[ETW AAR] Alternate History Prussian AAR
This is my first time writing an AAR and thought I'd try a different approach: A fictional documentary of my campaign as a TV transcript.
It's getting really detailed so if you guys think I need to go more general I'll drop battle descriptions (they're just so much fun to write)
Anyway, share ure thoughts on a TW AAR Noob's first work:
(BTW, how do I take screenshots? The battle I described here was freaking crazy and I'm so pissed I didn't have any screens of it... I'll actually hold off on going further so i can provide images for context
I'm also playing edited# regiments with 400 per unit since regiments were about 4-500 at the time in most armies, so the numbers are accurate)
Transcript of PBS Docudrama “Deutsch Soldat, The War of German Unification”
Original broadcast date: 01/03/97
Copyright 1997-2009
Narrator: Winter, 1701. With the alliance of Brandenburg and Prussia cemented just a few years earlier, King Frederick of Prussia turned his attention of the further union of Germany. Prussia was a kingdom divided, mere upstarts on the world stage, and what Frederick had set out for himself was no easy feat. The Prussian military system consisted of a handful of ill-disciplined infantry units and unreliable militia. However, over the course of the following 15 years, Frederick would fashion a highly disciplined and well-drilled military machine that would shake the European countryside and unite the disparate Germanic kingdoms into one, unified nation.
Now, for the first time in history, the Imperial German National Archives have released to historians hundreds of documents detailing this epic period in European history. From the written correspondence of Frederick himself and the journals of his ministers, to preserved letters from soldiers on the front lines of the war, historians are piecing together the birth of a nation. Stories converging from the smoke and fire of the battlefield to the Byzantine politics of the Prussian capital bring what was once a muddled account of the past into sharp focus.
Part I.
In late December of 1701, Prussia’s newly appointed king brought together his council of ministers in the palace at Brandenburg. There, he handed down a shocking proclamation: Germany would be united, and it would be done under the Prussian flag. Adam Kurtig, Lord Minister of War wrote his candid impressions in his diary.
December 23, 1701.
Our dear resplendent monarch puts us on a path of madness! Standing armies consist of perhaps four divisions of ill-trained regulars, and militia more apt to handling the horses of the local gendarmerie, than weapons of war. Of artillery, we have a total of eight guns, each more than one hundred years old, and this fool King tells us of “Prussian Destiny” and “Union of the German peoples,”? Past history being what it is, it is doubtful any new resources will be sent to the armies. Not while there are pleasure gardens and theaters to be built in the towns away from the capital. All the while my men would find themselves drowning in the mud-choked rivers that pass for roads in this country when the spring thaw comes. If this is the path we must embark on, then I will make this foolish man know how much we would need to accomplish this goal. That alone will surely frighten him into submission. By God’s grace, I will not see this nation ruined for the foolhardy adventuring of some foppish boy and his dreams.
-Adam Kurtig
What the Lord Minister did not count on, was the sweeping proposals that would be announced later that day. Unbeknownst to those present, Frederick had already issued a secret proclamation and as the ministers arrived at the palace, Royal Surveyors were already taking measurements across the country for a massive road improvement program that would conclude the following Spring. The construction of a theater in Tannenberg had met with an “Unfortunate arson,” and before the ground had been cleared it seemed construction of taxable textile mills was underway. At the same time, lucrative trade deals had been brokered with Russia, Great Britain and the small nation of Saxony. Lord Treasurer, Winfried Gutmann wrote later,
. . . As we marked the birth of our lord and savior at the palace, King Frederick presented me with the economic reforms he had assembled in the past year. Though Draconian by any measure, the nation’s wealth would be grown by some four hundred percent per annum into the foreseeable future. In private study, my Controller of the Works confided in me his jubilation at the many cultural and civic construction projects that could now be completed. Excluded from the private meeting with our lord, the poor fool could not foresee that this money was to be a war chest . . .
-Lord Treasurer, Winfried Gutmann
December 28, 1701
Indeed, what money could be diverted was sent to the Brandenburg University to fund military research. As regiments were raised, Prussian ingenuity developed the ring bayonet. A vast improvement over the older plug-type bayonet, muskets thusly fitted could fire while being able to immediately counter a cavalry charge. Though not without its limitations, the ring bayonet gave Prussian military forces a decisive advantage in war, and it would not be long before it would be put to the test.
Even after an exhaustive recruiting drive, Prussia was able to raise at most, twenty regiments of artillery, cavalry and infantry. So limited was the nation’s power, Frederick was careful in his coronation as King “in” Prussia, as opposed to King “of” Prussia. The ill attention of the Archduke of Austria, a mighty military power just on the border of Prussia would have been an immediate threat to Frederick’s rule, and he took great pains to see to it the man who would soon become his greatest rival was placated and docile for the time being.
However, of all the countries that seemed oblivious to the military buildup in Prussia, one, the tiny nation of Courland, took the threat of a greater Prussian empire seriously. A protectorate of Poland-Lithuania, the duke of Courland prepared for immediate mobilization hoping to catch the Prussians off guard and unprepared. When Poland declined to assist, happy to wage war by proxy against their small, upstart neighbor, and not willing to engage, but certainly more than happy to divide the spoils of battle, the Duke took action.
