The First Global War

Stuyvesant said:

Manoeuvre and feints, rather than all-out battle. At least you took Dortmund - temporarily. Shame you didn't have the 'special matches' available.

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the Rhine front, seems to remain one of threat and siege rather than major battle. We've just reached early spring 1758 and the first set piece battle may be developing, but it seems that for different reasons, neither of us is looking for a decisive battle here (at the moment)

never fear about the matches, we need to go north after the next update and you'll be pleased to know that the Cossacks are doing the traditional Russian thing of burning down East Prussia

morningSIDEr said:

Having read the last two updates I see what you mean, some very tense stuff as both forces are attempting to outmanoeuvre one and other. With things so tense and this having becoming a campaign of manoeuvre I simply hope you have the Jaws music playing in the background!

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I did indeed, it was a hell of a shock to see Frederick pop up there, imagine the final boat scene and you have captured my panic. But yes, this front is one of manouvre, the north one of (apparent) stalemate and the Austrian one of bloody battles.

Bornego said:

This AAR makes me want to play RoP again.

Your plans with the French for 1757 seem a bit conservative. Muenster is the bare minimum. It is possible to take Minden and Hannover in the first year. It all depends on you out-maneuvering your opponent.

If I may play the armchair general here: it seems a bit over-cautious that you retreated as soon as Friedrich showed up. I can't imagine he brought any troops with him (the way from Slesia is too long). His mere presence will affect the combat performance of his troops but you are still superior on this front. Moreover, it is to be expected that some first rate Prussian three star gets dispatched to the West (I usually use Keith or Heinrich if he already got a promotion).
If the Prussians want to gain time/space, they should have to fight for it (or at least commit some troops not just generals). Judging from your screenshots, you should have been able to repel a Prussian attack at Dortmund. But I doubt Narwhal would have risked it, he is aggressive, not suicidal (most likely this was a bluff, he never intended to attack, he just wanted to scare you into halting your advance). Besides, him attacking you instead of you having to attack him is something you might want to encourage. It's the most efficient way to deplete the Prussian army.

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I think you are right in that I am being very cautious. I'm up to something in E Prussia that if I pull it off will get me both Koenigratz and the Russians at Kolberg, but it will take time. My whole mindset in 1757 was that I can't win the war in this year, but I could lose it, if one of my major armies gets ripped to pieces. Come 1758, I plan basically just to swamp the Prussians, there are potentially 5 theatres of war - E Prussia, Oder, Saxony, Pommerania and the Rhine, and I can put decent forces into all of them, Narwhal can't. He can blunt me in 1 or 2 but my hope is to steadily take fortresses and constrict his space to move. At some stage, one of those theatres will merge (say if I get Hannover) into a concentrated threat, with him boxed in around Berlin (this is my fantasy version, I realise he has no intention of co-operating).

So to me, if I'd split the Armee Francaise into its corps and run for Minden then I risked a defeat in detail (or winning big), and, at this stage of the game, I'm not really minded towards gambling. The value of my basic assumption completely depends on the Russians and as we all know, Narwhal is good at building a solid defense at Koenigratz.

Having made all those excuses, you are right, I shouldn't have abandoned Dortmund (my excuse is that a lot of those units had low cohesion due to the march from Brussels) and, yes, its Frederick in name only, as I find out he's leading Hannoverian troops.

1 September-30 October 1757, the French campaign

By the end of August, the French had made little progress, with the fall of Wesel and occupation of Dortmund their only real gain. However, clearly they had done enough to worry the Prussians and the sudden arrival of Frederick meant they had deflected attention away from the Austrian offensive in Saxony at the least.

Given where Frederick was, Richelieu opted to fall back from Dortmund to his reserves and more defensible terrain but to maintain the siege at Kassel. This was to have major implications as the real intentions of the Prussians and Hannoverians became clear.





By early September, Frederick had retreated to Lippstadt and a small force under Kleist had threatened to cut Soubise's line of communications back to Frankfurt. This caused little alarm and various cavalry units were ordered to secure Fritzlar while the siege progressed.

However, by late September, it suddenly became clear that Frederick's goal was to destroy the weaker L'Armee Allemange rather than tangle with Richelieu's stronger L'Armee Francaise.



In response Richelieu quickly reoccupied Dortmund, in an attempt to deflect Frederick



But at the same time the English, in turn, attempted to distract French attention from the campaign in the Rhineland



Faced with potential disaster at Kassel, and with his line of retreat cut, Soubise opted to retreat eastwards rather than south towards Frankfurt



However, at Eisenach on 11 October 1757 he was caught, effectively on the march by the Prussians. Following a brilliant manouver, Frederick had placed himself between Soubise and his target, Erfurt. The result was essentially a short clash between Soubise's advance guard and the Prussian army deploying from line of march. In consequence, the first major battle that the French army fought in the European theatre of the war was relatively bloodless compared to the charnel houses around Prag.



