Günzburg 1805

War of the Third Coalition

9 October

French under Jean-Pierre Firmin Malher, 7,170 men and 7 guns
Austrians under Konstantin Karl d'Aspré, approximately 7,500 men and 20 guns

Weather: Miserable; chilly with intermittent snow, sleet, and rain
Location: Günzburg, Bavaria, Germany, 48°27.16′N 10°16.28′E

First Light:  05:59   Sunrise:  06:31   Sunset:  17:43  End of Twilight: 18:15
(calculated from U.S. Naval Observatory from location and date)

The Fight for Legoland

Günzburg was the second of the smallish, opening battles (or "combats") of the Ulm campaign. Most of what I would have to say in this post about the state of the French and Austrian Armies at this stage of the Napoleonic Wars I've said in my three previous posts of this campaign, Wertingen, Haslach-Jungingen, and Durnstein. The interesting military problem posed by Günzburg, however, is one of a contested river crossing in the face of strong enemy defenses. This was something the French Army had prided itself on in Napoleon's Italian Campaigns of the previous decade. They were good at it.

Located 12 miles (19 km) downstream (northeast) from Ulm in western Bavaria, Günzburg, currently famous for being the home of Legoland in Germany, was a strategic crossing point over the Danube. (In fact, a Google, Bing, or Yahoo search for "Battle of Günzburg" returns, aside from the usual Wikipedia article, almost 90% images of Legoland, which, for some reason, I think shows a sign of social progress.)

Marshal Ney, on the north side of the Danube, had been ordered by Napoleon to seize this bridgehead with his VI Corps, as well as the one further upstream at Elchingen.  At the same time, General Mack, with the bulk of the Austrian army holed up in Ulm, sensed the noose tightening around him and sent a column under General d’Aspré to secure the same crossing so the Austrians could use it themselves to make their escape.

D’Aspré got there first. There were three bridges across the river around Günzburg, one about 5 km upstream at Leipheim, the bigger bridge at Günzburg itself, and one northeast of town between Günzburg and Reisenburg. All three bridges were wooden (and therefore relatively easy to dismantle should that be necessary). Oddly, though, a fourth bridge (at least on maps) existed right into Reisenburg, itself a little further east. For some reason--at least according to narratives--nobody thought to guard this one, or try to cross it. More on this later.

As with my other battle maps in this campaign, I've rendered this one to look like a snowy landscape, since, even though it is early October, it had been snowing, with intermittent freezing rain.

The "Strategic Situation" is usually the kind of introductory padding that responsible military historians usually have to include at the beginning of any book or article on some battle. Most of us would just as soon get right to the carnage, or, as my grandfather used to say when watching a war movie with me, "More fun! More people killed!" Some of us (not me, of course), jump over the introduction to get to the battle. My co-author and business partner, Cathey Armillas, (The Unbreakable Rules of Marketing--shameless plug here), in fact, resisted us putting an introduction in our book at all, for this very reason; nobody reads the introduction. And I would encourage you to jump over this section to get right to the gore below.

However, as we also say in that same book, "Strategy before Tactics"--in marketing, war, and blog writing. So...

The Strategic Situation

I've already covered most of the strategic situation bracketing the Günzburg fight in my previous posts (Wertingen and Haslach-Jungingen). So I won't be redundant here. I'll just say that Karl Mack von Leiberich, the de-facto commander-in-chief of the Austrian field army in Bavaria (much to the irritation of the titular C-in-C, Archduke Ferdinand), was getting pretty nervous by 8 October. Reports of French troops in his rear were coming in hourly. So, even though it had been his idea to move the army this far west, and while he still believed in the impregnability of Ulm, he started to listen to his "boss," Ferdinand, and his staff that maybe they should start thinking about getting out of there. So he ordered troops to head east to secure the bridgeheads over the Danube at Elchingen and Günzburg.

