Battle of Handschuhsheim 1795
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 24 September 1795 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1795 | 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 |
| Participants | French First Republic, Habsburg monarchy | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 49.4289, 8.6869 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Handschuhsheim or Battle of Heidelberg (24 September 1795) saw an 8,000-man force from Habsburg Austria under Peter Vitus von Quosdanovich face 12,000 men from the Republican French army led by Georges Joseph Dufour. Thanks to a devastating cavalry charge, the Austrians routed the French with disproportionate losses. The fight occurred during the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. Handschuhsheim is now a district of Heidelberg, but it was a village north of the city in 1795.
In early 1795 many of France's enemies made peace, leaving only Austria and Great Britain in opposition. In September, the French government ordered the armies of Jean-Charles Pichegru and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan to attack the Austrian armies on the Rhine River. The French scored early successes, capturing two key cities and crossing the river in force. Pichegru sent two divisions to seize the Austrian supply base at Heidelberg, but his troops were bloodily repulsed at Handshuhsheim. Afterward, the Austrian commander François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt turned on Jourdan's army, driving it back across the Rhine.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Handschuhsheim (revision 1370265316), 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
- Siege of Heidelberg (1622) 1622 · 2 km
- Battle of Wiesloch (1799) 1799 · 15 km
- Battle of Wiesloch (1632) 1632 · 15 km
- Capture of Mannheim 1622 · 17 km
- Action at Mannheim (1795) 1795 · 17 km
- Battle of Mannheim (1799) 1799 · 17 km
Other battles of the War of the First Coalition
- Second Battle of Saorgio 1794
- Siege of Landrecies (1794) 1794
- Siege of Maastricht (1794) 1794
- Siege of Nijmegen (1794) 1794
- Siege of Ypres (1794) 1794
- Action at Mannheim (1795) 1795
- Battle of Höchst (1795) 1795
- Battle of Loano 1795
- Battle of Pfeddersheim (1795) 1795
- Capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder 1795
All 84 battles of the War of the First Coalition →
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