The Swede’s were just plain awesome in the age of musket lol. So many great commanders.

And it was great. Never gotten around to playing this version, but after crushing some India in the Original Pacific as Japan my friend randomly pulled this game out and 3 of us sat down to play. I basically single handedly won as Russia against Germany, as GB proceded to lose every battle she fought…she lost a battleship to a transport. The U.S. did send me a lot of fighter however, but on R2 I massacered 70% of the German army who foolishly fell into my trap, and after that I conquered N. Africa with the glorious IS2 (taken from 1941) and blitzed Berlin.

Great fun all around, just thought I would annoucne that I finally played it, good day.

Belated August 26th: The German Battlecruiser SMS Madeburg (sister ship to the game Breslau. While patrolling the Estonian coastline, she ran aground and was unable to be dislodged. While her crew was evacuating, two Russian cruisers (the Pallada and the Bogatyr) sailed out and attacked the German ship. 15 Germans were killed, the ship was taken, and most importantly the Russians laid claim to 3 copies of German naval codes, one of which they would pass onto the UK. This would allow the UK to ambush several German ships over the course of the war, most notably in the Battle of Jutland.

August 27th-

Eastern Front

Battle of Tannenberg-As the XV and XIII corps of the Russian Army pushed back German units forming in their front, the Francois’s XVII German corps managed to shatter the Russian I corps through their massive artillery superiority, thus putting itself into the Russian rear. Due to an abysmal communications situation, Samsonvo didn’t find out about the shattering of the I corps until late in the day, when it was far to late to send proper reinforcements.

Galicia-On the 26th, three corps of the Hapsburg III army advanced towards Tarnopol near the border. By the end of the day - and into the 27th- these three Hapsburg corps blundered into no less than eight Russian corps! The Russian 8th and 3rd Armies (Under command of Brusilov and Nikolai Ruzsky respectively) smashed into the outnumbered and outgunned Hapsburg’s advancing into open ground. By the 27th, the Hapsburg’s were in full retreat.

Luckily for them the Russian had to reorganize their forces, but due to massive Russian air superiority, the Russians were able to track the Hapsburg’s every step
of the way.

August 28-
Naval Front- The Battle of Heligoland Bight. The first general naval battle involving large fleet units (single ship actions had been occurring all over the world since the war started). A large fleet of British Battlecruisers, light cruisers and destroyers ambushed a German raiding fleet. Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, 714 Germans died and 5 ships sunk, to a mere 35 killed and one ship lightly damaged on the British side.

Sorry lads, was away for a few days. Thanks for keeping it alive!

Anyway, August 26th

Western Front-The Great Retreat continues, even as the French armies on the frontiers continue to stand off repeated and fierce attacks by German armies on the frontier.

The Battle of Le Cateau takes places when 2 divisions of the BEF under General Horace Smith-Dorrien make a stand at a small French village in order to halt the fast approaching German forces of the German general Von Kluck. At first the Germans thought it was a simple rearguard action instead of a defiant stand. The initial German troops attacked with no real organization, and were decimated by British artillery. By midday however the Germans realized what they were up against and put their superior numbers into full play, and by late afternoon the British flanks were broken. At the last moment a French cavalry division arrived to screen the British retreat, which was carried out in a highly organized way. The  Germans had lost 5,000 men, but inflicted over 7,000 casualties on the British. Nevertheless, the Germans were given pause and forced to reorganize. This allowed the British 5 days free of harassment as they continued to retreat (out of the country, or so believed it’s commander John French).

Eastern Front-

The great Battle of Tannenberg begins. Since the 23rd, Samsonvo’s 2nd Army had been pushing the German XX Corps of the 8th army back. Despite their success, the Russians had by this point in time effectively run out of food, ammunition was scare, and communication completely broken down, forcing the Russians to communicate over open airwaves, allowing the Germans to effectively map their movements. Pushed on by theater commander Zhilinsky despite the fact that the 1st Army was in no position to cover his flanks, Samsonvo nudged his men forward…right into a German trap.