Konstantin d’Aspré

The officer Mack had tasked with the latter bridgehead was Konstantin d’Aspré, an officer with a long and splendid war record serving the Habsburgs (since even before the Revolution). He has been described by more than one historian as being an emigré (e.g. renegade) French officer. But as he was born in the Austrian Netherlands and held rank in the Habsburg army his entire career, a ferocious fighter against the Revolution and the French until his death in Battle at Wagram four years after this. So I'm not sure where he got his reputation as an "emigré". He was, at any rate, a rabid anti-revolutionary. At Günzburg he was no less heroic. Mack had given him tactical command of three infantry regiments, 18 guns, and six cavalry squadrons to do this. It should have been sufficient to merely block a French crossing of the Danube.

From the French side, Napoleon was worried that one of the things Mack would try was breakout from Ulm to cross to the north side of the Danube, threatening his lines of communication and retreating back toward Austria along the left bank. He ordered Ney, with his 23,000 men of the VI Corps, to seize all the crossings of the Danube from the north, bottling up Mack. Ney assigned the task of blocking Ulm directly from the north to his First Division under Dupont (see Haslach-Jungingen), seizing the crossing at Elchingen to Loison's Second Division, and Günzburg to Malher's Third Division.

Okay, that's enough for the strategic situation part. Let the slaughter begin!.

The Battle

D’Aspré had arrived at Günzburg the evening of 8 October. His troops were already busy getting ready to defend the bridges. Among other things, one way to "defend" a bridge (if it were wooden) was to dismantle it by pulling up the planks. It was reasoned that it would be easier to repair a bridge whose planks had been removed by engineers (if they needed to use it later) than it would be for an enemy to try and repair it under fire. Also, where were the attackers going to get the milled lumber? So by the morning of the 9th, when Malher's first troops began showing up on the opposite bank, all three bridges (and possibly the fourth into Reisenburg?) had been partially dismantled.

The work on taking apart the center bridge, though, had not yet begun when the French appeared on the far bank about 09:00. There was an island in the middle of the Danube at this point, with two spans connecting it. In order to give his engineers more time to do their work, d’Aspré, no delegator he, personally led 200 Tyrolean Jagers and two 3-pounder guns across to the island to slow up the French. These 200, knowing they were a forlorn hope and would be cut off once the bridge behind them was dismantled (the Danube was not fordable at this point...and must have been extremely cold), were prepared to sacrifice themselves to delay the French onslaught long enough for their countrymen to complete their work. Though, I wonder if they were all that eager.

Jean-Pierre Firmin Malher

On the French side, Malher had reconnoitered all three crossing points and determined the best tactic was to attack all three simultaneously. But timing turned out to be a problem. On his right he had assigned his trusty adjutant, Etienne Nicolas Lefol, to rush the rickety bridge at Leipheim with an ad hoc combat team consisting of all the elite companies of the division (forming elite battalions at a moment's notice was an operation the French were well-practiced in). On his left he assigned his second brigade commander, General de Brigade Labassée with just two battalions of the 59e Ligne and all of the division's artillery (seven guns, including two of a horse artillery section). Labassée was to seize the bridge just downstream from Günzburg  where d’Aspré had positioned four battalions of the Kaunitz #20 regiment and four squadrons of cavalry. 

 

For some reason, Mahler didn't explore the option (to my knowledge) of going just 660 yards further downstream to crossi at the undefended and intact bridge to Reisenburg. This was similar to a question I posed about the earlier Battle of Arcola.

Finally, with orders to take the longer, middle bridge directly into Günzburg, General de Brigade Marcognet was to use six battalions of the 25^e Legere, 27^e, and 50^e Ligne. But no artillery. The remaining battalion of the 27^e Ligne (the 1st Bn) was held back as a central reserve should any of the three crossings be successful.

Marcognet slugs his way onto the island.

