The Nine Years War Campaign, Part II

The Nine Years War Campaign

Part II – The First Years

The first year of the war began with a flurry of activity on behalf of the Alliance.  William took great personal efforts to ensure that the Dutch forces, together with their subsidy and Empire troops were prepared and drilled and he also prepared a descent upon England by gathering together the needed transports in the Texel.  

The Nine Years War game requires both sides to display one of their action cards at the beginning of each year to see who will have the initiative of playing an action card first in the year.  In this year Louis decided that his troops were in splendid positions to accomplish his designs, so only played a 2 value card.  The Alliance, blessed by good providence had drawn a 3 card and promptly played it to secure the initiative. 

William left the 3 actions card out as played and then proceeded to the following:

Action 1 – Charles of Lorraine led the Empire and Subsidy troops formed in the hinterlands to Phillipsburg to forestall any Bourbon advance into the central Rhine.

Action 2 and 3 – Taking advantage of favorable winds and tides William set sail for London with three corps and succeeded in driving James II out of Southern England.  The ‘Glorious Revolution’ ensued and London declared for Mary.  James and the Jacobite forces fled to Dunkirk leaving small forces behind in Edinburg and Dublin.

Bourbon actions based on playing their 1 actions card next:

Action 1 - The Bourbons advanced their army into the Spanish Netherlands and summoned Namur but the city folk were under the thumbs of the Spanish garrison and had to be resolved to withstand a siege.  Vauban as the senior Marshal would undertake the effort.

The Alliance then played a 1 action card.

Action 1 – William and 2 corps returned from England and landed at Amsterdam, one corps suffering storm losses during the trip.

The Bourbons then played a 2 actions card.

Action 1 – The siege of Namur was promptly concluded, the Spanish garrison sent off under arms to join the Alliance army.

Action 2 – Marshal Boufflers moved his army to Tournai in the hope of completing the siege before then end of the year.

The Alliance played their final card of the first year a 3 action card.

Action 1 – Replenish the corps returned from England.

Action 2 – William and his army advanced from Amsterdam to Antwerp to begin collecting a force to oppose the Bourbons in the Spanish Netherlands.

Action 3 – The Austrian corps available along the Main was advanced to Phillipsburg to secure the area and serve as reinforcement to Charles of Lorraine.

The Bourbons played their last action card, a 1 action.

Action 1 – Attempt to take Tournai by storm which failed and Boufflers had to move his army back into France for subsistence during the winter.

Yearend activities saw both sides busy reinforcing their forces in Flanders and Germany in anticipation of the coming campaign year.  It is noted that no field battles were fought in this opening year and that the Bourbons did not have as many action opportunities as did their opponents, but still the actions occurred outside of France and the costs were borne more heavily by the Netherlands and German peoples.  The loss of England as an ally did not tip the scales of this conflict one way or the other at this point as the British contribution in terms of troops has been marginal.

1689 – The year the Turks became active in the East.

Due to the draw of event cards the Alliance had to dispatch two Austrian corps to quell the unrest in the eastern part of their Empire as the Turks took action to launch many raids into Hungary and Podolia while the Austrian army was involved heavily in Germany.

Once again the Alliance put down a 3 action card to challenge for the initiative and once again the Bourbons could only counter with a 2 action card.  Louis was heard to complain to his advisors that they did not seem well enough informed of the enemy plans and that they needed to do better.

The Alliance kept their 3 action card in play and did the following:

Action 1 – Marlborough and a small army moved from London to Edinburg to capture the last Jacobite stronghold in England.

Action 2 – Max Emanuel moved an Imperial/Bavarian army to Landau as a backup to Charles of Lorraine and to keep the French from poaching into the Imperial Circles along the Rhine, especially Koblenz, Cologne and Trier, all administered by various Bavarian clerical relatives.

Action 3 – Charles of Lorraine advanced to Strasbourg with the intent to place it under siege.  The Bourbons could not allow this to happen so met him in the fields outside the city and precipitating the first major field battle of the game.

After some discussion we agreed that each factor in the game would translate to a brigade of either 5 battalions or 10 squadrons of our figures organized for Blenheim 2004.  In the event the Alliance had 7 brigades to 6 Bourbon brigades.  So the Alliance picked 5 brigades of foot and 2 brigades of horse.  The Bourbons had 4 foot and 2 horse brigades.

The action went several turns and allowed the Alliance to threaten both flanks of the deployed Bourbons who determined based on the losses sustained that a retreat was the best option so while not being defeated they nevertheless yielded the field.  Losses were approximately equal to both sides so a brigade of troops on each side was deemed ‘destroyed’ and the markers removed from the game map and placed into the respective force pools.

I only took a couple of pictures which I display below:

The initial Alliance surge into the villages

The turning movement on the other wing by the Alliance forces

The advance in support of the left flanking movement

As noted the casualties were light across the board and no particular contingent or unit did anything remarkable enough to warrant a mention in dispatches or promotion.

For the rest of 1689, the Bourbons seized Tournai through uninterrupted siege while William slowly strengthened his forces in Antwerp.  Edinburg fell to the Alliance and Marlborough moved to Ireland to take Dublin in the next campaign year.

The Alliance should have been able to take Strasbourg but unfortunate dice rolls (two ones in succession), left the fortress weakened but not taken when the first snows arrived and the Alliance forces under Charles of Lorraine had to retire across the Rhine.  Both the unsuccessful sieges at Tournai in 1688 and Strasbourg in 1689 highlight the need to get the army in place early in the year to allow you more than a chance or two to complete the action happily.