, both armies could deploy 18 bases to the battlefield. After I had some fun in drawing up the army lists, the Bavarians had 8 cavalry, a light horse, 6 shot, and 3 pike bases. The Austrians had 4 cavalry, 2 light horse, 8 shot, and four pike bases. I went, rightly or wrongly, for one cavalry-heavy army and one foot-heavy.

In the picture, the Bavarians are to the left, with their cuirassiers deployed on their left (far side) and the infantry to the right. The idea was that the cuirassiers would hold off and smash away at the Austrian foot in front of them while the foot outflanked the Austrians on the right. The Austrians simply deployed their infantry advantage in depth, with a back row of cavalry as the final reserve.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I am not sure I have ever had a straight charge of cavalry onto formed up pike and shot foot under these rules. I thought it should be a reasonable match-up – 6 bases of cavalry in the front line of Bavarians, and 6 bases of pike’n’shot for the Austrians.

The initial trempo rolls for the Austrians were fairly awful, which allowed the cavalry to get up close and personal, although the Austrian light horse did get in the way a bit and disrupt the advance. However, for all the low-tempo dice rolls, the Austrian combat dice were hot, hot, hot. You can see that the cuirassiers on the far side have been bounced from their charge, with damage, and now being stationary, disrupted (2 terrain shaken markers – I forgot to put them out), and under musket fire. Hm. That went well.

The Austrians deployed their general with the redcoats on the far side and advanced aggressively against the Bavarian horse. As you can see, they routed two bases. You cannot see that the redcoat pike took another base in flank, and they too are destroyed. A morale check for the Bavarians indicated a fall back, so everyone dropped back, meaning that the infantry, who were far behind schedule anyway, were now even further behind.

The Bavarians were a bit flat-footed after that, despite the heroic efforts of their sub-general to reorganise his remaining cavalry into something that looked like a line. The Austrians, on the other hand, bought up their remaining foot and merged them with the existing front line, and put the second block under the command of their sub-general. They advanced against the remaining Bavarian cavalry and, as seen above, started to blow them away. The Austrians were, by now, busily ignoring the threat to their left flank caused by the advancing Bavarian foot, although the light cavalry had been deployed to try to slow it down a bit.

By this point, Bavarian morale, while holding up just about, was sagging a bit. After all, three-quarters of their cuirassiers had fled the field. While they were not beaten, I decided that a tactical retreat might be in order. It would take a while for the Austrians to redeploy their foot and bring their own cavalry up, so I thought it was best if the Bavarians disengaged to fight another day.

Well, that was interesting. I do not know, as yet, whether the Emperor’s point, about maintaining the peace of the Empire, has been made sufficiently for the Bavarians to disband one of their armies, or whether the Emperor will have to make some further noise. On the other hand, Munich is occupied by a garrison, and the Emperor does not, at present, have a siege train, so starving the Bavarians out is the only option open at the moment. Also, I am not sure what the Bavarian field army will do. It could cross into Wurtemburg anyway, which is what the Emperor was trying to prevent, or, having not actually technically lost the battle, it could hang around in Bavaria and see what happens.

So, things have got interestingly complex already.