Battle of Altenkirchen 1796
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 4 June 1796 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1796 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Germany | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | War of the First Coalition | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 50.6872, 7.6456 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Altenkirchen (4 June 1796) saw two Republican French divisions commanded by Jean Baptiste Kléber attack a wing of the Habsburg Austrian army led by Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg. A frontal attack combined with a flanking maneuver forced the Austrians to retreat. Three future Marshals of France played significant roles in the engagement: François Joseph Lefebvre as a division commander, Jean-de-Dieu Soult as a brigadier and Michel Ney as leader of a flanking column. The battle occurred during the War of the First Coalition, part of a larger conflict called the Wars of the French Revolution. Altenkirchen is located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany about 50 kilometres (31 mi) east of Bonn.
The French opened the Rhine Campaign of 1796 by ordering Kléber to attack south out of his bridgehead at Düsseldorf. After Kléber won sufficient maneuver room on the east bank of the Rhine River, Jean Baptiste Jourdan was supposed to join him with the remainder of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. But this was only a distraction. When the Austrians under Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen moved north to oppose Jourdan, Jean Victor Marie Moreau would cross the Rhine far to the south with the Army of Rhin-et-Moselle.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Altenkirchen (revision 1370431793), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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- Battle of Neuwied (1797) 1797 · 29 km
- Battle of Remagen 1945 · 31 km
- Battle of Andernach (876) 876 · 32 km
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Other battles of the War of the First Coalition
- Battle of Höchst (1795) 1795
- Battle of Loano 1795
- Battle of Pfeddersheim (1795) 1795
- Capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder 1795
- Invasion of France (1795) 1795
- Battle of Amberg 1796
- Battle of Bassano 1796
- Battle of Ettlingen 1796
- Battle of Kehl (1796) 1796
- Battle of Kircheib 1796
All 84 battles of the War of the First Coalition →
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