Background
In September 1758, during the French offensive in Hesse, when the Prince de Soubise advanced on Einbeck defended only by the small force of Prince Ysenburg (7,500 men), Ferdinand of Brunswick detached General Oberg with 14,000 men to support him. In front of the combined forces of Ysenburg and Oberg, Soubise retired first on Göttingen and then on Kassel. The Allies were on his heels and soon the two armies were facing each other near Kassel.
The situation remained stable until October 3 when Oberg learned that two strong detachments had been sent by the Marquis de Contades to reinforce Soubise. The same night, Oberg crossed the Fulda and encamped on the plateau of Sandershausen.
On October 9, the two detachments sent by Contades made their junction with Soubise who immediately crossed the Fulda and formed a line of battle in front of the Allied army.
Soubise plan for the battle was to turn the Allied left flank with Chevert’s Corps while Fitzjames would attack in the centre and himself would launch an assault against the Allied right wing on the plateau of Sandershausen.
During the night of October 9 to 10, fearing for his lines of communication, Oberg decamped from the plateau of Sandershausen, passed the village of Landwehrhagen, leaving only a detachment on the plateau to cover his retreat. He planned to recross the Fulda at Münden.
At 3:00 a.m., Lieutenant-General Chevert and Prince Xavier (aka Comte de Lusace) began a long 8 km march around the Allied left flank through Dahlheim and a wooded area, crossing a small affluent of the Fulda.
When Oberg saw Broglie’s forces close behind his army, he realized that it would be dangerous to continue his march towards Münden through difficult terrain with the French so close behind his columns. He then decided to deploy his army with the infantry in two lines in the centre, a right wing of cavalry and the cavalry of the left wing positioned behind the infantry to the left. His right was anchored on light woods and heights, the village of Lutterberg behind his centre. His left wing extended to a thicket upon an eminence where 5 x 6-pdrs were placed. His front was covered by a deep and wide ravine with marshes at its bottom. The village of Lutterberg was behind the Allied lines and 4 x 12-pdrs were planted on the rising ground towards the village.
Chevert had now reached Sichelnstein. While his advanced units under M. de Chabot chased enemy light troops in front of them, Chevert deployed his troops in two lines with his left 1 km to the right of Benterode and his right at Sichelnstein. He also formed a third line with his cavalry.
At 1:00 p.m., the entire French army was deployed in order of battle. It was resolved that the left and centre would stand still until Chevert would be ready to launch his attack.
At 2:00 p.m., Chevert received the order to attack. The French artillery positioned all along the line opened a very efficient fire while Chevert debouched in three columns followed by his cavalry in front of the enemy positions. The Allies could barely return fire since most of their artillery was still on the road towards Münden. Shortly after, Soubise ordered Fitzjames to advance. Oberg reacted by detaching Major-General Zastrow from the right wing with 2 bns of the second line and 4 sqns to reinforce his left.
At 2:45 p.m., Chevert’s columns came to contact with the Allies left flank. Zastrow’s battalions attacked the French with their bayonets and forced them to retire from the wood. Oberg sent 4 bns and 4 sqns of his second line to reinforce Major-General Zastrow to prevent Chevert to deploy in the plain. He also placed 2 bns and 2 dragoon sqns of the second line behind a thin wood between the Allied left and Zastrow’s Corps.
At 4:00 p.m., Chevert began a brisk cannonade against this column with his 42 guns and simultaneously fell on Zastrow’s Corps. His first line was composed of infantry which Zastrow attacked with the bayonet and routed. However, a considerable line of cavalry was supporting this first line. Chevert then ordered Voyer and Bellefonds (at the head of the cavalry) to charge the Allied column. The cavalry attacked Zastrow’s infantry in front and flank and broke it. Voyer was wounded during the charge.
The attack of Chevert was the signal that the French army was waiting for. The left wing cavalry then swiftly advanced but was delayed by a dale and a brook. The Piémont, Castellas and Alsace infantry brigades advanced so rapidly that they soon reached the opposite slope, so did the artillery.
As the Allied column retired in front of Chevert, his cavalry deployed in the plain. Eight sqns of Allied cavalry then advanced in good order and deployed to cover the retiring column. During the engagement that ensued, the cavalries of both sides clashed five times and the Allied cavalry was repeatedly pushed back. Meanwhile, Chevert’s Saxon column stormed the Stodberg hill where the Allies had placed several batteries and an important force. Prince Xavier attacked the position frontally at the head of the Saxon grenadiers while the Baron von Dyherrn turned it. Prinz Xaver Infantry, led by Colonel von Kavanagh drove back 2 Hessian bns and captured 6 guns at the point of the bayonet. After some bitter fighting the Saxons remained master of the Stodberg. An Allied counter-attack was repulsed with the support of Prinz Friedrich August Infantry, Prinz Maximilian Infantry and Rochow Fusiliers while the Count Solms attacked from the right side with 10 grenadier coys.
Meanwhile, the rest of the French army advanced against the front of the Allied first line. Faced with the success of Chevert’s attack, Oberg soon ordered the retreat towards the defile leading to Münden. The French artillery opened on the Allies while they passed this defile, breaking down the artillery and ammunition wagons. Oberg then formed 3 to 4 bns in front of the defile. When the other corps of the French army reached the Allied positions they could only contemplate retiring cavalry units as darkness slowly took possession of the battlefield. During their retreat, the Allies abandoned most of their artillery on the road to Münden and several soldiers were captured in the woods. Overall, losses of the Allies during this action amounted to about 1,500 men killed, wounded or taken prisoners and 28 guns.
The French army encamped for the night on the positions that it had conquered. During the night, the Allied army crossed the Werra, finally halting at Dransfeld.
http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1758-10-10_-_Battle_of_Lutterberg
The Game
We set up game using the battle description on the seven years par project website. It was clear that a game using all the forces on the French side would not be much of a game. As such, the scenario was designed around the French flanking movement and supporting artillery fire from the main army. Since the main army did not advance until the later part of the day, this seems to make sense. It also gave us a turn limit for the game. The game started with the French on the flank maneuvering into position and would end at the point the French main army would advance into range of the allies (about 17:00).
We set up the terrain to match the map. As the fight was on a rise and the lower areas were outside the main fight, we just played on a flat table and added the two rises that were actually involved in the fight on the heights. We set up the forces as per the battle information. We played the woods that the French advanced through as open woods and all the others as normal woods. The French would have eight turns to break the allies and ten turns to win the game.
The French plan was to advance their left column into the allies on the hill. The right column would swing wide and try to cut off the road to Lutterberg before the allies could form a proper defensive position. The center column and the cavalry would support both columns from the center.
The allied plan was to hold the flank for as long as possible and reposition their other forces to protect the route of march. Once redeployed, the holding forces would try to fall back onto the new position. The allied plan was to trade units for time.
The French launched their forces as planned. With their forces already under orders, the advance went pretty much as planned. Short of a skirmish jager battalion fighting the French Grenadiers to a stand still, most things went well.
The allies desperately tried to reposition their forces, but had bad luck with their command rolls. This delayed the repositioning of the forward forces in the face of the French onslaught. The allies decided to launch their cavalry into the French early in order to disrupt their advance. However, this only resulted in the cavalry being out of position to slow down the flanking movement and later to their destruction.
The French just moved forward and started to ground up the allies forces. The defense held for a while but finally totally collapsed. The allies army broke on turn eight and the battle was over with the remnants streaming to the rear.
- Manteuffel