Siege of Kehl (1796–1797) 1797
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate. Wikidata lists more than one location for this battle; the first is shown.
Key facts
| Date | 9 January 1797 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1797 | 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 | 48.5711, 7.8089 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Kehl lasted from 26 October 1796 to 9 January 1797. Habsburg and Württemberg regulars numbering 40,000, under the command of Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour, besieged and captured the French-controlled fortifications at the village of Kehl in the German state of Baden-Durlach. The fortifications at Kehl represented an important bridgehead crossing the Rhine to Strasbourg, an Alsatian city and a French Revolutionary stronghold. This battle was part of the Rhine Campaign of 1796, in the French Revolutionary War of the First Coalition.
In the 1790s, the Rhine was wild, unpredictable, and difficult to cross, in some places more than four 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. At Kehl and the city of Strasbourg lay a complex of bridges, gates, fortifications and barrage dams. These had been constructed by the fortress architect Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban in the 17th century.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Kehl (1796–1797) (revision 1370742411), 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 Strasbourg Bridge 1634 · 0 km
- Siege of Kehl (1703) 1703 · 0 km
- Second Battle of Kehl (1796) 1796 · 1 km
- Battle of Kehl (1796) 1796 · 1 km
- Siege of Kehl (1733) 1733 · 1 km
- Siege of Strasbourg 1870 · 5 km
Other battles of the War of the First Coalition
- Battle of Wetzlar 1796
- Battle of Würzburg 1796
- French expedition to Ireland (1796) 1796
- Second Battle of Dego 1796
- Siege of Hüningen (1796–1797) 1796
- Battle of Diersheim (1797) 1797
- Battle of Faenza 1797
- Battle of Fishguard 1797
- Battle of Jean-Rabel 1797
- Battle of La Favorita 1797
All 84 battles of the War of the First Coalition →
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