Battle of Helderny

Battle of Helderny
Part of Riverlandian Conquest of Grythshead King Malcom's War
Date 8th January 1750 Location Helderny, Kingdom of Grythshead Result Riverlander Victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of the Riverland	Kingdom of Grythshead
Commanders and leaders
Earl of Tarringway	Sir Eustace Salter †
Strength
33,000	22,000

The Battle of Helderny was an engagement of King Malcom's War fought in 1750. A surprise victory for the outmatched Riverlanders of the Earl of Tarringway's army, it marked the opening of the campaign that came to be known as the Riverlandian Conquest of Grythshead. The Grythsheader army of Sir Eustace Salter, the King's secretary, was outmaneuvered and defeated in detail. Despite being outnumbered 3:2, the wide expectation that the Grythsheaders, battle-hardened and entrenched on their own soil, was confounded and the Riverlander victory paved the way to the eventual defeat and annexation of Grythshead.

Background

Following the intense campaigning season of 1749 in Harroway and Ballaeter, the armies of the South Vionna theatre of war settled down into winter quarters in the middle of November. Many left garrisons in the lands they had occupied and returned to friendly towns to wait out the cold season in comfort. A large portion of the Grythsheader Western Army, which had been engaged in Ballaeter for most of the war, fell back on the town of Helderny in north-east Grythshead to spend the winter there. Under the organisation of Sir Eustace Salter, who replaced the unwell General Byng as commander of that army, the Grythsheaders used the cold season as an opportunity to reinforce their depleted army and prepare for a grand offensive into Ballaeter when the campaigning season began again.

Spies brought this intelligence to the Earl of Tarringway, commander of the Riverlander Army of Ballaeter, who decided to capitalise on a mild winter to disrupt the Grythsheader plans to concentrate their forces. Despite receiving no reinforcement from his Ballaetan allies and conscious of his inexperienced troops, Tarringway determined to march on Helderny and engage Salter's main force before it could be bought up to strength. Though advised against this course of action by his staff, he could not be dissuaded and crossed the River Lochen with 33,000 men and 40 guns on New Years' Day, 1750.

Well-informed by a network of spotting towers and semaphore stations, Sir Eustace Salter was aware of the Riverlander movements by 3rd January. On the 4th, Salter took a tour of Helderny's defences with his chief engineer, Colonel Tadler. The pair agreed that the aging walls, though thick, could not stand up to a determined barrage and were also vulnerable to being taken by escalade. Therefore, that same day, Salter marched out with his full array (including 28 artillery pieces) and began hasty construction of defensive earthworks about half a mile to the north of the town. Breastworks, entrenched batteries and log barriers were built over the proceeding three days and work only stopped late in the evening on 7th January as, by then, the Riverlander forces were in close proximity and the Grythsheaders risked being caught unready.

Opposing Forces

Grythsheader

The Grythsheader army at Helderny was a force of twenty-two-thousand men with twenty-eight artillery pieces (mostly 12pdr or 8pdr cannon). This represented the main body of the force known informally as the Western Army, though it was not its full number. At full strength, the Western Army should have numbered over forty-thousand but its winter quarters were spread across the region and many reinforcements had yet to arrive. Sir Eustace Salter was the army's official commander, who had taken over from Sir Alexander Byng when the latter was struck by cholera. Salter was not an experienced military man but instead the King's secretary, a skilled organiser. He was attended by a staff of experienced officers who kept him well advised. Though he lamented the absence of his reinforcements, Salter had the strongest portion of the army available to him at Helderny including fresh guns, strong cavalry, and veteran infantry.