However, it was a trap that almost never sprung. Ludendorff and Hindenburg had arrived hours before, were poorly briefed on the situation, and to be honest most of the credit of the battle belongs with Max Hoffmann, who had given the exact orders of attack that Ludendorff eventually agreed to, setting the 8th army into motion for the attack before the famed duo even arrived at the front.

Once again, equal praise must be given to German general, Hermann von François, of the XVII corp which had been so instrumental to German operations in East Prussia up until this point, for having the gigantic balls necessary to tell Ludendorff to take a long walk off a short pier, that he was waiting for his heavy artillery to arrive before doing anything. This proved the correct decision, when the XVII corps was able to catch the Russian VI Corps in disordered marching position and drive it back to the border. On the Russian right, the German XX corps continued to block the movement of the Russian forces.

The Russian right flank was now open. Samsonvo recognized this, and ordered the Russian I corps to hold the line against the advancing XVII corps.

Battle of Galicia-The real action on the Eastern Front beings, as the Hapsburg armies advance from the city of Lemburg to attack Russian forces, even though they were heavily outnumbered, with over half the army still facing the Serbians. The battle of Komarow as it would come to be called, on paper was a stunning Hapsburg success, crashing into the flank of the Russian 5th Army, taking 20,000 prisoners, and seeming to push the Russian back and poise the Hapsburg armies for a clean push into Poland. But at the end of the battle, the Hapsburg flank was left wide open, inviting disaster.

I just had to find an excuse to use those great quotes from the Ardennes, absolutely haunting. People fairly criticize the trench warfare for being a meat grinder, but I think people all to often fail to comprehend the sheer slaughter that was open warfare in the days before tanks, effective forms of walking fire, and small unit tactics. When that French officer talked about thousands of bodies in the field, he meant it. Statistically, the battle of the Frontiers was as bloody as the war was ever going to get. Out of roughly 1.25 million men the French put into the field at the start of the month, 320-30,000 would be casualties within a month, with most of the fighting occurring in about 3 weeks from the start of the Battle of the Frontiers to the conclusion of the First Battle of the Marne. The Germans would suffer roughly 310,000 in the same period of time.

To put that properly in perspective, the Battle of Verdun, which had roughly 299 days of heavy fighting, you had 350-380,000 French casualties to 330-350,000 German casualties over the course of the entire battle.

August 22nd:

Western Front:

Battle of Lorraine-Possibly the most decisive day of the war in hindsight. The German armies were advancing against the French. Progress was costly, but successful enough that the Bavarian Crown Prince, envisioning a true double envelopment of the French armies instead of the single envelopment envisioned by the Schlieffen plan, asked for permission to launch an all out attack against the French frontier, rather than just regaining the ground lost in the previous days. The German high command (OHL) under Moltke the younger, who already had doubts about the single envelopment, agreed, and the Germans committed themselves to throwing vital reserves into an assault on the fortified French fortress line, rather than putting the maximum amount of men possible into the right wing.

Battle of the Ardennes- The first days battles, though characteristically bloody (as every battle in the war was), was merely a series of meetings between disorganized masses of men. By the second day, organization and plans had been made, and all hell broke loose in the still misty and dark woods. Villages such as Vitron, Tintigny, Rossignol, and Neufchateau were the focus points of the battle, with both sides attacking each other rather than digging in.

It was this day that the infamous “Slaughter of the Colonial Corps”, part of the 4th Army, took place. The bravest and best trained men in the French army hurled themselves into the woods, only to be slaughtered by Germans machine gun positions. The 3rd Colonial Division in particular found itself surrounded by an entire corps of the Crown Price’s army, and fought for 6 hours to the death, their divisional and brigade generals dying with the privates and corporals of the army.

At Virton, the French Vi Corps hit the a defending German corps in the flank, it’s 75mm unleashing a storm of fire. A French officer that managed to survive the battle recalled the site; “The battlefield afterwards was an unbelievable spectacle. Thousands of dead were still standing, supported as if by a flying buttress made of bodies lying in rows on top of each other in an ascending arc from the horizontal to an angle of 60 degrees.”