As such, Soubise escaped with minimal losses, he was however, cut off from retreat south and east, with winter approaching. Split up into separate columns his army lay at the mercy of the Prussians.



Chevret had the easier task as he had been in the rear at Eisenach and his battered column was ordered towards the small town of Fulda.

However, Soubise was still in contact with the main Prussian army, despite this he too opted to try and fall back towards Fulda. In his case, escaping proved to be more difficult, and his rearguard was badly handled in a short engagement on 17 October



Despite this setback, Soubise managed to manouver his army around Frederick and reach the relative safety of Erfurt. The problem was that if Frederick opted to reinforce the Prussian forces struggling to hold Daun in Saxony, Erfurt lay directly on his line of march.



While this drama unfolded in the hills and mountains of Hesse, Richelieu opted to step up the pace of French operations in the Rhine. Several corps were ordered to invest Munster with the goal of knocking Hannover out of the war.

Bornego said:

I was starting to miss this one. Currently my favourite AAR.

Looks like Narwhal employed the trick from his AAR against Baris in reverse. Instead of transferring troops from Saxony to Westphalia, he now chose the opposite direction. Thank the bad territory for your low losses. In woods and hills frontage becomes smaller, thus reducing the number of units that can engage which in turn will decrease casualties.
It will be interesting to see who of you will suffer more during the next few turns. If you can unify Soubise with your forces in Saxony in time you may come out on top after all (if Narwhal even chooses to pursue you further).
Your attempt at Muenster may come a bit too late. It's already late October and you won't arrive before late November. Do you have enough supply for a winter siege?

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The other advantage was that both corps had 'run on contact' orders, I'm looking to escape not fight.

As will be clear when I return to that sector, Narwhal had other issues that finishing off the French. He can explain his logic better, but I would have been tempted to finish off both corps, its a chance to wreck one of my offensive prongs, and would have been worth hunting down for a couple of turns. As it is I get out fairly lightly, and by spring 1758 have built up to an even stronger force (using that mass of French brigades that unlock over the autumn/winter).

I end up ignoring winter and just siege out the cities west of the Wesel. I don't know if its a change in patch, or if I've just got better at the logistics part of the game, but at least in the west, all winter does is to slow things. Have less a feeling of just scuttling off to a nice warm city and waiting for Spring (but that may also reflect having just played 3 games of WiA?)

De_Spinoza said:

I second this

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With comments like this, how could I disappoint ... quick update on my big mistake in 1757, featuring lots of hapless Swedes

morningSIDEr said:

Excellent stuff as ever, the update was loaded with suspense. It seems as though this was really frantic stuff for Soubise, he was lucky to escape with so few casualties as he did. At least whilst he was busy engaging Frederick he has given Richelieu the opportunity to deal with Hannover. Things seem very delicately balanced, Frederick remaining a considerable threat.

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The thing is, Frederick becomes THE threat, where he isn't, by now I have a lot freedom of action, especially as I've horded and built up my forces slowly over 1757. So if he is ripping Soubisse limb from limb, then I can push forward somewhere else. Equally at some stage, the Prussians need to retake cities so that gives me another respite and so on. That at least is my plan.

The Swedish campaign, March-November 1757

Sweden entered the war on a wave of patriotic fervour. Hopes were high of being able to reclaim all of the former Swedish holdings on the south of the Baltic. However, of all the main participants, the Swedish army was probably the least well led and the least well trained. A combination of optimism and unpreparadness almost led to a devastating defeat before the war had commenced [1]. Sweden entered the war in early March 1757, with its main force guarding the fortress at Stalsrund.



However, the Prussian response was swift and by early May, Ferdinand's well trained forces had driven Hamilton's ill prepared units away from Stalsrund.



The fortress itself was to resist the Prussian siege with ease, but the Swedish field army was now facing a major difficulty. By mid-June, Hamilton was ordered to recapture Wismar, this might both provide him a secure base and allow him to contest the steady Prussian conquest of the Hannover-Kiel region.



However, he was quickly chased away and this led to a complex campaign between Wismar and Rostock as Hamiliton tried to avoid encirclement. Briefly, by late August, he had managed to evade his pursuers and made another attempt to break into Stalsrund.



