I lost the Battle of Pákozd

My first bit of wargaming a.k.a. How I doomed the Hungarian War of Independence in its first battle

Wargaming has been invented by the Prussians in the 19th century. Its purpose is to play out battles on a board, historical, fictional, or planned ones, to train officers and test out battle or operational plans. Some people today, however, do it for fun. On August 15, I had the opportunity to try a ruleset called Bloody Big Battles, developed by Chris Pringle. The ruleset and the scenario that we played, also by Chris, provided us both the depth of a regular strategy board game and the immersion and fun of a DnD session. This piece is a summary of my ever first battle, the re-enactment of the Battle of Pákozd, the first battle of the Hungarian War of Independence that took place on September 29, 1848.

“Historical” background

Josip Jelačić, the Viceroy of Croatia is marching on Budapest to crush the Hungarian revolution in the name of the Austrian emperor. With him goes every man in Croatia he could lay his hands on, a host nearly 40,000 strong. But with the recent war in Italy going on and most Croatian soldiers serving there, the bulk of Jelačić’s army is made up of half-trained, half-equipped men, more interested in raiding and looting than in fighting. The army pillages its way through Western Hungary and arrives near the village of Pákozd, 50 kilometers southwest of Budapest.

Opposing him stands the Hungarian army. With its best units fighting the Serbs in Southern Hungary, the revolutionary government drums up whatever is at hand in Transdanubia; the regular line infantry battalions who officially fight for their emperor but have (yet untested) revolutionary sympathies are joined by the militia of the newly created national guard and a mob of angry peasants who have suffered the cruelties of the Croats. With one division guarding the wrong side of Lake Velence, only about 20,000 Hungarians can be there to face Jelačić’s attack between Pákozd and Sukoró.

Major General Móga, the commander of the Hungarian force is reluctant to lead his men into battle. While he sympathizes with the Hungarian government, his oath is to his emperor. He makes his excuses to Hungarian Prime Minister Batthyány and relinquishes command. The Hungarian army enters a leadership crisis: experienced officers, what precious little the Hungarian government has at hand, follow Móga’s example and urge the government to negotiate rather than give battle. The radical arm of the revolution than comes up with a drastic solution. Their candidate for command is a young scholar called Péter Bayer, a thus far unknown figure with no military experience to speak of. He had left academic research for the army in search of a safer and healthier work environment and joined the honvédség out of revolutionary zeal. Using his connections as a distant member of the Báthory dynasty as well as his family’s immense wealth that had come from having established Hungary’s first beer brewery, he had purchased his way up to the rank of colonel and volunteered himself to lead the Hungarian army in the coming battle. With no alternative candidate in mind, (Finance Minister Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the radicals, had wanted to send for Mór Perczel, but the prime minister “had a bad feeling about him”) Batthyány is forced to accept.

On the other side, and in an even stranger twist of fate, Lieutenant General Jelačić suffers a stroke on the eve of battle and is unresponsive. None of his deputies are fit to lead, so command of the Croatian army passes to British-born American adventurer, Nicholas Murray, who had traveled with the army in hope of seeing some action in this part of the world. Murray is a professor of military studies in the Naval War College of the United States who happened to be on sabbatical in 1848. He is a proven commander who honed his skills in hundreds of – simulated – battles.

The scenario and the battlefield

The Croatians march on Budapest in two columns. One is going straight for the city on the road between Pákozd and Sukoró, another is flanking left on the road to Lovasberény. The Hungarians line up in four groups, one holds the bridge between Pákozd and Sukoró, one the hill in the centre (which would get the name Liberty Hill after this battle) and a bridge behind it on the road to Lovasberény, and a third in reserve behind Sukoró. The fourth Hungarian force guards the other side of Lake Velence and will not participate in the battle. As a random event, peasants from Pátka might join the battle appearing at some point in the afternoon.

Much of the fighting is expected to be for the two Hungarian positions at the bridges, but both sides have other options. The Croatians might try to flank the Hungarian positions from the left through Pátka and on to Lovasberény, or try to get through the gap between the Hungarian formations to isolate them.

On the Hungarian side, reserves can be brought up to reinforce the formation directly in front of them at Sukoró, deployed to plug the gap in the center, or taken all the way to Lovasberény to beef up the Hungarian right (an option that General Bayer is completely unaware of because he failed to look at the map until turn 4 and the camera couldn’t show this part of the battlefield).

The victory conditions are as follows: each of Pákozd, Sukoró, and Lovasberény is worth one victory point. One additional victory point is awarded to the side who launches the most successful assaults (bayonet or cavalry charges). Finally, the Hungarians can get a victory point by capturing the Croatian supply wagons. The Hungarians win if they have at least two more victory points than the Croatians. If they have one more, the battle is a draw, in all other cases, it is a Croatian win.

