History of my 1813 Campaign

First Campaign Map – North Germany

The next campaign phase will be the 73^rd since the 1813 campaign started in October 2009.   Despite this I get quite excited when one phase ends and I start thinking about the next one.   It is only at this stage that I reconsider the whole campaign area, and indeed the whole campaign.   Once a phase has started I tend to concentrate on that narrow region and forget the overall campaign.

Although the campaign has run nonstop since October 2009, there have been five major reorganisations.     I have also posted a number of different blogs to cover the history of the campaign.   In the early days I did a different blog for each campaign phase.   But as I learned more about blogs I realised that I could cover more than one phase on each blog.

The first campaign was from April to October 2009.   It was a solo campaign and a real learning curve for me for both organising a campaign and posting a blog.

I started the first PBEM campaign in October 2009 and it ran until July 2013.

The second PBEM campaign was based in 1814.  It kept the original format and orders of battle, but was set in France and Spain.   It ran from July 2013 until March 2015.

I missed the broader scope of 1813 covering the whole of northern Europe.  So in March 2015 I reset the campaign diary to January 1813 and restarted the PBEM campaign.   It continued until February 2016

Current Campaign Map – North Germany

At the start of 2016 I had been running a nonstop PBEM campaign for six years.  I enjoyed the experience, and loved the influence of a large number of players taking the role of commander in chief of one of the ten campaign armies.   But it involved a lot of work, and finding and keeping players was a constant problem.

Each player was required to take on command of one army for the duration of a campaign phase.  This was usually about three months.   He had complete control over his army, but Jan and I would fight the battles as wargames.   He started with a comprehensive set of maps and a background scenario.  He was also given a clear campaign phase objective.   Each week he would write one days orders, I would update the umpire campaign map and send him a report of any enemy contacts.  If there was a battle we would fight the campaign up then update him.  

With five campaign areas, and ten sets of weekly orders, there was a considerable amount of administration to keep the campaign going.   There were also a lot of battles to be fought as wargames.   Consequently it was not always possible to keep to the weekly turn around.  But we managed it most of the time.

However we had a lot of problems with players.   Almost all could be relied to send their orders in within one week or receiving an update.   But at any one time there was always at least one who was always late, or who simply did not reply to emails.   It was for this reason that I finally decided to close the PBEM campaign and return to a solo campaign.

Current Campaign Map – Campaign Phases

In February 2016 I started the current stage of the campaign.  The campaign cover was an armistice on 11 April 1813.    As each PBEM phase came to an end I started the next phase in that area as a solo campaign.   I also updated all the campaign maps. 

The map above shows the progress of the campaign.   There have been 32 campaign phases throughout Germany and Spain.    Each star represents one of those campaigns, and the colour indicates which side won.   The white star represents the next phase, which is Santiago in northern Spain.

Despite the many changes since the first campaign, the concept has changed very little.   The first map was based on an AA Road Atlas, and each square represented one day’s march and one wargame table.   The orders of battle are exactly the same.   Each campaign phase is a complete mini campaign, and both armies start it at full strength.   None of this has changed.

The blog was created as a diary of the campaign.   Each campaign day would have a map and short description.   Each battle would be recorded as a game report.   This has continued and every single day and battle is still available.

The greatest change is in the map making, and the fact that everything is now on the computer.   In 2010 I discovered ProFantasy map making software, which transformed my map making ability.   In December of that year I used it to make the maps for the Valladolid campaign, which was the fifth phase of the 1813 campaign.  

It’s hard to believe that the campaign has been running for 10 years, and even harder to believe that it has lost none of its magic for me.   I have tried other campaign systems over that period, but always in conjuction with the 1813 campaign.  And none of them have lasted more than a couple of months.   I never plan too far ahead, but it would be nice to think it may have another 10 years in it.