Battle near Frauenfeld
The battle near Frauenfeld was a military conflict during the Second Coalition War (1799–1802). On May 25, 1799, Austrian and French troops met in it. The fight ended that evening with the Austrians withdrawing, but the French also withdrew the following day.
prehistory
The old Confederation was occupied by France in 1798 and the Helvetic Republic , dependent on France, was created on its territory . At the beginning of the Second Coalition War, French troops under General André Masséna (1758-1817) operated from Swiss soil . After the defeats in the Battle of Feldkirch and the Battle of Stockach, however, the French had to withdraw and evacuate eastern Switzerland. They were followed by two Austrian armies under General Friedrich von Hotze (1739–1799) and Archduke Karl (1771–1847). These pursued the intention to unite with each other as soon as possible. On May 22nd, 1799, the vanguard of the Archduke's army reached Frauenfeld , where they stopped to meet General Hotze's vanguard on May 24th.
After the advance troops of the Austrians had already united, General Massena, who was standing near Winterthur , decided to make an attempt to prevent the unification of the main opposing forces. For this purpose he sent four French and two Helvetian battalions , a company of Helvetian snipers , five squadrons of hussars and eight cannons under General Charles Nicolas Oudinot (1767–1847) and General Augustin Keller (1754–1799) to attack the enemy near Frauenfeld. General Nicolas Soult (1769-1851) followed in reserve with another three French and three Swiss battalions.
Course of the battle
On the morning of May 25, 1799, around 5 a.m., General Oudinot attacked the weak Austrian garrison of Frauenfeld. This slowly dodged behind the river Thur . Around 9 o'clock, however, more troops of the Hotze Army (six battalions, six squadrons) under General Petrasch from Wyl appeared on the left flank and in the rear of the French. These were now forced to turn their main forces against the new enemy. There were now around 22,000 Austrians against around 14,000 French and Swiss. These fought each other in a tie until the evening hours. The fights turned out to be very costly. Even the adjutant general of the Helvetic troops, General Johann Weber (1752–1799) fell victim to a sniper. However, as the success of the battle seemed doubtful to him, General Petrasch ordered the retreat at 7 p.m. The Austrians lost about 2,000 men (mostly prisoners) and 2 cannons in the battle.
During this battle two more columns of Massena's army attacked the Archduke's main Austrian army near Rorbas and Andelfingen in order to push them back behind the Thur. After some initial successes, however, these were pushed back themselves. Despite the local tactical success at Frauenfeld, Massena's position was untenable and on May 26 he initiated the retreat towards Zurich . Even contemporaries, such as Carl von Clausewitz, complained that Massena had not concentrated all of his troops for one blow against Hotze's army and instead had three columns (and the reserve under Soult) operate separately from one another. Only then would he have been denied any major success at Frauenfeld.
consequences
With the failure of the French attack on the Archduke's army and the subsequent French retreat, nothing stood in the way of the unification of the two Austrian armies. After further setbacks, the French army won the Second Battle of Zurich at the end of September . As a result, they recaptured large parts of the country and the city of Frauenfeld.
literature
- Carl von Clausewitz: The campaigns of 1796 and 1799 in Italy and Switzerland , Mundus-Verlag, Leipzig 1999, p. 435
- Rudolf Hanhart: Tales from Swiss History based on the Chronicles , Part 4, Basel 1838, pp. 632–636 ( online version )
- Ernst Herdi : The battle near Frauenfeld and the Swiss soldiers. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , Vol. 25, 1950, pp. 3–16 ( e-periodica.ch )
- Johann Georg Heinzmann: Small Swiss Chronicle , Part 2, Bern 1801, pp. 636–646 ( online version )
- Max Steiner: The battle of Frauenfeld 1799 , Verlag Huber, Frauenfeld 1999, ISBN 978-3-7193-1170-4
Individual evidence
- ^ Johann Georg Heinzmann: Small Swiss Chronicle , Part 2, Bern (1801), p. 637
- ^ Carl von Clausewitz: The campaigns of 1796 and 1799 in Italy and in Switzerland , Leipzig 1999, p. 435
- ↑ In this sense: Carl von Clausewitz: The campaigns of 1796 and 1799 in Italy and in Switzerland , Leipzig 1999, pp. 432–435