A French sergeant wrote in his diary of the battle that day; “Night is falling and (the artillery) look like old men sticking out their tongues and spitting fire. Heaps of corpses, French and German, are lying every which way, rifles in hand. Rain is falling, shells are screaming and bursting - shells all the time. Artillery fire is the worst. I lay all night listening to the wounded groaning-some were German. The cannonading goes on. Whenever it stops we hear the wounded crying from all over the woods. Two or three men go mad every day.”

A German officer wrote of his units attack at Tintigny; “Nothing more terrible could be imagined. We advanced much to fast-a civilian fired at us-he was immediately shot-we were ordered to attack the enemy flank in a forest of beeches-we lost our direction-the men were done for-the enemy opened fire-shells came down on us like hail(!)”

By night fall the reports reached the Crown Prince that the French were breaking. The reports were true. Early that day French Generalissimo Joffre had taken 3 divisions of reserve infantry from Russey’s 3rd Army to form a new army to protect the flank the embattled French 5th army. Though this decision was necessary and a brilliant show of adaptability by Joffre, he forgot to mention it to Russey, who found his whole army committed in intense fighting and his reserves shipping off on trains in the opposite direction! Russey latter claimed that if he had those 3 divisions, victory would have been his, and it may very well have been, so close was the fighting that day.

Battle of Charleroi-The Germans swarmed forth from their bridgeheads. The French Commander Boe, of the X Corps, was driven past Lanrezac dying of a mortal wound, pleading for someone to tell the General that his corps had held on as long as it could. The III corps was pushed relentlessly back by the forces of two full German armies. On this crucial front, the French 75’ss only had enough ammo for 2 shots a minute, and so were useless.

The Algerian “Turco’s,” all volunteers, fought viciously as their fathers had at the fateful battle of Sedan half a century earlier. One battalion of 1,030 men charged a German artillery battery with the bayonet. Their attack was successful and gained the French vital time, but only 2 men remained unwounded afterwards.

It was clear by evening that the battle was being lost, with only one French Corps still holding it’s ground. It’s this day that Lanrezac asked the BEF, now only a few dozen miles on his flank, to attack and help him. The BEF Commadner John French replied that he would hold the Mons canal (where earlier that day the British had made first contact with the enemy, running through some scouting Hussars with their cavalry sabers in glorious fashion) for 24 hours.

The Balkans Front-The Serbs launch a massive counterattack through eh Drina valley, driving the Hapsburg forces back to the river line in the battle of Cer.

August 22nd.

Western Front:

The Battle of Lorriane as the German 6th and 7th Armies under the Crown Prince of Bavaria, Ruppercht, continue to advance against the French along the border. The French 1st and 2nd armies under overall command of Noël de Castelnau continue to fall back. On this day, Castelnau recieved word that his son had been killed in the fierce fighting. As his staff rushed to consol him, he stood silent and firm, before uttering “Nous continuerons Messieurs (We will continue gentlemen).”

Meanwhile, in the Ardennes forest, the French 3rd(Pierre Ruffey, the lone proposer of heavy artillery in the French army) and 4th(Fernand de Langle de Cary) armies moved forward to strike the German 4th(Albrecht of Württemberg) and 5th(Crown Prince Wilhelm) armies. Unknown to the French due to horrid weather conditions, the Germans heavily outnumbered the advancing French troops.

The Germans moved to attack the French armies, and both sides stumbled upon each other in heavy fog and dark forests on the 21 of August. unorganized fighting broke out all along the front.  In some places, quickly entrenched German infantry threw back waves of Frenchmen who’s commanding officers though digging in to be beneath a Frenchman. In other, German units wandered blindy into carefully waiting French 75’s, slaughtering entire regiments before they knew what happened. Both sides moved up during the afternoon to prepare for action the next day.

And of course, the Battle of Charleroi, the most important of all the battle fought that day (tied with Lorraine for the most important battle of the campaign) when the German 2nd(Karl von Bülow) and 3rd(Max von Hausen) attacked the French 5th Army under Charles Lanrezac. The Germans had to attack across a river to get at the French, but instead of digging in, most of the French corps (most…more will be discussed on the 23rd), simply waited by the river unprotected to throw the Germans back with their bayonets. German machine guns and artillery had a field day, and by the end of the night the Germans had 2 immovable bridgeheads, wrecking most of the French III Corps in the process.

