Battle Rio Gevora 19^th February 1811

Setup

Mortier’s men were to march via the southern approach from Badajoz to Lisbon. The route had poor roads and mountainous inhospitable terrain. Soult realized that Mortier’s 12 thousand reinforcements were likely to be cut-off and destroyed once they passed the numerous forts held by Portuguese and Spanish and long before they reached Rio Tagus. Instead of obeying Napoleons orders Soult proposed indirectly helping Messena by conquering the Province of Extremadura and capturing Badajoz.

I am playing the Spanish CinC Mendizabal with 2 ADCs. With Espana as General who has 1 Light infantry, 1  Poor Light infantry, 4 Poor Infantry, 1 Skirmisher, 1 light foot battery. General Garcia with 3 Average, 3 Poor Infantry, 1 Poor Light infantry, 1 foot artillery. Then Virues 3 Average, 2 poor infantry and light foot artillery. Madden has 3 poor cavalry (Portuguese). Butron has 5 poor cavalry. Alan is the French CinC Mortier  (5^th Corps) with 3 ADCs. General Phillipon who has 6 Average Infantry, 2 skirmishers, 1 light foot artillery, and the Corps foot artillery. Brayer has 3 Average Infantry, 1 Skirmisher. Wing CinC Latour-Maubourg 1 ADC: Briche 3 Light cavalry (2 Hussars 1 Chasseur), Bouvier 3 medium cavalry (Dragoons) and 1 poor cavalry (Spanish). The Spanish setup first, all on defend orders. The French are second to set up, on attack orders. Fog stops all artillery for turn 1, Spanish cannot form squares for turn 1 and 2. You would get the full scenario details in Michael’s book - Rise of Albion.

The terrain map was put together with brown wrapping paper – 80gsm 750mm x 50m Kraft Wrapping paper. Overlapping in the middle set to size 6’ by 4’with side edge extra for strength of a few inches – glued with PVA / glue stick. Terrain map basic layout courtesy of Michael Hopper’s - Rise of Albion scenario book. So I sketched out to scale and painted on with Acrylic paints to designate the hills (gentle/steep), road (an adaption I chose from the lovely maps created by Colin in our 20mm campaigns – see Simon’s blog on http://www.servicerationdistributionhobby.blogspot.com ). Found with 15mm figures the 2D maps are the easiest and Michael’s maps and positions of terrain make all the difference in the battle. So cheap, easy to store, and if you are finished with it then environmentally easy to dispose of.

Although the scenario was a 12 turn game it was decided to end here at turn 7.

So the battle was a Spanish win French 0, Spanish 4. The game was won by the Spanish Butron going forward with 5 poor cavalry and taking on Bouvier with 4 units and Briche with 3. Getting the initiative in turn 2 to catch the 2 brigades allowed them to dictate the battle – and they rolled tremendously good dice high for the melee (on the whole) and low for Morale! The plan was to delay the French to allow Espana to form squares by turn 3. Otherwise the cavalry would run through the Spanish left flank.

Historical Outcome:

In the actual battle the French cavalry took the day swinging around the South of the hill behind the Spanish infantry and attacking the camp. The Spanish allied cavalry fled from the French. The French cavalry were then free to attack the Spanish infantry in the rear. The Spanish infantry tried to form squares but the French cavalry were too quick and the French artillery and infantry poured fire onto the poorly formed Spanish squares. The Spanish losses were 4900 compared to the French 400 (most casualties on both sides were due to the French cavalry charges).