The battle

At 10:00 the two sides draw up and the Croats occupy Pákozd – taking a victory point. There’s some initial confusion on the Croatian side: Jelačić had ordered his supply wagons to proceed unescorted in the direction of Lovasberény. General Murray wisely cancels this order and commands it to stay behind the Croatian left under guard, but the order doesn’t reach the unit who is supposed to guard it and the wagons get left behind. Luckily, Murray notices this and a Croatian cavalry unit happens to be close enough and reaches the wagons before some Hungarian peasants could make off with them, preventing the loss of an important victory point, and saving the Croatian side from utter embarrassment.

At 11:00, the firing starts in earnest. The Croatian infantry gets in range of the Hungarian muskets on the left flank and are forming up on the right as well. The Hungarian artillery is shooting accurately and is able to harass and silence its Croatian counterpart on both flanks. General Bayer starts to realize just how much the enemy forces outnumber him and has a minor panic attack.

By noon all Croatian forces are on the battlefield. The head of the column is engaged on the Croatian left where the Croatian advantage in numbers is greatest. General Bayer gets ahold of his nerves and makes a decision: All units from the center and the cavalry reserve are to be sent to support Liberty Hill on the Hungarian right. This exposes the road to Lovasberény, home to another victory point, but Bayer trusts that the difficult terrain, the artillery at the base of the column, and the incoming peasant militia will slow down the Croats sufficiently. He then kind of forgets about this part of the battlefield. General Murray deploys at the edge of the forest and in the vineyard and a musket exchange begins all across the line of contact.

13:00. The Croats engage the Hungarians across the line. The Hungarian infantry and artillery outshoot their Croat counterparts who are slowed down or retreat under heavy casualties while the Hungarians suffer very little. General Murray orders one battalion of Croat infantry to begin making its way to the gap in the Hungarian extreme right. Unexpectedly for Murray, the Hungarian peasants arrive just in time to undermine Murray’s plan. They are outnumbered 3 to 1 but are enough to pin the Croats in place and slow them down and cover the artillery at the Hungarian right.

At 14:00 the Croats assault the Hungarian right in force and a deadly fight ensues for Liberty Hill. No assault is made on the left as the Croat artillery keeps getting pushed back by the Hungarian grand battery but the musket exchange continues. General Bayer sees that his center is inactive as the Croats are focusing on the flanks, so orders the half-battalion of infantry and two cavalry squadrons forward to outflank the Croatian assault on Liberty Hill to devastating effect. General Murray orders an assault against the peasants on the extreme right. The assault is successful which gives the Croatian side an advantage in the race to get the victory point for most successful assaults, but Murray can’t be too pleased, the peasants are able to retreat in relatively good order and the road to Lovasberény remains blocked.

At 15:00 Bayer decides to launch a full counterattack. With Pákozd firmly in Croatian hands and the supply wagon safely tucked away at the rear, he cannot let Murray continue to abuse his peasants and get away with the ‘most successful assaults’ victory point. Hungarian forces on their right charge down the hill and are joined by the forces of the center. The Croats are pushed back and take heavy casualties: the Hungarians launch 4 successful assaults in quick succession, basically guaranteeing the victory point. Murray assaults the Hungarian left, but in a freak incident, the attack is interrupted by a Hungarian civilian who wants the two sides to make peace and asks for parley. The Croatian right, befuddled, breaks off its assault. Murray personally has to ride over to them and threatens to have every man flogged, but what momentum the assault had, is gone. All the while the Hungarian cannons fire on the wavering infantry.

At 16:00, the Hungarian push slows down on the right. The forces of the center, now winded, refuse to pursue the Croats and are thrown into disarray. Bayer rides over to them and screams his lungs off to get them moving. Perhaps due to the screaming, the Hungarians’ musketry and artillery is extremely accurate this hour. The Croats’ left is thrown ever deeper into disarray and thus can’t make full use of the confusion. As a result of the deadly shooting, however, the Hungarians on the hill run out of ammunition and must disengage to replenish. The worst news comes from the extreme right. The peasants, who have been holding off the Croat battalion on the road to Lovasberény are broken and simply melt away. Bayer curses his bad luck, but deep down he knows that his risky tactics are responsible.

