Battle of Kehl (1796) 1796
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 23 June 1796 – 24 June 1796 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1796 | Wikidata P580 (start 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 | Holy Roman Empire | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 48.5667, 7.8167 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
During the Battle of Kehl (or Crossing near Kehl; 23–24 June 1796), a Republican French force under the direction of Jean Charles Abbatucci mounted an amphibious crossing of the Rhine River against a defending force of soldiers from the Swabian Circle. In this action of the War of the First Coalition, the French drove the Swabians from their positions in Kehl and subsequently controlled the bridgehead on both sides of the Rhine.
Although separated politically and geographically, the fates of Kehl, a village on the eastern shore of the Rhine in Baden-Durlach, and those of the Alsatian city of Strasbourg, on the western shore, were united by the presence of bridges and a series of gates, fortifications and barrage dams that allowed passage across the river. In the 1790s, the Rhine was wild, unpredictable, and difficult to cross, in some places more than four or more times wider than it is in the twenty-first century, even under non-flood conditions. Its channels and tributaries wound through marsh and meadow and created islands of trees and vegetation that were alternately submerged by floods or exposed during the dry seasons.
The fortifications at Kehl and Strasbourg had been constructed by the fortress architect Sébastien le Préstre de Vauban in the seventeenth century.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Kehl (1796) (revision 1370266883), 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 Kehl (1733) 1733 · 0 km
- Battle of Strasbourg Bridge 1634 · 1 km
- Siege of Kehl (1796–1797) 1797 · 1 km
- Siege of Kehl (1703) 1703 · 1 km
- Second Battle of Kehl (1796) 1796 · 1 km
- Siege of Strasbourg 1870 · 5 km
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 Altenkirchen 1796
- Battle of Amberg 1796
- Battle of Bassano 1796
- Battle of Ettlingen 1796
- Battle of Kircheib 1796
All 84 battles of the War of the First Coalition →
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