With this defeat, Hamilton opted to try to break out southwards splitting into three columns two of which sought to reach the Austrian lines and a collection of battalions went to reinforce the garrison at Hamburg, the last HRE held city in Northern Germany.



September and October saw a series of short encounters with the persuing Prussians as the Swedes looked for an escape route. By 15 October, in frustration, the Swedish court replaced the hapless Hamilton with the equally hapless Ungern-Sternberg.



The shift of command led to a new strategy. Austria briefly agreed that France would divert war subsidies to Sweden, and an attempt would be made to radically shift the nature of the war in the north [2].

[1] – This comes out of doing PBEM 'under the influence', they spend the first 4 terms locked (so can't, I believe, enter Stalsrund), I didn't spot that they were mobile ... bad mistake
[2] – you'll have to wait to find out, but my esteemed opponent was indeed taken by surprise
[3] – this may sound like an unmitigated disaster and in many ways it was. Except some 25,000 Prussians spent half a year chasing around the bogs and forests of Pommerania rather than being able to contest Daun's incursion into Saxony.

PrawnStar said:

As you say while those Prussians are in Pommerania they aren't chewing up something that matters.

Ungern-Sternberg - any relation to the famous one? That could prove interesting!

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Bornego said:

Yes, but only very distant. They are both part of the same noble family. The Ungern-Sternbergs were of Baltic-German origin and had branches from Saxony via Sweden and the Baltic all the way to Russia. I did some new leader graphics for the RoP general and was asking myself the same question.

View attachment 53915​

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its amazing how this various aristocratic families effectively bred like rabbits and spread all over the place ... but the combinations and complications are fascinating

Bornego said:

Loki, where are your Austrian forces? If you have to march those Swedish all the way to Saxony, you may run out of supplies before you reach your destination. A daring move but it also is quite the risk.

Nevertheless, I would wager, you weren't unhappy that Narwhal committed so many troops to a campaign in Northern Germany. It takes forever to get through those woods and Stralsund is a tough nut to crack (level 2 fort with a lot of fortress artillery and an uncomfortably long supply line for the Prussians). But Narhwal's target was probably the Swedish army anyway.

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Well they don't make to the Austrian lines but a surprising number do survive. My fear was the siege guns falling into Narwhal's hands, I don't want to risk the VP loss for destroying them, but I would have done if left with no choice in the matter. But in general, yes, it wasn't the best use of the Swedes but on balance I was pretty content to tie down a relatively large army on a very secondary front.

Narwhal said:

Heinrich was in Konigsberg. He will not stay there, though. He is my personal favorite, and the only general I know that gain abilities when he gains his third star.

I had interpretated Loki's moves in another way. For the sake of the story, Loki100 did not mention (and hide in this screenshoot, but forget in a later screenshoot) that I took Wesel back with a hussar unit, just as the French unit earmarked for garrisoning arrived (pure luck, but actually Loki100 took Wesel from me without siege... exactly the same way). So a part of his force is still sieging Wesel at this point. The rest just took Dortmund, but unfortunately (for him), Frederick joined up a strong force in Hamm (the Hannoverians (sp?), some Prussians I could spare, the Hessians), let's say 2500 - 3000 power strong (I cannot remember). I had two turns to fortify, so now I have 2 well-led columns fortified in the forest between Dortmund and Munster. The weather was rainy (basically, the weather will be very rainy in spring / summer / autumn, with longer than average winters (but fairly mild) until mid 1758 at least). Thus, attacking Hamm was out of question. But from Dortmund, it is hard to go on another target - lest either you separate your forces or are cut from your supplies. Thus, Dortmund could not be kept - yet.

Bornego, I am always surprised on how much you can understand with only the limited information a screenshoot and some text delivers (even though Loki100's text is of course, something special). That's basically the reason I did not do much damage to Loki.
It was October already, and I was afraid of getting trapped by winter, which would have limited my mobility, and make me arrive too late on the Saxony front, where all Hell was breaking loose. Moreover, except if I could trap the French out of supply, giving we were in a thick forest I could not deal major damage to the French. I want to trap enemy units in open ground, not in a forest. 2 turns would not have been enough - maybe 4 would have. I want to catch and overwhelm the enemy where I can destroy it : in the open field of Saxony, for instance. That's why Frederick hasted to there.

More on the Swedes later

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Narwhal is right, I am conflating and omitting a number of minor issues to keep up the flow of this. But I had lost Wesel again and that was another constraint on the French, but basically I hid in the woods so if Fred came for me, I'd negated at least some of his advantages.