At 09:00 the only attack that was ready to get underway was Marcognet's in the center. It is questionable whether the French could get a clear view beyond the woods on the island of what was happening to the second span. Evidently, though, (according to Bowden's description of the battle) as soon as Marcognet reached the north bank he rushed his infantry across to the island before d’Aspré could get to the north side of it to defend the bridgehead.  In this version, the French were able to deploy four battalions into line among the poplars and charge the Jagers, enveloping them in a few minutes and forcing them and d’Aspré to surrender.

If, on the other hand, d’Aspré had managed to get to the north side with his Jagers to defend the bridge before Marcognet arrived, the French general would have probably deployed some of his light infantry as skirmishers on the north bank to try and suppress the Jagers' fire and cut down the crews of the two Austrian guns.  He had no guns himself with which to answer them. But the distance was only about 100 yards, just within effective musket range. However, the Jagers were armed with rifles, which would have given them an advantage, particularly in aiming for the bridge. I don't know if any of the French light infantry had rifles themselves, though I imagine they did.

I also don't know how many rushes across the bridge would have been attempted in this scenario, but the defenders would have had time to only get off one shot before the French infantry were on top of them (racing across the hundred yard span would have taken less than half-a-minute). The situation reminds me of Burnside's troops charging across the stone bridge at Antietam 57 years later, where the Confederates, too, had only a handful of men to try and stop 12,000. It is also reminiscent of Napoleon's charge across the Lodi bridge during his Italian campaign in 1796. Determined troops knew they could take the bridge. And the French were determined.

If it was a matter of rushing the bridge when it came (an interesting wargame scenario alternative), d’Aspré and all of his Jagers were forced to surrender. They had put up a heroic effort, whether holding up the French at the north bridge or holding them back on the island. It was  fewer than 200 against 5,000, but they had bought time for the engineers behind them to take up enough of the planks on the southern bridge to prevent the French from going further. One hopes that their countrymen appreciated their sacrifice, especially the Hofkriegsrat. Incredibly, Mack, after the war, in defending himself during his trial for cowardice at surrendering his entire army eleven days later, had the gall to blame d’Aspré for losing the Battle of Günzburg and so preventing the rest of the army from escaping. But d’Aspré was exonerated and rewarded with an honorable command of the Austrian Grenadier Division four years later, with which he distinguished himself yet again at Aspern-Essling and Wagram, where he was killed in battle. The Austrian officer class may have been hidebound and conservative, but it was also brave.

Situation late morning. Marcognet tries to repair the second span under fire.

© Copyright 2013, Jeffery P. Berry Trust, all rights reserved.

Having seized the island, Marcognet moved four of his battalions to its southern bank, where, to his dismay, he saw that there was yet another bridge and that it had  been dismantled. The opposite bank was defended by three infantry battalions (of Erzherzog Carl's #3) and 18 guns (Bowden says 20, but I don't know if he had deducted the two captured on the island, and, no matter...it was a lot of ordnance), all enfilading the island. For the French to try and repair the second bridge under this intense fire would have been suicidal. The Danube was also unfordable at this point and Malher had no boats to attempt an amphibious flanking assault. So instead he deployed four battalions on the gravel bank (three of the 25e Legere and one of the 50e Ligne) on the south side of the island and tried to drive off the defenders with superior musket fire to give his engineers time to replank the bridge.

 

This firefight went on for quite awhile until the French realized they were getting the worst of it. Malher's sappers and volunteers were dropping like flies as they tried to jury-rig a hasty repair to the bridge with cut poplar logs from the island (I assume the original, milled lumber would have been removed to the southside, for safe-keeping by the Austrians). Marcognet could have used those divisional guns that Malher had given Labassée*, though it is doubtful they could have suppressed the overwhelming Austrian artillery, who had the high ground and the island locked in from canister range. At the very least, his men would have been able to use the two captured Austrian guns. At some point, though, Malher, seeing the attempt was hopeless, pulled his troops and engineers back.