At 17:00, the Croats take Lovasberény and are now behind the unguarded Hungarian artillery on the right. An elated Murray begins writing his victory report to Vienna. Bayer, however, still has two chances to avoid defeat. He can try to retake Pákozd, fighting against the Croatian right which outnumbers him 2 to 1 and is in a good position behind a stream, in the vineyard and in a built-in environment. Or he must capture the supply wagons hiding behind the Croatian left. He goes forward to take the wagons on his right and orders his left to hold. Then he thinks better of it and orders his left forward as well to take Pákozd. In his memoirs he would justify this decision by the line ‘It seemed more interesting this way’. Decades later, Lőrinc Mészáros, a local villager from nearby Felcsút who had taken part in the battle as a private and was one of the few survivors of the assault on Pákozd, before becoming Hungary’s richest man owing to his excellent business sense, would read – or rather, would have a servant read for him – Bayer’s reasoning for the decision to order the assault. Upon hearing this line, he suffers a nervous breakdown, needing to be cared for in a mental institute for the rest of his life: the last victim of Bayer’s folly.

On the right, the second Hungarian push is extremely successful. The Hungarian artillery in the rear, keenly aware of their impending doom as the Croat infantry is closing in from behind, unleashes one last devastating barrage and utterly breaks the Croat cavalry in front of it. The Hungarian infantry assaults the remnants of the Croat left flank and creates a gap: the Hungarians rush through the gap to the Croat rear with infantry and cavalry, ready to capture the supply wagons who are guarded by nothing more than a half-strength Croatian battery.

On the Hungarian left, the assault on Pákozd goes ahead. The superior Hungarian infantry, covered by the fire of their grand battery, charges across the stream and into the Croat bayonets in an event that would be immortalized in the 1878 Hungarian opera entitled ‘The river of blood’. The defenders’ numbers and their better position is enough to stave off the impetuous Hungarian charge and the result is a bloody draw with massive casualties on both sides. The Hungarian officers try to pull the men back to consolidate, but the soldiers, having faced the bayonet points of the Croats and having seen their brothers in arms fall around them, are overcome with a desperate frenzy and the men charge back in. Battle continues until only one side is left standing. When the dust settles, half the Croatian force is still in formation, the rest are dead, wounded, or routed. The Hungarian battalions, however, what little is left of them, lose all cohesion and run pell-mell in the direction of Sukoró. The Croats won the battle for Pákozd.

By 18:00, only the Hungarian right remains active. The Croat infantry from Lovasberény annihilates the Hungarian battery with some casualties of their own. The rest of the Croatian left is in disarray, but Murray is somehow able to prevent a full rout. The fate of the battle hinges on whether the Hungarians are able to take Murray’s supply wagons. They launch a total of two cavalry squadrons and two infantry battalions on the exposed wagon and the half-battery guarding it. The wagon-drivers and the gunners say one last prayer and prepare to fight for their lives.

One Hungarian cavalry squadron gets lost in the fading light and never joins the fray – at least this is the tale that their major would tell a furious Bayer after the battle. One infantry battalion – having fought its way through the center and the Croat left – is too exhausted to make it out of the woods. The other battalion gives an ineffectual musket volley and charges the wagons. The other cavalry squadron, also bloodied by the day’s fighting but still eager to fight, charges the half-battery head-on, sure of victory.

The hussars’ charge is across the field is glorious to behold. Their capes flying, their sabres gleaming, their mustaches erect, they ride towards the helpless gunners. The Croatian guns, however, despite having hit absolutely nothing up to this point that day, unleash the most devastating canister barrage ever seen in the Carpathian Basin in an event that would go down in history as ‘The Charge of the Sándor Hussars’. The squadron is drowned in blood and, its spirit broken, flees into the wind. It is up to the one last infantry battalion to take out the seemingly helpless wagon drivers. As it would turn out, they’re not so helpless. The Croat drivers, fighting with whatever objects they have at hand; spades, bullwhips, even General Murray’s own steak knife, give as good as they get. The Hungarian infantrymen can’t believe what they’re seeing, but for a while, they cannot get the better of the wagoners. The Hungarians finally manage to win the brutal melee, but only barely, and the drivers escape into the forest with their precious cargo.

At the end of the bloody day, both the Croats and the Hungarians have 2 victory points each. The Croats hold Pákozd and Lovasberény, the Hungarians hold Sukoró and have launched more successful assaults. This amounts to a Croat victory. Bayer submits his resignation to Batthyány the next day, only to find out that the prime minister had been sidelined by Kossuth and his radicals. The Hungarian government and its army are both left leaderless. The revolution is in shambles. With no one to be held accountable to, Bayer takes off his uniform and goes into a self-imposed exile in France. He settles into one temporary job after another at universities and disappears from the pages of history. ‘Academic life is harder, more stressful, and less survivable, sure, but at least I have the bloody skills for it… I think’ he writes into his personal diary.

On the victorious side, what little is left of the Croat army urges Murray to march on Budapest. Murray, however, is not interested in doing so and lays down command himself. ‘Thank you, gentlemen, this was a great deal of fun’, he says to his incredulous officers as he rides through the bloody fields littered with the Croatian dead and looks forward to his next adventure.