I still think I got off lightly with the Army of Germany, but its one of those constant dilemnas with the Prussians is do you, after a victory, stay to finish off your prey or do you have to rush off to deal with the next emergency

morningSIDEr said:

That sounds very promising. It seems as if it will have to be something unexpected anyway, as Sweden is having little luck as things stand.

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Stuyvesant said:

Well, it sounds like the Swedes kept a bunch of Prussians busy for a while - I don't know that you can realistically expect more from them in this game (it is not, after all, a native Paradox game ).

A nice back-and-forth chase. And since this is ultimately a sideshow to the real thing, it's good that you managed to string it out for as long as you did.

Now, I'm detecting an overall increase in loki's optimism, but I fail to catch a corresponding loss in optimism in Narwhal. I wonder whose optimism proves unfounded in the long run.

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The Swedes in RoP are rubbish. Even by the usual standards on the Austrian side they have poor commanders, weak units and a big malus if they wander out of Pommerania. So they are best as a threat in being than in any actual operation.

We're just wrapping up August 1758 and it is very very much in the balance. I briefly threw Narwhal off balance, but he's repaired his main army, so more than able to contest my moves ... I'd say at the moment, its all down to the Russians to tip the odds in my favour (or not)

which, very neatly brings us to the next update ...

The Koenigsburg Campaign May-December 1757

Russian, like France, entered the war under its obligations at the Treaty of Versailles. Perhaps unlike France, its immediate interests coincided with those of Austria, a desire to stop the growing threat of a powerful Prussia to its traditional interests in the Baltic region and Poland. Equally Prussian overtures to both the Ottomans and Crimean Tartars did little to reduce Russian fears of their long term intentions.

However, like France, being at war, and actually being in a position to put pressure on Prussia were different things. The immediate problem was to gather a small army at Riga that could attack the small coastal city of Memel and a larger force at Saint Petersburg to carry out operations against Koenigsburg and into northern Prussia.


(the fortress city of Koenigsburg [1])

This city was to prove to be the focal point of the opening campaign for both sides. The large regular garrison was steadily reinforced throughout 1757 and the early months of 1758. By the time the Russians entered the war it consisted of some 10,000 garrison troops and a field army of around 25,000 under Heinrich von Preussen.


(Prussian OOB at Koenigsburg and the cities of Gdansk and Elbing)


(First encounter between the Russians and the Prussians, a probing column of Cossacks brough back invaluable intelligence as to the Prussian Order of Battle)

The main Russian army consisted of some 100,000 men under Field Marshall Apraksin, but despite this clear numerical advantage it was felt that a direct frontal attack would fail. The terrain would favour the defence and prevent the Russian numbers being effective, each individual attack would be at 1:1 and easy for the Prussians to repel. Instead, Apraskin decided to screen the city with two powerful forces, one deployed at Grosse-Jagerdorf and the other two across the Pregel at Preussich Eylau.



The latter could then provide a base for an incursion towards Kolberg even if Koenigsburg held.

At the start of the campaign both sides sought to influence the free city of Danzig, but despite the pressure, this opted to remain neutral



Over time, several small battles were fought in its vicinity, as the city desparately tried to avoid becoming embroiled in the war. Less fortunate was Memel, which surrendered at the end of July, freeing the Russians to concentrate on Koenigsburg



With this the war stalemated, Koenigsburg was effectively surrounded. At worst, the Russians had effectively neutralised a powerful Prussian formation.


With the first snows of winter, both sides settled down to the routine of small probes and shuffling formations between the main forces. However, this proved to be too little for the Empress, and Apraskin was recalled to Saint Petersburg charged with a failure to prosecute the war with sufficient energy.



Almost immediately, Fermor ordered Stojanov's Cossacks were ordered to press west and they encountered a small Prussian force at Danzig. It was the first formal encounter between the two armies and the small victory presaged a far more active prosecution of the war in 1758 than had happened so far.



1 - I think I should get a bonus if I find and kill Emmanuel Kant

Bornego said:

Nice strategy encircling Koenigsberg (it's -berg not -burg, loki ). But I fear you may run into serious supply troubles come winter. Even if you transform a large part of your supply wagons into depots, you will still struggle to supply the stacks furthest away from Russia. Depots aren't as effective in RoP as they are in WiA (in RoP it's the cities that have the bigger output). In consequence, you will most likely have to retreat some of your forces back to Russia before the first snow.
Moreover, each supply wagon that you have to sink into depots around Koenigsberg will be missed later when you try to send a force towards Kolberg. That is a very long march. Without an abundance of supply wagons it becomes virtually impossible to make it across and still have enough left to siege the fort.

