Battle of Amberg
Part of theRhine Campaign of theWar of the First Coalition
German map of the battle
Date 24 August 1796 Location Amberg 49°28′16″N11°49′52″E / 49.47111°N 11.83111°E /49.47111; 11.83111 Result Austrian victory
Belligerents
Republican France	Habsburg monarchy
Commanders and leaders
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan	Archduke Charles Wilhelm von Wartensleben
Strength
34,000	40,000
Casualties and losses
2,000	400
class=notpageimage| Location within Europe

TheBattle of Amberg, fought on 24 August 1796, resulted in aHabsburg victory byArchduke Charles over aFrench army led byJean-Baptiste Jourdan. This engagement marked a turning point in theRhine campaign, which had previously seen French successes.

The French planned an invasion of southern Germany in 1796.General of Division (MG) Jourdan with theArmy of Sambre-et-Meuse would advance from the middleRhine while MGJean Moreau would cross the river farther south with theArmy of Rhin-et-Moselle. Jourdan held a bridgehead over the Rhine atNeuwied while MGJean-Baptiste Kléber commanded his left wing based on an entrenched camp atDüsseldorf. Moreau's army comprised 71,581 infantry and 6,515 cavalry. He organized these into a Right Wing under MGPierre Ferino, a Center led by MGLouis Desaix, and a Left Wing commanded by MGLaurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr.^[1]

Field Marshal Archduke Charles commanded the Army of the Lower Rhine. Charles and his deputy,Feldzeugmeister (FZM)Wilhelm von Wartensleben faced Jourdan along theLahn River. This stream flows in a southwesterly direction into the Rhine nearKoblenz. To the south, FZMMaximilien, Count Baillet de Latour positioned his Army of the Upper Rhine to defend against Moreau.^{[citation needed]}

On 4 June 1796, 11,000 soldiers of the Army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, underFrançois Lefebvre pushed back a 6,500-man Austrian force atAltenkirchen, north of the Lahn. On 6 June, the French placedEhrenbreitstein Fortress under siege. AtWetzlar on the Lahn, Lefebvre ran into Charles' concentration of 36,000 Austrians on 15 June. Casualties were light on both sides, but Jourdan pulled back to Niewied while Kléber recoiled toward Düsseldorf.Feldmarschal-Leutnant (FML)Pál Kray's 30,000 soldiers bested Kléber's 24,000 at Uckerath east ofBonn on 19 June, prompting the Frenchman to continue his withdrawal to the north.^[2]

Meanwhile, operations of the Army of the Rhin-et-Moselle progressed more successfully for the French. On the 15th, Desaix and 30,000 French troops defeated FML Franz Petrasch's 11,000 Austrians at Maudach nearSpeyer. The French suffered 600 casualties while Austrian losses were three times as heavy.^[3] Part of Moreau's army under MG Jean-Charles Abbatucci mounted an assault crossing over the Rhine atKehl oppositeStrasbourg on 24 June. The defenders were Frenchémigrés and the forces of minor German states belonging to theHoly Roman Empire. They fought gamely, but were beaten with the loss of 700 men while the French lost 150. On 28 June, Desaix defeated FML Anton Sztaray's Imperial troops again atRenchen, inflicting 1,400 casualties for only 200 French killed and wounded. In the following weeks the Austrians determined some of their Imperial German allies to be unreliable and disarmed them.^[4]

In reaction to the defeats in the south, Archduke Charles left Wartensleben in command of 35,000 men along the Lahn, put 30,000 troops into the fortress ofMainz and rushed south with 20,000 soldiers to reinforce Latour.^[5]

After a minor clash atRastatt on 5 July, Archduke Charles and Latour took up a position atMalsch with 32,000 troops. On 9 July, Moreau defeated the Army of the Upper Rhine at theBattle of Ettlingen. The archduke retreated 60 kilometres (37 mi) toStuttgart, where he skirmished with the French on 21 July before continuing to withdraw east.^[6] When Jourdan heard of French successes against the Army of the Upper Rhine, he went over to the offensive. After a series of minor victories at Neuwied,Giessen, andFriedberg in der Wetterau in early July, the French pressed Wartensleben back toFrankfurt am Main.^[7]

Charles ordered Wartensleben to unite with him in order to crush Moreau. However, his colleague proved unwilling to cooperate. On 11 August, Moreau overpowered the outnumbered archduke at theBattle of Neresheim. The Austrian southern wing retreated to the south bank of theDanube atDonauwörth. To the north, Jourdan pushed Wartensleben back throughWürzburg andNuremberg. Kléber clashed with Kray on 17 August atSulzbach-Rosenberg, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) west ofAmberg.^[8] Charles' strategy of falling back before the two superior French armies while seeking an opportunity to combine against one of them had so far failed.^{[citation needed]}

A change in Austrian fortunes came when an alert cavalry brigadier,General-MajorFriedrich Joseph, Count of Nauendorf detected an opportunity during a widereconnaissance. He sent a note to Archduke Charles, "If your Royal Highness will or can advance 12,000 men against Jourdan's rear, he is lost."^[9] Charles left 30,000 men under Latour to watch Moreau, and hurried north with 27,000 to find Jourdan still pressing Wartensleben near Amberg. On 22 August atNeumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Charles brushed aside one of Jourdan's divisions under MGJean-Baptiste Bernadotte.^[10] This placed the archduke squarely on the French right rear.^{[citation needed]}

The total forces available were 48,000 Austrians and 45,000 French.^[11] On 24 August, Charles struck the French right flank while Wartensleben attacked frontally. The French Army of Sambre-et-Meuse was overcome by weight of numbers and Jourdan retired northwest. The Austrians lost only 400 casualties of the 40,000 men they brought onto the field. French losses were 1,200 killed and wounded, plus 800 captured out of 34,000 engaged. Instead of supporting his colleague, Moreau pushed further east.^[12]

On the same day as the Battle of Amberg, Moreau inflicted a sharp defeat on Latour at theBattle of Friedberg in Bavaria. On 1 September, Moreau clashed with Latour and Nauendorf atGeisenfeld, 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) southeast ofIngolstadt.^[13] At the same time, Charles' victorious Austrians pursued Jourdan's beaten army. The widening gap between the two French armies finally caused Moreau to abandon his gains and pull back towardUlm. TheBattle of Würzburg, fought on 3 September, would determine the winner of the campaign.^{[citation needed]}

• Eggenberger, David. (1985).An Encyclopedia of Battles. New York: Dover Publications.ISBN 0-486-24913-1.
• Liddell-Hart, B. H. (1967).Strategy. NY: Praeger Publishers.
• Pope, Stephen. (1999).The Cassell Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars, Cassell.
• Smith, Digby. (1998).The Napoleonic Wars Data Book. London: Greenhill.ISBN 1-85367-276-9.

• Media related toBattle of Amberg at Wikimedia Commons

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