Introduction to the 1814 Campaign

Background

This is a fictional campaign loosely based on the 1814 Campaign in France. 

The aim of the campaign is to produce good wargames for my wife Jan and I to play.  

It will be fought as a PBEM campaign and will have command posts for twelve players.

It is anticipated that we will play one campaign day each week

This campaign diary will provide a record of the whole campaign.  

I plan to post  a summary of each campaign day.

I would expect to post it once a week here on the blog

In addition I will posts a detailed battle report, with photographs, of each wargame fought

1813 Campaign in Germany and Spain

This campaign follows on from the previous PBEM which has run non stop for the past four years.   It was fought as a series of 10 mini campaigns.  The first  five were solo, the remainder PBEM.  A link to each of these campaigns can be found on the right under the heading My Blog List

1814 Campaign in Germany

Napoleon suffered two major defeats in August 1813. The first at Hannover and then again at Gera.   This forced him to request an armistice from the allies so that he could rest and rebuild his armies.   Their price for the armistice was that he should retreat to the west bank of the river Rhine.

This resulted in the breakup of the Confederation of the Rhine.   Saxony, Bavaria and Baden joined the allied cause and declared war on France.

Many German, Polish and Italian brigades and divisions remained loyal to Napoleon, and accompanied him back to France.

To build up his armies in France, Napoleon was forced  to withdraw more experienced troops  from Spain.  He also released Crown Prince Ferdinand and allowed him to return to Spain on the condition that he would not invade France.   Ferdinand agreed to this condition and gave his regal promise, however it was broken as soon as Ferdinand reached Madrid, where he immediately declared war on France.

The stage was set for the 1814 Campaign in France