Battle of Emmendingen

Battle of Emmendingen

Part of: First Coalition War

Archduke Karl with his staff

date	October 19, 1796
place	Emmendingen
output	Austrian victory

Parties to the conflict
France	Austria
Commander
General de division Moreau	Reichsfeldmarschall Archduke Karl of Austria-Teschen
Troop strength
about 32,000	about 24,500
losses
1,000 dead and wounded, several hundred prisoners	1000 killed and wounded

The Battle of Emmendingen took place on October 19, 1796 during the campaign of the French Rhine and Moselle Army under their commander Jean Victor Marie Moreau in Germany and the troops of Reichsfeldmarschall Archduke Karl von Österreich-Teschen near Emmendingen. It was a secondary battle as the French were already in full retreat and they were being attacked in the withdrawal movement.

prehistory

During the campaign in Germany, the French Rhine and Moselle armies and the Sambre and Maas armies under Jean-Baptiste Jourdan met the imperial troops under the command of Karl von Österreich-Teschen . Karl had a corps of 30,000 men deployed against the Rhine and Moselle armies under the command of Feldzeugmeister Baillet-Latour and turned himself against the Sambre-Maas, which went back to the Rhine through Franconia , Spessart , Taunus and Westerwald (see First Coalition War ) -Army.

The Moreau army continued on its planned route to Munich and reached Rain am Lech . Here I found out about Jourdan's defeat in the Battle of Amberg and in the Battle of Würzburg . When he realized that Archduke Karl wanted to march into the Rhine Valley in order to stab him in the back, Moreau decided on September 19 to retreat across the Black Forest. The Austrian troops under Baillet-Latour, who had the order to stop Moreau by constant disruptive maneuvers, were attacked and defeated on October 2 in the battle of Biberach .

Archduke Carl's main power had advanced on September 29 from Schwetzingen via Karlsruhe and Rastatt to Bühl ; on October 7th his vanguard stood at Offenburg . Latour's troops reached Hornberg on October 16 and united with the Archduke's army on October 17 in the camp near Mahlberg to 17,500 men and 7,000 horsemen.

The battle

Moreau's March through Hell's Gorge in October 1796

After Moreau had crossed the Black Forest, his army arrived on October 19 in the area of ​​Emmendingen. His troops stood on the Riegel - Emmendingen - Waldkirch line , his right wing under General Ferino covered the passes through the Black Forest against the following Austrian troops under General Fröhlich and Nauendorf .

The French were in the following positions on the morning of 19 October: On the left wing under Desaix , the Sainte-Suzanne division secured with 9 battalions and 12 squadrons on the left bank of the Elz near Riegel. On the right bank near Malterdingen was the Beaupuy division with 12 battalions and 12 squadrons. Then to the right, where the center was under General St. Cyr in front of Emmendingen, separated by a stream, the Duhesme division secured with 12 battalions and 8 squadrons. On the far right in the Elztal of Waldkirch was the Girard Brigade of the Ambert Division, the Lecourbe Brigade was assembled as a reserve near Zähringen .

To the north, the cavalry was concentrated near Holzhausen, and the entire French positions were about 5 kilometers long. The detached corps under General Ferino held the Hell Valley and the neighboring heights with another 15 battalions and 16 squadrons . The French looking to cross the Rhine were only attacked by the pursuing Austrians from 10 a.m.

• The 1st column under FML Nauendorf (8 battalions, 12 squadrons) was to attack Waldkirch .
• The 2nd column under FZM Wartensleben (12.5 battalions, 23 squadrons) was assigned to Emmendingen, should take the bridge over the Elz and occupy the heights of Landeck and Tennenbach.
• The 3rd column under FZM Latour (8.5 battalions, 15 squadrons) had to advance to Köndringen via Heimbach and Malterdingen.
• The 4th column under FML Fürstenberg (5 battalions, 32 squadrons) was to occupy Kenzingen and hold the enemy between Rust, Cappel and Grafenhausen.

When the Austrians occupied the heights of Kollnau, the French had to give up their attack at Bleibach and vacate Kollnau and Waldkirch again. Nauendorf's troops reinforced the troops from the Kandelberg and again successfully attacked the new position of the French behind Waldkirch. The French, who were fighting in retreat, lost around 1,000 dead (including the Général de division Michel de Beaupuy) and several hundred prisoners during the meeting , whereupon the Austrians declared the battle a victory. Feldzeugmeister von Wartensleben was seriously wounded during the fighting. The government in Paris even assumed that the Rhine and Moselle armies would be completely destroyed, but this turned out to be unfounded.

consequences

After losing the battle, Moreau fought his way back behind the Dreisam on October 20th . He sent his General Desaix to Kehl via Breisach on the left bank of the Rhine . The expectation that the Archduke would then order a considerable number of troops back to Kehl was not fulfilled, so that Moreau was in a weaker position for the following battles. The united French associations now withdrew further south, in order to take an advantageous position at Schliengen on October 22nd. The battle of Schliengen developed between Basel and Freiburg im Breisgau on October 24th , after which the French were able to escape across the Rhine.

literature

• Frédéric Hulot: “Le Général Moreau” Editeur September 2001, ISBN 2-85704-722-3
• Digby Smith: "The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book (Actions and Losses in Personnel, Colors, Standards and Artillery, 1792-1815)" Editeur: Greenhill Books 1998, ISBN 1-85367-276-9
• Heymann: Emmendingen. In: General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts , 1st Section, Part 34, EM-ENTSTASIS, Leipzig 1840, pp. 64-66 Google digitized