Infantry Attacks: Black Mountain
Scenario Preview, Part One
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
April 2024

Infantry Attacks: Black Mountain is the first complete Golden Annual game we’ve published for the Gold Club. It’s a complete game, with 104 pieces (all of them die-cut and silky-smooth) and two maps.

Our topic is the August 1914 Austro-Hungarian campaign against Montenegro, an odd little sideshow of the Great War. The Montenegrins declared war on Austria-Hungary on 1 August 1914, and within days bands of Montenegrins crossed the border to invade neighboring Bosnia and Hercegovina. The Austro-Hungarian XVI Corps, the area’s peacetime command, had the task of chasing the invaders back over the border, but not into Montenegro itself. To keep the Kingdom of Italy neutral, Austria-Hungary made a secret promise not to crush tiny Montenegro and thereby acquire more of the Adriatic coast and a doorway to Albania.

Black Mountain has ten scenarios, in two chapters with five scenarios each, and each chapter with its own battle game to link the scenarios together. It comes with a downloadable set of series rules for Infantry Attacks and everything else you need to play (except dice). It’s an exclusive for the Gold Club. Let’s have a look at the first chapter.

Scenario One
First Incursion
6 August 1914
Montenegro mobilized quickly, perhaps the only benefit of a very small country with a poorly-equipped army. Meanwhile, the Dual Monarchy’s civilian and military leadership did not cancel their July vacations and only began to prepare for war a month after the terrorist murders of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. That pause allowed the Montenegrins to strike first, invading Austro-Hungarian territory as the Serbs urged a march on Sarajevo.

Conclusion
Skirmishes between the Austrian Grenzjäger and mountain troops along the frontier and the invading Montenegrins began immediately after the small kingdom declared war on the Dual Monarchy. Through sheer mass the invaders drove the border forces off Kozara Ridge, and then dug in to await the Austrian response. That wasn’t long in coming.

Notes
We start off with just a little scenario, to help familiarize the unfamiliar with Infantry Attacks. The Montenegrins have numbers and are on the attack; the Austrians have morale and position.

Scenario Two
Kozara Ridge
8 August 1914
Maj. Gen. Theodor Gabriel’s 2nd Mountain Brigade had five battalions detached from various infantry regiments and trained in mountain warfare, and a mission to protect the Bosnian border from Montenegrin raiders. When the Montenegrins emplaced themselves on Kozara Ridge, Gabriel set out from his garrison at Gorazde to kick them back off the high ground.

Conclusion
After ejecting the Montenegrins from the ridge, the Austro-Hungarian XVI Corps ordered Gabriel’s brigade to halt there. The brigades would be re-shuffled for a more intensive effort to seal off the Montenegrin border and avoid the embarrassment of losing any towns or cities to the pesky invaders. But the real effort would take place to the north-east against the Serbs.

Notes
Now it’s the Austrians on the attack, working to toss the Montenegrins off the bridge and out of Bosnia. If you recognize that town name (Goradze), yes, many of these battles took place over what would become the killing fields of the 1990’s.

Scenario Three
The Defense of Celebic
15 August 1914
The Montenegrin advance into Austrian territory embarrassed theater commander Oskar Potiorek, who ordered his XVI Corps to expel the invaders. The Montenegrin Plevlje Division had occupied the Bosnian town and appeared ready for a determined defense. When the Austro-Hungarians advanced, the Montenegrins promptly attacked to meet them in the open.

Conclusion
The Montenegrin attack took the Austrians by surprise, and kept them away from the town. They drove back the Austrians and took the heights opposite Celebic, and XVI Corps commander FML Wenzel Wurm – who would be credited with saving the Dual Monarchy from disaster by blunting the initial Italian offensive on the Isonzo River in May 1915 – ordered a withdrawal. Wurm had instructed GM Felix Adrian of 8th Mountain Brigade to await the arrival of 6th Mountain Brigade to make a flank attack and unhinge the defense; he berated Adrian and told him to try again the next day, this time according to plan.

