CinC Lefebvre: First contact

March 10, 1809 
Well, it was not meant to be. Spanish troops have been encountered around Burgos, probably easily brushed away. Victor and Mortier (Red and Rust) have been delayed by the fortresses and are only at Pancorbo. Most troubling is that Portugese/British troops are rumoured at Braganca....on the 7th. This means that Vallodid is no longer possible to capture prior to the Brits arriving.

I have dashed off reports to the commanders to try and stage a trap.  A weak force of mortier will sit at burgos, with his remaining troops resting at Pancorbo. I (yellow) intend to move to Belarado via Longrono (2 days march), hopefully the spanish cavalry currently at belarado gets trapped and can't scout us properly. Victor till take his place at Aquillar de campo, and screen Casstrillo de villavega with his Cav. If all works out properly it will appear to be a corp in Burgos with some screen out.

Ney is moving to Navaleno for the post battle excitement.

When the enemy falls on them along the main road from Vallodid, all the forces on 'march to the sound of the guns' will reinforce from many directions. Hopefully we get a great matchup and can mop the floor with our opponent. It's a bit of worry time wise as it should *just* be possible to get into position if there are no major battles with the few spanish troops in the area. (hopefully they are set to retreating). More of a concern is all our troops are tired. It would be nice to have a day or two to rest prior to the battle.

Regardless of what happens, Ney will be able to resume a drive West on Vallodid, screening our move on Madrid, possibly cutting supply and/or hitting the Brits in the flank.

In other news a mystery force has appeared in Roncevalles. I'm pretty confident that the Spanish shouldn't have been able to sneak through our advance. Rumor has it that there are now Guerrillas spawning. Off goes another detachment....

March 12th

My forces dealing with the guerrilla problem

Well, plans change already. Yesterday we reacted to a bunch of guerrillas spawning and eating messengers. Today some messages then caught up with me, and Victor is already gallavanting down the road to Vallodid. He's one leg away. I'm a little concerned that he will hit the 16k of troops there with his 21k and suddenly find reinforcements pouring in. The other equally scary proposition is the British show up with a counter attack immediately after one battle.

I've instructed Mortier to try and get rid of an irritating Spanish cav division that's hanging out west of burgos, and occupy a position that will cover Victors flank. Hopefully if he gets rolled back the two of us (and Ney when he arrives) can arrest any dramatic problems.

March 13th

The system is on pause. A battle between Victor and Anglo-Portugese forces at Vallodid looms. Apparantly we hold a full corp vs approx 1/2 corp advantage...plus Victors troops hold a pretty decent mix of veteran's.

Mortier is ensconed at Burgos and I'm in close support at Belarado. I may have Mortier start moving west, although it would be nice to know the result of the battle first. If it's a loss, then we should hold tight.

In the Center, Ney has started to shake his forces out and cross the ebro, swing  west and move towards Vallodid. Him and I are both editing a supply line...I don't think he realizes it needs to supply Augereu as well. Speaking of which, it appears VII corp hasn't moved in almost a week. He's besieging Zaragoz instead of leaving some forces and moving on. I need to send him a messenger telling him to get his ass moving. *Sigh*

The battle *may* get played out this week.