So, after most of the day had frittered away, this phase of the battle pretty much ground to a standstill. It was about this time, too, that Lefol must have tapped Malher on the shoulder to say he was back, and had made no headway on the Leipheim bridge either. Great.

*The Wikipedia article on this battle claims Marcognet had brought up four guns but they were overwhelmed, citing Fred Kagan's book. Bowden makes no mention of this. I tend to go with Bowden's scholarship on this detail. But, as I've said, the two captured Austrian guns would undoubtedly have been used.

Meanwhile, nothing else was happening.

While Marcognet's attack was underway, Lefol, with his crack battalion of elite companies, was getting nowhere in his mission to grab the Leipheim bridge. As he attempted to cross a bog (see map at top), he got mired in the cold muck and eventually had to turn back. His erstwhile target, Auersperg's Austrians guarding the Leipheim bridge (three battalions of Württemburg #38 and two squadrons of cuirassiers) were all excited for nothing. Not to mention the frustration of the French grenadiers. Lefol brought them all back to the crossroads behind the bridgehead for reassignment. But since Auersperg had no way of knowing an attack was not coming, he could not come to the aid of the Austrian right (which was going to need somebody's help desperately before the day was out).

At the same time, Labassée's command (remember, besides two battalions of the 59e Ligne, he had all the guns) was getting itself lost on the Malher's left. Taking several wrong turns in the woods, apparently, they finally arrived at where their bridge was supposed to be sometime late in the afternoon.

Malher was trying to keep the fruitless firefight going on opposite Günzburg to give at least one of his other attacks time to develop and prevent the Austrians from reinforcing their wings. Things weren't coming easy for the 3rd Division.

Mack to the rescue...again

Just as it looked like the day would be lost for the French, "The Unfortunate" General Mack came

through for them again with an incredible "what-was-he-thinking?" order. With his on-scene commander, d’Aspré, now a guest of the French, Mack, who had returned to Günzburg sometime during the day to see how he could help, ordered Ignac Gyulai, who commanded the right wing of the Austrian  position, to repair the bridge his men had spent several hours unplanking. Maybe he was thinking that now was the time to attempt to cross the Danube himself and try and envelop Malher. Or maybe he was thinking now was the time to try his escape from Ulm. Or maybe he was just a jerk who liked to show everybody who was boss ("I know I told you to dismantle that bridge, now put it back together!").Who knows what was going through his febrile brain? He was always thinking. 

Ignac Gyulay

Meanwhile, neither side was doing anything with the presumably intact bridge just downriver at Reisenburg. One has to wonder. Was it really intact? Did anybody think to check? 

At any rate, this other bridge repair under Gyulai was just about finished toward day's end when who should finally show up but Labassée with his two, fresh battalions of the 59e Ligne and seven shiny cannons (well, one was a howitzer, but I'm making a narrative flourish).

Seeing that the Austrians were pounding in the last nails on the bridge, Labassée obligingly had his infantry test the enemy's craftsmanship by storming across immediately, one imagines, screaming blood-curdling Republican curses. To support them, his seven guns unlimbered and poured canister across the river into the densely packed Austrian infantry. 

The Kaunitz #20 1st battalion, which was deployed into line just a few feet from the end of the bridge, broke and ran. This hapless regiment was composed mostly of raw recruits from Galicia, who had no great love of the Habsburgs and probably wondered why they were up in snowy Bavaria in the first place. But their equally hapless regimental commander had the brilliant idea of stacking his battalions one behind another (instead of in echelon or at a standard support distance), so that as the first battalion broke and ran, it collided right into the second, which also panicked in its turn to break and run into the 3rd, and so on, until all four battalions were running as fast as they could back into Günzburg. The French swept up some 1,000 prisoners in a few minutes.

