"Accounts of Schöngrabern, 1805" Topic

I'm looking for accounts of Schöngrabern in 1805 during the Austerlitz campaign. I've got Bowden and Goetz but I'm looking for more details (Goetz is quite thin in his mention of the battle). For instance, Bowden states the French combined the guns from the IV & V Corps into a grand battery but does not note who commanded it.

Anyone able to shed light on the battle?

Cheers,

The Bandit

Castle, I, 2005, doesn't mention combined batteries – yes Murat awaited the IV and V corps to arrive before deciding to attack….however, Castle does discuss, across 4 pages, the subject of the battle in question :)

Do you mean the clash at the 16. November? Hollabrünn and Schöngrabern???

According to Foucart only the division of Oudinot was engaged and the French artillery was employed piecemeal (as mostly in the 1805 campaign)

Some film footage. Was everyone left-handed in 1805?

YouTube link

Do you mean the clash at the 16. November? Hollabrünn and Schöngrabern???

Yes.

Bowden (to whom I refer only because he's the most detailed account I have) says:

• Murat signed a cease fire with Bagration.
• Napoleon wanted action and demanded Murat break it.
• This delayed hostilities until ~5pm.
• Sunset was at ~5:30pm.
• The French guns couldn't enter the vineyard fields due to the terrain so they pulled the cannon from the IV & V corps, consolidated it just west of Schöngrabern and fired into Bagration's front line.
• Soult setup on the left of the "grand battery".
• Lannes setup to the south and east of Schöngrabern.
• Two heavy cavalry divisions and a dragoon division sat behind Oudinot, held in reserve.
• Lannes attacked after the cease fire ended with Oudinot's division.
• Schöngrabern was set on fire by Russian artillery.
• Fighting lasted well beyond dark.
• Bagration successfully broke contact and left around 11pm.

Those are the high points of Bowden's account but I don't have anything to compare it to. Don't have Castle's book but now I'll keep an eye out for it.

I'd love to hear corrections and alternative accounts compared to the above.

Cheers,

The Bandit

I misquoted my source, it is of course Alembert and Colin, they give the brigades Dupas and Rufin with 2 guns, also aditional 7 guns at the road to Schöngrabern, 3 at the left side of the road and 4 to the right – which had to engage 16 Russian guns.

The two battalions of the brigade Laplance-Mortières attacked Schöngrabern in close column, but the attack broke down due to Russian fire.

Then the leading elements of the 4th Corps – the Division Legrand entered the fight and attacked in two columns

for more details one would have to read the account by Alombert and Colin, they give only those artillery pieces mentioned above, I didn't come across a reference of combined guns of 4th and 5th corps.

which had to engage 16 Russian guns.

Bowden only gives one 6# battery with Bagration. That would normally be presumed as 12 guns not 16 – anything you can assist with there?

Bowden has the whole of Soult's corps present, well, he alludes to it. Reading Bowden's account it would seem that all of Murat's forces were present since the day was spent under cease fire there was time to collect them. This makes analysis of the battle a bit odd because in theory Murat's got ~40,000 French ready and waiting for battle but only maybe half of them get involved…

Considering this battle as a wargame there is a real question as to why a French player wouldn't order a general advance and completely overwhelm the Russian player.

Cheers,

The Bandit

some of the you tube clips were used in the war and peace movie! grting serge joe

Divisional Artillery
-- "vacant" [1st] battery company of the 2nd battalion, 4th artillery regiment, 8x 12-lber gun, 4x 1/2-pud unicorn, under the command of major Aleksandr Andreyevich Bogoslavskiy, deputy commander captain Pavel Petrovich Timofeyev *, deployed as a single battery in front of Schöngrabern

* We can assume that this was the officer who formed the basis for Tolstoy's fictional account of captain Tushin, commander of a four piece detachment that covered the retreat of the Russian forces, in "War and Peace".

Regimental Artillery
-- From the "vacant" [2nd] light company of the 2nd battalion, 4th artillery regiment, 2x 6-lber gun, 1x 1/4-pud unicorn, under the command of captain Yakov Ivanovich Sudakov, with the Kievskiy grenadier regiment
-- From the "vacant" [2nd] light company of the 2nd battalion, 4th artillery regiment, 2x 6-lber gun, 1x 1/4-pud unicorn, under the command of lieutenant Pyotr Fyoderovich Rumyantsev, with the Azovskiy musketeer regiment
-- From the detachment of Austrian artillery added to Prince Bagration's command in mid-October, 2x 6-lber gun, 1x 7-lber howitzer, commander ???, with the 6th Jäger regiment **
-- From the detachment of Austrian artillery added to Prince Bagration's command in mid-October, 2x 6-lber gun, 1x 7-lber howitzer, commander ???, with the Podol'skiy musketeer regiment **
-- From major Hine's [1st] light company of the 2nd battalion, 5th artillery regiment, commander lieutenant ???, 2x 6-lber gun, 1 each with the Novgorodskiy musketeer regiment and the Narvskiy Musketeer regiment …. these guns had been dispatched from the Russian main forces to Prince Bagration and are recorded with the named regiments in their next reports – however it is unclear if they arrived in time for the battle of Schöngrabern

** An Austrian light or cavalry battery had been assigned to Prince Bagration, as was the detachment under general Graf von Nostitz-Rieneck. Unlike the troops under von Nostitz-Rieneck's direct command, the artillery detachment did not withdraw under Murat's false truce, and stayed with their assigned Russian regiments.

So a total of 24 or 26 pieces of artillery. Russians typically have lots of artillery. No exception here.

- Sasha

Like Always the early French have shakos in stead of bicorns greeting serge joe