The Great Retreat had begun, even if most didn’t know it yet.

Eastern Front: The Russian 2nd Army under Samanov beings to advance into East Prussia from Congressional Poland after the 1st Armies victory at Gumbinnen the day earlier. This was pushed from Russian higher command, Yakov Zhilinskiy, more than Samanov, who argued his troops weren’t ready. But Zhilinskiy insisted, despite knowing that the 1st army was yet in no position to support the 2nd Army. The 2nd Army began the advance with no logistics, little supplies, and many units not yet at full strength.

The Germans, on their part, were preparing a total retreat to the Vistula, despite arguments from most of the divisional commanders at the time.

Africa: German militia from German Southwest Africa invade South Africa.

Save your applause gentlemen, just hoping to educate and honor the brave chaps who served in the Great War  :-)

August 20th:

Western Front: The Germans being a counterattack against the French in Lorraine. German heavy artillery outclasses anything the French can throw at it and the German army throws the French back to Nancy, erasing all gains the French had made, although the Germans fail to follow up quickly enough and the French are able to get entrenched in solid positions.

Brussels is occupied by the Germans, who march through to display all their military might.

Eastern Front: The Battle of Gumbinnen-After some skirmishing on the previous night, the German 8th Army (made up mostly of native East Prussians) under Maximilian von Prittwitz (dat name) moved into position to attack the Russian 1st Army under command of the mustachioed Paul von Rennenkampf.

The Russians were well aware of the German intentions and were able to set up strong positions. The entire battle was effectively dictated by the Russian artillery formations, which had long been the most effective part of the Tsar’s armies.

German general François’s corps was able to push back the Russian 28th division, after the latter’s artillery ran out of ammunition after whipping out the first waves of Germans (German infantry still tended to attack in column formation, leading to deadly results when faced with artillery). Their artillery out of action (the Russian armies effectively had no logistics, with the men surviving with what they had with them when they were ordered to advance), the 28th Divisions was mauled by the Germans until the 29th showed up later to stabilize the line.

Else where on the front though, Russian artillery and well dug in infantry blunted the other German corps advance, and counter attacked. The Germans completely broke and ran away in a mob like panic more often associated with the Russian army. 6,00 prisoners were taken and the German 8th army thrown back.

However, using up almost all of their ammunition, and taking a fair few casualties of their own, the Russians decided to consolidate their positions and wait for a logistics line to be established. This would have disastrous consequences, when Russian Theater Commander Yakov Zhilinskiy ordered the Russian 2nd Army under Samanov to advance without protection from the 1st Army, eventually allowing the Germans to concentrate their forces against it.

East Africa: The German forces push the British out of a small town called  Taveta and cut the Ugandan railway.

August 16th: French and British warships blockade the Adriatic, bottling up the paper tiger that was the Hapsburg fleet.

In France, the first of the BEF begins to land and assemble.

As for the French being reckless, they certainly were, but it’s often overlooked that the Germans were no better when it came to launching massive frontal offensives against well dug in opponents. It wasn’t a cult like it was in the French Army, but the Germans were just as prone to throwing large columns of men (at least the French used lines!) into the teeth of waiting French 75mm’s all along the Franco-German border that fall. The Germans did overall have a far higher concentration of heavy artillery though, which did allow their offensives to at least cause more casualties than a French offensive did to the Germans, even if the Germans failed to gain ground.

30 years latter, and the fact that for us Yanks and Brits, our perception of WW1 is OVERWHELMINGLY from British sources. As such, it tends to gloss over things the French did.

Fact is, the French fought hard, and they fought well. And in my opinion, they ended up being the best army in the war overall.

I tend to play much more casual games. And whenever I’ve won as CP, it’s been with a decent amount of naval pumped into both Germany and Austria Hungary. AH is more for a Fleet in Being, whereas the Germans tend to run around the North Sea zone for as long as possible.