In the summer of 1706 a Prussian army under the command of twenty-six year old General Heinrich zu Stolberg, while awaiting further reinforcement before embarking on maneuvers was attacked by the full force of the Courland Army. With six regiments of competent but poorly drilled infantry, two 24-pound gun regiments and a single host of cavalry at his command, against a full twenty regiments, it looked to be the first and last battle for both a young nation, and a young and woefully inexperienced Prussian General. However, Stolberg had grown up in the area, having been locally recruited to lead the expeditionary force while the senior officer in the region was content to manage the garrison at Konigsburg. He knew the area well and knew he would be fighting a defensive campaign. Arranging his few artillery units at the bottom of V-shaped funnels of Prussian line infantry he created lethal killing fields any attacking force would have to enter to properly engage his troops. Arranging his forces so the flanks would be protected by two impassible hills he first made his position unassailable, and then when the battle proper began, used his cavalry to entice the overconfident Courlanders into a foolish frontal assault. The most detailed account of the battle was found in the pages of a young Prussian line infantryman’s letters home, preserved in the archives after their discovery in a Berlin attic in 1980:
Dearest Father,
Our arranged position was quite good, or at least as far as we could know. As the battle began, we found, much to the enemy general’s dismay, I’m sure, that we were safely beyond the maximum range of his artillery. While I did occasion to have a 24-pound ball end its bounce embedded in the ground just five meters in front of me, so spent was it in its labours, had I been standing at that precise spot, a crushed toe might have been the most grievous result of its hitting my flesh.
The thunder of proud hooves announced to us the commitment of the cavalry, and I could not help but wonder if they had been ordered in too soon. Minutes passed and after a terrible racket of both musket and cannon the earth shook with their return. Bracing myself for what horrors the enemy guns must have transfigured out brave cavalrymen into I was shocked to see nearly their entire number returning, running straight for the cannon whose murder hole my regiment formed the left wing of. Over the hill came three regiments of infantry in hot pursuit, plug bayonets already fitted, their weapons useless when they were about to need them most.
The 24-pounders opened up first and I cannot describe what horrors were visited upon our enemies as the balls bounced their deadly paths through the formations. They advanced deeper into the pocket, so single-minded in their pursuit they ignored the ranks of my fellows on either side of them. I would learn later this same scene was repeating itself in the other cannon regiment’s box.
In the fourth rank it was my job to step forward and only fire if a man before me fell. As musket fire ripped across the first three ranks, the Courlanders were cut down like the harvest. The first three ranks fired all at once. Sloppy. Inefficient. They reloaded for long seconds as the Courlanders charged us with their musket-pikes. A quick shot from out officer and a perfectly beat tattoo of the drums and we knew to lock our rings. The first rank got off one more volley before they were on us. I remember only flashes of violence, a sporadic phantasmagoria of horror as I braced my shoulder against my fellows’ backs to keep them upright with weight of numbers. I saw lives of friends end at the tip of the blade, took lives of my enemies with my own. Then, suddenly, I was on the front rank watching my enemies’ backs as they fled, the screams of the wounded and dying, ours and theirs, filling my ears. My blood chilled as our officers shouted, “Load!”
In the fourth rank my weapon was loaded and undischarged so I stood at the ready position as taught in drill school, the sweat of my palms threatening to drop my weapon in the dust as fresh regiments approached. They had not made the impetuous mistake of their comrades. There was no glint of cold steel on the end of these muskets, only the blue of their barrels as they marched, perfectly drilled, in our direction.
“REA-DY!” The officers cried, my heart exploding in my chest.
“PRESENT ARMS!” The walnut was cold against my cheek, the barrels of the rear ranks hovering over my shoulder.
“FIRE!” I pulled the trigger and the flint struck. I waited for what seemed an eternity as the primer ignited and the powder burned. Just an illusion though, my weapon discharged at the exact moment as three hundred of my comrades.
Less than twenty of the enemy fell dead as I reached into my shot bag, clumsily dropping the first one I could reach onto the ground. Nervous hands trembled as the loading process stretched into minutes. Sill I wondered why the enemy had not answered our volley. As I filled the primer pan and snapped the catch shut I looked up and saw to my surprise the enemy had only now closed ranks and was prepared to fire. Only a few of my fellows had finished reloading. They had not taken too long, I had simply loaded that quickly.
I stopped rethinking the loading process for that one step I was sure I had stupidly missed in my nervous haste when I heard the snap of bullets flitting past my head, and the dull slap they make when they don’t miss. Men fell on all sides of me as musket fire shattered their breast. Few, however they were. Realizing the limitations of my enemies it was with a certain glee I lifted my weapon again, knowing if I were to die, it had been ordained by God to be so and nothing could change that.
“FIRE!” it was the only command that mattered now. This time I would swear with the Almighty as my witness over a hundred fell.
We exchanged two more volleys when once again we fell into the vile melee. My ring bayonet slipped back on my musket as it drew enemy blood, drawing my own as it stripped flesh from my hand. A quick reversal and it became a club, the bayonet tip now extending only centimeters from the barrel.
After what seemed like hours the enemy broke and fled. As we reformed into line I readied for another go, alive with battle frenzy. But it did not come. It was almost too simple. The battle was over, our enemy routing. General Stolberg wisely held his cavalry back. A cornered wolf is most dangerous of all, and these wolves outnumbered our horses twenty to one.
A new Prussian dawn is breaking, Father!
-Werner
Although victory at Tannenberg bloodied the Duke’s nose, even going so far as having his Lord Marshal executed for the humiliation of being defeated by the upstarts, it would be a further three years of building General Stolberg’s army during which repeated incursions from Courland would become common, before he finally took his army on the offensive.
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