Battle of Piave River (1809) 1809
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 8 May 1809 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1809 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | 19th century (1800–1913) | derived from year |
| Location | Italy | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | War of the Fifth Coalition | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Archduke John of Austria, Austrian Empire, Eugène de Beauharnais, First French Empire, Kingdom of Italy | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 45.8300, 12.2170 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Piave River was fought on 8 May 1809 between the Franco-Italian army under the command of Eugène de Beauharnais and an Austrian army led by Archduke John of Austria. The Austrian commander made a stand behind the Piave River but he suffered a defeat at the hands of his numerically superior foes. The combat took place near Nervesa della Battaglia, Italy during the War of the Fifth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars.
The initial Austrian invasion of Venetia succeeded in driving the Franco-Italian defenders back to Verona. At the beginning of May, news of Austrian defeats in Bavaria and inferiority in numbers caused Archduke John to begin retreating to the northeast. When he heard that his enemies were crossing the Piave, the Austrian commander turned back to give battle, intending to slow Eugène's pursuit of his army.
Eugène ordered his vanguard across the river early in the morning. It soon ran into vigorous Austrian resistance, but the arrival of French cavalry stabilized the situation by mid-morning. Rapidly rising waters hampered the buildup of French infantry reinforcements and prevented a significant portion of Eugène's army from crossing at all.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Piave River (1809) (revision 1370586022), 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
- Second Battle of the Piave River 1918 · 1 km
- Battle of Vittorio Veneto 1918 · 17 km
- Battle of Sacile 1809 · 27 km
- Battle of Monte Grappa 1918 · 38 km
- First Battle of the Piave River 1917 · 38 km
- Battle of Bassano 1796 · 38 km
Other battles of the War of the Fifth Coalition
- Battle of Abensberg 1809
- Battle of Aspern–Essling 1809
- Battle of Caldiero (1809) 1809
- Battle of Ebelsberg 1809
- Battle of Hollabrunn (1809) 1809
- Battle of Landshut (1809) 1809
- Battle of Linz-Urfahr 1809
- Battle of Raab (1809) 1809
- Battle of Sacile 1809
- Battle of Teugen–Hausen 1809
All 16 battles of the War of the Fifth Coalition →
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