Midafternoon: Labassée storms across the eastern bridge and routs the Kaunitz #20 regiment

Gyulai saw this catastrophe but rather than trying to rally the fleeing Galicians, he (being a cavalryman himself) led the four supporting squadrons of chevaulegers (Rosenberg #6) and uhlans (lancers of Schwarzenberg #2) against the two French battalions. The discipline and training of the 59e Ligne, however, proved its value, though, because they had quickly formed two squares and were able to rake the Austrian horsemen with controlled volleys, driving them off in turn. 

Having been sent an urgent message for reinforcement by Labassée, Malher now took swift advantage of this unexpected victory and quickly sent most of his division over the righthand bridge and began pressing the Austrians back into Günzburg. Archduke Ferdinand showed up with more cavalry and the Württemburg #38 infantry regiment (which he had collected at Leipheim) to reinforce the Carl #3. But Mack called a general retreat back to Ulm. In the Austrian rear, General Loison and his 2nd Division had taken the bridge at Elchingen, which had been guarded by a single Austrian battalion. So Mack reasoned that his latest scheme had failed.

So? What next?

The Austrians had lost some 1,650 men (KWM out of 7,000 committed) and six guns in this fight, a 23% casualty rate. They French, on their part lost 519, mostly from the 25e Legere in its hopeless fight at the center bridge, an overall 7% casualty rate. The Austrians could be considered to have lost this combat (good thing it wasn't a full on battle), both tactically and strategically, since they had missed a chance to secure a vital river crossing. And besides, Legoland wasn't going to open for another 197 years.

The Austrians regrouped in Ulm. Mack's ever-active brain worked out what to do next. The day after this battle, Marshal Ney and Murat (who had recently been given temporary command by Napoleon over not only his own cavalry corps but Ney's and Lannes' corps as well) had a vigorous gentleman's disagreement over what to do next themselves. Ney was all for keeping his corps moving up the north bank of the Danube to keep Mack from breaking out that way. The action at Günzburg clearly showed to anybody with an ounce of strategic thought that this was the Austrian intention. But Murat, acting on his new authority and some musings that Napoleon had that Mack might try to break south, for the Tyrol, ordered Ney to move his entire corps over on to the south bank to prevent that. Ney thought this was reckless. He was somewhat less than diplomatic in sharing his humble opinion. Apparently the two almost came to blows when Lannes came between them and calmed Ney down. Ney left the heated meeting, agreeing to move his corps over to the south bank (the 3rd Division was aleady there), but he was passive-aggressive about it. By the morning of the 11th, his 1st Division, under Dupont, was still moving on Ulm from the north, unsupported now by the rest of the VI Corps (see my previous post, Haslach-Jungingen).

It's easy for me to say; I wasn't there.

It's always easy for someone who wasn't there to be critical of what went wrong in any battle. We have two advantages. One, we know the outcome, so we can, authoritatively condemn or praise this or that decision by the winner or loser ("I could've told them that!"). Two, we can, through the miracle of a godlike view, see all and know all. We could have told d’Aspré (or Mack, or whoever was supposed to be in charge) that he couldn't trust the Kaunitz regiment to hold that eastern bridgehead (the more veteran Wurttemburg #38 wouldn't have stacked battalions like that!). We could have told Lefol that he wouldn't be able to negotiate that swamp. We could have told Malher his heroic engineers wouldn't be able to repair that center bridge--not with 18 Austrian guns and 1,800 infantry blasting away at them. And we could have directed Labassée not to get lost (didn't he have Google Maps?).

Well, I, for one, love to show my advantages. But, without the benefit of having been there, I can't really criticize any decision (except the one by the CO of the Kaunitz regiment to line up his men that way).

