Lifting the Siege of Namur

King Louis XIV in person has led the French army into the Spanish Netherlands to lay siege to Namur. Driven from England by the Jacobites in a previous game (The Battle of the Stour), King William III fled to the Netherlands with the remnants of his army. Raising new recruits in Holland he now marches to relieve Namur — or at least open a route to re-supply the city.

Our game is loosely based on the 1692 siege of Namur as well as continuing the narrative from our previous games to inject the attempted relief by William’s  Dutch supported by English protestant exiles.

When the Allied relief force arrives the French contravallations are complete and their batteries have opened fire on Namur. The two armies are nearly equal in strength. The French turned most of their troops to face the relief force, fortifying the villages of Champion and Boninne to create formidable forward bastions.

With a very narrow frontage and all approaches covered it looked like a very hard nut to crack for the Allies. Appropriating some barges they decided to try to send supplies, accompanied by a regiment of Dragoons down the Meuse (off table) hoping to slip by the French and give the Namur garrison a chance of holding out for longer.

King William decided to attack in force on the right with Sir John Churchill’s English, while the Earl of Athlone would pin the French on the other wing.

The Dutch and English guards were held back in the centre ready to follow up and exploit any success. With all approaches well defended by entrenched infantry and artillery the cavalry would have to be held back until the infantry had achieved a breakthrough.

Churchill’s attack faltered as the English advanced on the French infantry taking enfilade fire from their fortified position at Champion. Several battalions were decimated and forced to retire.

Athlone’s men were also taking heavy casualties from the French at Boninne. With the allied right stalled King William decided to switch his main effort to the left, bringing up the Dutch and English Guards from the reserve to support it.

King William fired off a signal to the garrison of Namur to sally forth in the hope that this would draw French troops away from the front lines to deal with it. Unfortunately the garrison suffered heavily from artillery fire and were unable to make any headway.

Athlone’s Danes advanced through the depleted ranks of the first line to assault the fortified French position at Boninne. Having taken casualties on their approach, the odds were against them as they stormed the French fortifications. Then fate intervened. The Danes rolled three ‘sixes’ on three dice, broke through the defences and sent the French packing.

Boninne was now in Allied hands. The Dutch and English Guards followed up to drive back another battalion of French, surging forward  to create a gap on the right of the French line. Could this be the moment of breakthrough?

Unfortunately for the Allies the French were deployed in depth. Four brigades of cavalry advanced against the Dutch Blue Guard. Although one French brigade was driven back, the Allies were unable to exploit their success as they were facing many more cavalry and at the same time were taking heavy casualties from the French artillery at Champion.

As dusk began to fall it was clear that the Allies would not be able to break through the French lines. The good news was that the supply barges had reached Namur without being intercepted. This meant that the garrison would be able to hold out for much longer. King William therefore pulled back his relief force to give the French the possibility to withdraw and lift the siege in the knowledge that they could not possibly maintain it.

The game was played using my Close Fire and European Order XVII rules. No doubt our War of English Succession campaign will continue.