Battle of Erquelinnes 1794
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 20 May 1794 – 24 May 1794 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1794 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Belgium | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | War of the First Coalition | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 50.3000, 4.1167 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Erquelinnes or Battle of Péchant (24 May 1794) was part of the Flanders Campaign during the War of the First Coalition, and saw a Republican French army jointly led by Jacques Desjardin and Louis Charbonnier try to defend a bridgehead on the north bank of the Sambre River against a combined Habsburg Austrian and Dutch army led by Franz Wenzel, Graf von Kaunitz-Rietberg. The French crossed the Sambre on the 20th and held their positions for a few days. On the 24th Kaunitz launched an early-morning surprise attack that routed the French. The War of the First Coalition combat represented the second of five French attempts to gain a foothold on the north bank of the Sambre. Erquelinnes is a village in Belgium directly on the border with France. It is situated about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southwest of Charleroi.
Jean-Charles Pichegru, the top French military commander in the north formed a mass of 60,000 troops by joining Desjardin's three-division right wing of the Army of the North to Charbonnier's two-division Army of the Ardennes. Without a single leader to control the force, Desjardin's troops were beaten by Kaunitz at Grand-Reng on 13 May while Charbonnier's men stood idle nearby.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Erquelinnes (revision 1370440104), 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
- Battle of Grand-Reng 1794 · 5 km
- Siege of Maubeuge (1793) 1793 · 10 km
- Siege of Maubeuge 1914 · 10 km
- Battle of Wattignies 1793 · 13 km
- Battle of Malplaquet 1709 · 20 km
- Siege of Mons (1691) 1691 · 20 km
Other battles of the War of the First Coalition
- Siege of Le Quesnoy (1793) 1793
- Siege of Maastricht (1793) 1793
- Siege of Mainz (1793) 1793
- Siege of Toulon (1793) 1793
- Siege of Valenciennes (1793) 1793
- Battle of Aldenhoven (1794) 1794
- Battle of Courtrai (1794) 1794
- Battle of Fleurus (1794) 1794
- Battle of Gosselies 1794
- Battle of Grand-Reng 1794
All 84 battles of the War of the First Coalition →
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