But I do have one little question--insignificant in the majestic sweep of the universe, of course. But it's been nagging me. Why was the easternmost bridge, the one at Reisenburg itself (see map at the top of this post), ignored in everybody's orders and after-action reports? Was there some confusion about the number of bridges downriver from Günzburg? Scott Bowden's narrative and maps on this battle, as well as that of other historians like Frederick Kagan, assert that there was an extra bridge there but that no one bothered to defend, destroy, or cross it. Kagan, in his book on the campaign, speculates that nobody did anything with this bridge because they were only following orders and the orders didn't mention it. But I find that highly unlikely that either side would not have gone just a few hundred yards further to see about this bridge. It would have been in plain view of the eastern Günzburg bridge. If it were, indeed, intact and undefended, it would have presented Malher a golden opportunity to pour over it and sweep into the Austrian right flank.

I have tried to find other contemporary battle maps of this battle online (admittedly, I haven't scoured the original archives) to see if there really was a fourth bridge. One, very unhelpful map made, apparently, three years after the fact by a cartographer working for the French topographic bureau (or was it the ministry of propaganda?) shows only the one eastern bridge (the map, also confusingly, is oriented south up). It also shows the center bridge and island to the east of the town and not west of it. And it renders the town of Günzburg perched on a high bluff (perhaps they were confusing it with the Reisenburg Castle, which was perched on a high bluff). Hardly any of this fanciful topography existed, at least if you look at current satellite-generated topo maps.

In citing contemporary reports, orders, and memoirs, which Bowden and Kagan have done, there is the remote possibility that, since this oversight would have been embarrassing on the part of the commanders, the reason they left this detail out about the fourth bridge was that their careers (and possibly necks) were at stake. Ney, in his own after-action report to Napoleon, greatly inflated the number of Austrians defending Günzburg (first reported as 15,000 and later inflated to 30,000), possibly to cover up his 3rd Division's mistakes? And we already know that Mack had a vested interest in keeping this blunder out of his own reports. Besides, as he said himself, he was a very busy man, very busy. He couldn't be expected to know about every little bridge.

I would certainly love to hear from any of my readers who may have some more definitive (and trustworthy) information on this. Though, based on Scott Bowden's extensive and meticulous research from contemporary sources on this era, I tend to trust his narrative and maps.

Wargame Implications

Günzburg  would actually be a fun wargame to play. The game problem for the Austrian player is pretty straightforward; control all the bridgeheads at the end of the day. The Austrian player would have considerable advantages. Both the infantry regiments, Wurttemburg #38 and Carl #3, were veterans and fairly high in combat efficiency. The CE of the Kaunitz regiment could be adjusted downward accordingly, letting the Austrian player take that into consideration in giving so much responsibility to its deployment. But he would also have overwhelming advantages in artillery (20 guns vs the French 7), cavalry (the French had none), and position--just sitting tight, he could win.

The problem for the French player would also be straightforward; control any one of the bridgeheads. His advantages would be combat units with extremely high combat efficiency and high morale as well as tactical initiative.

But there would be special considerations in a design of a Günzburg game:

1.  The Fourth Bridge
As I complained above, this uncontested bridge at Reisenburg bothered me. One could, in a game design, either include it, roll for its destruction, or treat it as a viable, tactical objective. Or, you could, like the French cartographer cited above, just ignore it.

2. The Swamp
Lefol and his western strike group (the combined elites) had trouble negotiating the swamp to the north of Leipheim, and so turned back. Of course, the Austrians at Leipheim had no way of knowing that. Otherwise they might have abandoned that bridgehead confidently and gone over to the right to shore up the shakey Kaunitz regiment. In a game design, the negotiation of this swamp could be subjected to a chance rule, in which the French player could roll for each hex  to see if his boots got sucked off and he could go no farther. Also, movement through this swamp could be done secretly (ala Avalon Hill's "Midway" system) so the Austrian player would have to keep an eye on Leipheim.

3. Hidden Movement
The Austrians, having no reconnaissance assets on the north bank, had no way of knowing where Malher was going to try a crossing (of the four bridges in the area). As 3rd Division's movement was masked by the woods, the French player should be able to shift his units around in secret over there, keeping the Austrian player guessing. This would also make the game more even (and interesting) since, with the Austrians having the positional advantage, that player would have to make some tactical decisions as to how to deploy his assets.