Notes
While the Montenegrins start the game already on the board, it’s pretty much a meeting engagement as they need to occupy some of the ground farther to the west. But that’s where the Austrians are coming onto the board, so there’s going to be a brawl here over the unoccupied ridge line. And once again, the Montenegrins show up with more men, but the Austrians field better troops.

Scenario Four
Return to Celebic
16 August 1914
Having been blunted in their first assault on Celebic, the Austrians re-grouped to try again. This time two brigades would contribute their weight to the assault and eject the Montenegrins from their hold within Hercegovina before they could incite rebellion among the Orthodox segment of the local population. Getting the infantry across the ridges and hills had been difficult enough; the Austrians had no hope of deploying any artillery support beyond some mountain artillery batteries.

Conclusion
The Montenegrins had prepared for another frontal assault from the west, and the Austrian flank attack took them by surprise. Rather than try to fight off the twin-pronged assault, they set all of the buildings in Celebic on fire and retreated. Despite the proclamations of “brotherhood” between Montenegrins and Bosnian Serbs, this was going to be a brutal war.

Notes
The Austrians don’t face the same firepower here as they do in Fall of Empires or Franz Josef’s Armies – the Montenegrin infantry is weak, and they have few machine guns and even fewer field guns. And coming from the flank, they have a distinct advantage, as it’s going to be hard for the Montenegrins to alter their positions once play begins. So they can leave some guys out of battle to start with, or risk having Austrians all around them.

Scenario Five
Metalka Ridge
16 August 1914
The Montenegrins put most of their effort into advance from the north-western corner of their country, along the border with Serbia, to support their Serb allies. The Austrian XVI Corps placed its own major effort here as well, to not only liberate the Monarchy’s territory but the unhinge the Serbian strategic left flank. After the Montenegrins fled from Celebic, Maj. Gen. Theodor Gabriel led a group of three mountain brigades in pursuit. On Metalka Ridge, the Montenegrins turned to fight.

Conclusion
Once again, the Austrians depended on the tactics worked out in the decades after the disastrous 1866 war with Prussia, and then discarded on most fronts in 1914 in favor of frontal assaults. The 1st Mountain Brigade fixed the Montenegrins along the ridge line, while 4th Mountain Brigade worked around their open left flank and forced their retreat with heavy casualties.

Notes
It’s another Austrian flanking attack, which is going to mean some maneuver once they winkle the Montenegrins out of their initial positions. The Montenegrins can’t settle into the ridge and just wait for the Austrians, which is going to be tough given superior Imperial & Royal firepower.

Scenario Six
Escape to Black Mountain
17 August 1914
The Montenegrin defeat at Celebic caused the left (southern) wing of the Sanjak Detachment to retreat as well. The Austrians pursued here as well, seeking to drive the enemy back over their border. These Montenegrins were independent battalions from “Old Montenegro,” raised at the start of the war from veterans of the just-concluded war with Turkey.

Conclusions
The Montenegrins halted their retreat at a deep ravine, digging in to await the Austrian advance. The Austrians had trouble bringing up their mountain guns over the broken ground, but the Montenegrins had no artillery at all and eventually had to give way. But they had bought enough time for the Plehvje Division to retreat back into Montenegrin territory and regroup.

Notes
This time, the Austrians don’t have a flanking force about to march in from an inconvenient direction, while the Montenegrins are saltier than usual and dug in behind a strong position. The Austrians are going to have to come right at them and likely decide this one with cold steel..

And that’s the first chapter of Black Mountain.

Just like the Golden Journal, the Golden Annual is only available to the Gold Club (that’s why we call it the Golden Annual). We print enough of them to handle initial demand and a few extras, but once they’re gone we’re not likely to reprint them. If you want your fighting Montenegrins, the time to grab it is now.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children. He misses his dog, Leopold.

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