POLEMOS - Risorgimento

Supplement for Polemos FPW

Peter Riley - FREE download

The Risorgimento of 1859 began a year earlier, in July 1858, during a conference held at Plombières in France. At the conference it was agreed, between Emperor Napoleon III and Camillo Benso, Conte di Cavour, that the French would aid Piedmont in the face of any Austrian moves against them.

So in 1859, the Italians, having secured the support of Napoleon III of France, began provoking Austria into war it was not prepared for. The Austrians reacted as planned the Emperor Francis Joseph declared war. By April 23rd 1859 an ultimatum was delivered wanting the complete demobilization of Piedmontese troops. This was rejected and Austria declared war three days later, and as a result France, as a part of the secret agreement, was asked to come to the aid of the Piedmontese army, this small request led to the War of Italian Unification.

Although in terms of numbers and time it is considered a small war, the battle of Solferino was at the time the largest single battle ever fought in Europe. The campaign is interesting as it was quite fluid and led to a number of battles of vary sizes and types, the encounter battle of Magenta is particularly interesting one.

The protagonists were also interesting in the fact that France committed a large number of veteran troops in it Imperial Guard and its experienced African foreign service troops totaling to about 28% of it army. For the Austrians with their poor officer corps, using smoothbore artillery and lots of inexperienced troops was always in for a hard fight. And of the fledgling Piedmontese army with it compact size, belief and smoothbore muskets adding to a healthy mix of type and experience for some interesting games.

The Polemos rules for the Risorgimento are available as FREE downloads. However please note that these are supplements to the Franco Prussian War rules which are needed in order to use them to play games.

There are two levels of action:

Risorgimento Fratelli d'Italia concentrates on middle sized actions where the player will command a corps sized force. One infantry base is equivalent to a battalion of around 500 men.

>>>Click Here to download Fratelli d'Italia supplement>>>

Risorgimento Feldzeugmeister allows players to fight the larger battle of the period. The three multi-corps armies that sprawled across the fields and hills of Solferino are modelled here, allowing the Battle of Solferino to be gamed very easily by using these additional rules. One infantry base represents a brigade of around 2500 men.

>>>Click Here to download Feldzeugmeister supplement>>>