4. Bridge Destruction and Repair
One of the key factors in this battle--and in any battle involving destruction or repair of a bridge--was the efficiency of the combat engineers given the job of dismantling or repairing the bridges. How long did it take? How would they do it under fire? Did they have the option of just prying up the planks (leaving a void between the supports) or burning it? And how long did it take a wooden bridge to burn? There are data on these questions. I derived some gameable stats from an old article by Albert Nofi in S&T magazine (#32 "Napoleon at War") to whit: 

• To build 150 feet of pontoon bridge:  1-2 hours
• To burn a bridge: 1 hour

Using this as a scale, it would probably take less than an hour for a gang of men, supervised by regimental engineers, to pull the planks up off 50 yards of bridge, or to replace them. Of course, that's easy for me to say. And I'd use power tools.

Still, it would be an interesting game feature to have a bridge destruction/repair rule. One could have engineer markers and assign reasonable timeframes for either destruction or repair of a bridge, with restraints to do it under fire.

5. Weather
The weather during this part of the campaign was almost universally described by participants as miserable; cold, with intermittent snow, sleet, and rain. The roads in Europe at this time were still pretty much unpaved--essentially beaten cow paths--and were undoubtedly muddy. Lefol's failure to negotiate the swamp opposite Leipheim could be excused for this, as it should be remembered, that this battlefield (especially the north side) was the flood plain of the Danube, and subject to inundation.

In my maps, though they are stylized (as all maps are), I have rendered the terrain covered in snow. It wouldn't have been deep snow. But it would have been a pretty, Christmas-cardy landscape. And it is done for atmospheric reasons, to remind the would-be wargamer that this battle was not fought on a glorious summer day.

As far as wargame implications, the wet, cold weather should have a direct effect on movement, on artillery effectiveness (because the mushy ground would have absorbed bouncing cannon balls and canister), and probably morale. 

Orders of Battle

These OOBs are derived primarily from Scott Bowden's meticulous and unprecedented work, Napoleon and Austerlitz.

Command, besides listing the name of each command, this cell is also coded for primary uniform coat color of the regiment.

Facing is color coded in the facings of the regiment (e.g. cuffs, lapels, etc.). Under this column, too, is the military symbol coding for the command (division, brigade, regiment, squadron, etc. as well as the code for the type of unit; infantry, cavalry, artillery).

Flag displays miniatures of the flags carried into combat by the units, If blank, either I could not find evidence or the type of unit did not carry standards into battle, e.g. light infantry or cavalry.

Strength  The strengths for the units are approximations, designated by the ~ in front.

Guns  These are the artillery tubes reported in Bowden's report of the TOE on the battle.

 

 Notes is used to mark artillery calibers.

References

Bowden, Scott, Napoleon and Austerlitz, The Emperor's Press, 1997, ISBN 0962665576

Duffy, Christopher, Austerlitz 1805, Seeley Service, 1977, ISBN 085422128X

Esposito, Vincent & Elting, John, A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars, Greenhill Books, 1999, ISBN 1853673463

Griffith, Paddy, French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics, 1792-1815, Osprey Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84603-278-3

Kagan, Frederick, The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe 1801-1805, Da Capo Press, 2008, ISBN-10 0-306-81137-5

Muir, Rory, Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon, Yale University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-300-07385-2

Nofi, Albert A., "Napoleon at War" Strategy & Tactics #32, May 1972, Simulations Publications, Inc., New York (this issue is probably out of print but you can try contacting S&T directly to see if it is possible to source a copy. The price for mine? One million dollars...or best offer.)

Nosworthy, Brent, With Musket, Cannon and Sword: Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies, Sarpedon, NY, 1996, ISBN 1-885119-27-5


Online Links:
Wikipedia article on Battle of Günzburg




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