The next Snappy Nappy Campaign in a Day event will be held on Saturday, October 18, at The Portal Game store in Manchester, CT, from 10 AM until 5 PM. Mike Seibert will once again be the GM for this event, which will involve 14 tables, more than 20 players, and hundreds of 25 mm wargames figures. As in the past, the rules will be Snappy Nappy by Russ Lockwood.
We can still accommodate a few more players, so if anyone wishes to join in, please let me know ASAP!
Battle of Vittoria, June 21, 1813.
Wellingtons Offensive in Spain, June-July 1813
In September 1812, Wellington advanced up the main road, arriving before Burgos and beginning his attack on Burgos Castle on 19th September 1812. The attack was unsuccessful, forcing Wellington to spend the rest of 1812 in a fighting retreat back to Ciudad Rodrigo.
Joseph and his chief of staff, Marshal Jourdan, were advised by all the French generals with knowledge of the country, that if Wellington was to advance in 1813, he would be forced to use the well-trodden route from Ciudad Rodrigo to Salamanca, Valladolid and Burgos. The French needed only to repeat their strategy of the previous year and hold that road to bring Wellington to a halt, as they had in 1812.
Wellington’s army of British, Portuguese and Spanish troops assembled in the area between Ciudad Rodrigo in the south and northern Portugal and began its advance in May 1813. Thru some flanking marches, Wellington skillfully maneuvered the French out of Madrid and out of Burgos.
Napoleon has told his brother King Joseph to stop retreating. It was time to hold the line of the Ebro River and to try and take back Burgos.
Wellington’s scheme for the campaign of 1813 was going to be a very ambitious one—aiming not at local successes in Castile Province, or on recovering Madrid, but at driving the French right up to the Pyrenees.
And so the campaign in June 1813 begins. FORWARD MARCH !
Frances’s situation- June 1813
5 years of fighting in Spain has taken its toll on the French forces. In 1812 King Joseph and Marshall Soult had forced Wellington out of Madrid but the king was finding it increasingly difficult to control what remained of his realm. Wellington's success has encouraged the Spanish guerrillas who are now so active that even with four divisions general Clausell was fully occupied with trying to keep open the route between Madrid and the Pyrenees
Jourdan, the chief of staff, saw that the South and the northwest of Spain would have to be abandoned, whatever the Emperor might wish, there were not troops available to control all of it. The vital area was Old Castille and Aragon: the route to the Pyrenees, Bayonne and Paris, with the ports of Santander and San Sebastian. In early 1813 The British have retaken Madrid and driven the French back beyond Burgos. Worse, Napoleon has taken 25,000 troops out of Spain to defend Germany. This leaves them about 68,000 men. Joseph has pulled back to what he hopes is a smaller perimeter to defend in the northern part of Spain. But he must maintain the line on the River Ebro. Failing to do so will embolden all of Napoleons enemies to join the Anti French Coalition and doom the Empire.
Britain’s Situation
Wellingtons campaign of 1813 saw his combined British, Portuguese & Spanish army of 79,000 strike northward towards Burgos without allowing Joseph's French armies to concentrate. Wellington’s forces marched hard to cut them off from the road to France. He had spent the winter reorganizing and reinforcing his forces for the purpose to attack the French and push them beyond the Pyrenees mountains.
Spain’s Situation
The Spanish have longed to remove the yoke of repression of the French occupation. The people are rising up against the invader, having been encouraged from the British success in the prior year (1812).
Objectives
Napoleon needs his Marshals in Spain to repel the British Army approaching the frontier. Taking Burgos would set the British back, as this traces supply all the way to Portugal. He also needs to avoid a major defeat, as that likely would persuade Austria to join the coalition forces in Germany. The British need take the major cities & to push the French out of Spain and capture the main road to Bayonne, which is Frances main source of supply.
These always look like they will be great fun Peter, and this is no exception.
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