How many Cossacks have you send west? Just Stojanov? I would recommend you send the rest as well. Especially the French really could use some more light cavalry. As scouts as well as combat forces. Also it's always nice to scout/plunder Prussia's hinterland thoroughly. The best medicine against Narwhal's special brand of quick troop movements is to know everything that is going on in his backyard.

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It works out ok, it was a heavy cost in supply wagons and I need to divert money to building some more (so that cuts my reinforcement flow, but its a good trade off). At the utter worst now, Narwhal is going nowhere. I've tested this against the AI (hard to simulate as that abandons Koenigsberg/Kalingrad), and when that 5th Russian corps unlocks, you can keep my current deployment with 3 of them (1 at Eylau protected by the river, 2 at Grosse Jaegerdorff) and send the other two to Gdansk (if you load this up with the supply wagons) you can make a threat to Kolberg, and stop the Prussians using Gdansk as a way to move units in & out of Koenigsberg over winter when the Russian naval blockade is lifted).

Once I have a presense at Gdansk, the Cossacks are all over the place. I take Military Control off everything east of the Oder, have scouts all over Prussia and take MC over selected provinces. It reduces my blind spots to just a few provinces, esp as the French raiders and the Austrian Hussars are at work doing the same. The result is I am usually well aware where the main Prussian units are, even if their relative speed is still a problem. But most times I can adjust if Narwhal shifts front. Which in reality is going to be the main tale of 1758.

morningSIDEr said:

I'll give you a bonus from my own pocket if you do so. I had to study his slaverings for a course during uni, dreadful stuff.

Unsurprisingly cautious stuff from both Russia and Prussia at first, Russia's encirclement of Koenigsberg seems a wise move though and it appears it is only a taste of what is to come considering the last line.

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Aye, I've been writing a lot on the philosophy of science recently and had to go back over Kant et al, dreary tedious stuff.

My very fundamental approach in 1757 was that I could lose the war by being caught out, but I couldn't win it. So I was content to take my time, build up my armies, put pressure on where I could, fall back elsewhere. The whole strategy, and the next post really exemplifies this, is to use 1758 to slowly start squeezing Prussia. The ideal fantasy is to hold Hannover/Tropau/Kolberg, if so all my fronts can co-operate. I'll settle for Hannover or Troppau, the Rhineland west of the Wesel, Koenigsberg and most of Silesia (next post), as a basis to then pushing Prussia to the brink in 1759-60. Its worth remembering as the Austrian alliance that this is a long game, Prussia needs early progress, I can take my time (if I can avoid getting caught out too often)

April 1757-December 1757, The Oder Campaign

For most of 1757, the Oder sector was relatively quiet. However, not least as it gave access to Silesia and the chance to recover the lands lost in 1748 it remained important in Austrian planning. One problem was the original plan had been to allocate Serbollini and Kollowrat under the overall command of the Archduke Charles to invest the series of Prussian fortresses in the region. However, the crisis around Prag meant that Charles could be not be reinforced and Serbollini was rushed to assist in the defense of Prag. This left only Kollowrat's under-strength formation, possibly inadequate for sustained seige work (though new siege guns were being manufactured at Olmutz) and certainly unable to cope with battle against a Prussian formation.



The Austrian plan was simple, to invest and capture the series of forts up to Brieg. At this stage, the major city of Breslau would be at hand, completing the effective recoquest of Silesia. The strong forts in the mountains (Schweidnitz and Glatz) would be ignored as far as possible. The only problem was that with just Kollowrat, sieges were quickly abandonded every time there was an apparent threat.



Although Kosel was briefly brought under siege in June, Kollowrat then had to fall back when a strong Prussian formation under Wedell


(situation in Late August, Kollowrat has fallen back to Olmutz to avoid contact, Prussian forces in region after their retreat from Ritschan)

was in the region as part of the Prussian retreat from Ritschan. By the end of October the bulk of the Prussian forces had abandoned Silesia to deal with the Austrian incursion into Saxony. At this stage, Kollowrat's army had been substantially reinforced, including with new siege guns.



In addition, Charles had command of Kollowrat and Picolomini at Koeniggratz, in combination a force of some 40,000 men. In theory this was a potent weapon, in practice, Prussian control of Koeniggratz was a major obstacle. Equally more and more formations were being drawn off to reinforce Daun's invasion of Saxony.


(Charles' Forces at Koenigratz, Autumn 1757)

It was not till late December, that Koenigratz was back in Austrian hands.



With this, Charles was able to revert to the original plan. If 1757 had seen only tentative advances along the Oder, 1758 was to see a sustained Austrian campaign in the region.