After action report

Wargames are for learning, so let me sum up what I’ve learned from this exercise.

First, the rules of the game. I found them both intuitive and easy to understand. The exact fire and assault values will need a lot more play to become routine, and as a result, some repetition will be needed for someone to really get a feel on the balance of forces in any given tactical situation, and what decisions one ought to make, but they follow 19th century principles of warfare closely enough to generally know what to and what not to do.

Second, the scenario. It’s super fun. It is a great representation of the real battle of Pákozd, with random events to provide both replay value and some flavor. The Hungarian peasants showing up, Croat militia disappearing into the wine cellars and to hunt some sheep, and the freak truce are all real events that happened during the battle. The events don’t influence the direction of the battle that much: the Croatians have so many men that one or two units becoming idle isn’t enough to be decisive, but they’re a cool feature to add to the Croat player’s difficulties in making plans and commanding his forces.

In addition, the scenario is surprisingly balanced. When we scheduled the game I was a bit disappointed that we would play this one battle as in real life it was not very action-packed, not so interesting tactically, and the Croats had basically no chance to win it, but none of that translated into the scenario. I was no Móga, and Nick was no Jelačić, so we went to town on each other’s armies. At the same time, Chris’s wonderfully crafted scenario had enough objectives all across the map, making sure that the Croatian side had plenty of tactical options to snatch the win and the Hungarian side needed to position and react well to stop them. As to being balanced, I don’t have a large sample size, but for us, the outcome literally came down to the last set of dice rolls (where my cavalry was blasted away by the Croat guns and the wagon drivers fought off my infantry), so it definitely felt balanced.

Third, I learned a great deal about commanding a 19th century army – and one never knows when such skills might come in handy. Having grown up on stuff like the Total War series, I found army management and movement much more cumbersome than I expected. As it should be. Orders are misunderstood, units get lost, officers become drama queens and refuse to obey while throwing a tantrums, and so on. Combined operations are difficult and only the most reliable units execute what’s on the drawing board. Less reliable units can only follow the simplest of plans.

I learned about offensive and defensive tactics. Musket fire can disrupt an enemy formation, but only bayonet charges can displace it and put it to rout. I had known this in theory going into the battle but seeing it happen gives a grasp of how to best engage and enemy – and how not to.

Fourth, we learned about the battle of Pákozd itself. While in real life, it was a rather uneventful and bloodless battle with the Hungarians passively holding their positions and repulsing all half-hearted Croatian advances, Nick and I managed to explore a much more interesting path. An aggressive general commanding the Hungarians can make use of the separation between the two Croatian attacking columns and fall on one or the other with his reserves. In my case, I concentrated my counterattack on the Croatian left as it engaged my right and managed to rout it. On the other hand, a clever and opportunistic Croatian opponent will punish any mistakes and let his forces seep through the holes on the Hungarian side. They can take crucial objectives and win the battle, despite losing much of the actual fight due to their inferior troops and having to attack against a good defensive position.

In our case, Nick’s plan (probably) would have been to take Pákozd, line up against Liberty Hill, and assault it, while pinning the rest of my units in place. Once Liberty Hill fell, he would be free to steamroll over to Lovasberény, or focus down my units defending the crossing to Sukoró.

He was slowed by the Croatian units being too cumbersome to follow orders and some bad dice rolls, which allowed me to react and send reinforcements to Liberty Hill and move my reserve to the center to be nearby to help. Once the Croat attack got underway it was further slowed down by random events plus my excellent dice rolls on the Hungarian fires.

Seeing the opportunity, I counterattacked, and then it was my turn to be frustrated by dice rolls – and find out about the realities of command in the 19th century. Instead of the intended hammer blow, my units trinkled in and joined the fray gradually. The counterattack still succeeded, but it was far slower than I had hoped. Nick wiped out my peasants and took Lovasberény way before I could send units back to protect it, or got to his wagons in the rear. I still had my chance at the wagons at the very end, but Nick outrolled me.

You may see this as evidence that the game is quite random, or that, given the scenario and the sides, Nick and I were a good match against each other. I have no way of knowing. What I do know, is that this was both extremely fun and educational, and well worth the 4+ hours’ of play (including teaching). It’s probably way faster and even more fun if you play in person.

I thank Chris for organizing this and Nick for playing me. Very much looking forward to the next time.

August 28, 2022

Links:

Bloody Big Battles on Boardgamegeek:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/176992/bloody-big-battles.

Link for the group:

https://groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles.

For the blog:

http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/.

Another report of the Battle of Pákozd played with the same ruleset.

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=430956.

Comments and questions should be addressed to peter.bayer7@gmail.com.