Battle of Limonest

Battle of Limonest
	Part of the Campaign of France of the Sixth Coalition
	; Charge of the 13th Cuirassiers Regiment at the Battle of Limonest, 20 March 1814, by Theodore Jung
Date	20 March 1814
Location	Limonest, France45°50′13″N 4°46′19″E / 45.83694°N 4.77194°E
Result	Coalition victory
Belligerents
Austrian Empire; Grand Duchy of Hesse	First French Empire
Commanders and leaders
Prince Frederick of Hessen-Homburg	Pierre Augereau
Units involved
I Corps; II Corps; VI German Corps	Army of the Rhône
Strength
30,000–53,000, 112 guns	20,000–23,000, 36 guns
Casualties and losses
2,900–3,000	1,000–2,000
	class=notpageimage\| Location within France

War of the Sixth Coalition:
Campaign in north-east France

200km
125miles

Paris

22

21

20

19

18

17

16

15

14

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

Bar-sur-Aube

1

current battle

Napoleon in command

Napoleon not in command

The Battle of Limonest (20 March 1814) saw 30,000–53,000 Austrian and Hessian troops led by Prince Frederick of Hessen-Homburg defeat 20,000–23,000 French troops under Marshal Pierre Augereau.^[1]

Background

While Napoleon faced the main Allied armies of Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher to the east of Paris, a secondary campaign was conducted near Lyon to the south. In January 1814 the Austrians easily captured large swaths of territory, but failed to seize Lyon. By mid-February, a reinforced Augereau managed to recapture some towns, posing a threat. Anxious for his supply line back to Germany, Schwarzenberg sent Prince Hessen-Homburg large forces to protect his southern flank.

Battle

After some stiff fighting, the Allies forced the outnumbered French defenders to withdraw from a line of hills north of Lyon in this War of the Sixth Coalition action.

Aftermath

Lyon, in 1814 the second largest city in France, was abandoned to the Allies as a direct result of the defeat. With greatly superior forces, Hessen-Homburg pressed the French back in a series of battles and captured Lyon on 22 March.

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Bodart 1908, p. 478.

References

Bodart, Gaston (1908). Militär-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon (1618-1905). Retrieved 7 June 2021.
Leggiere, Michael V. (2007). The Fall of Napoleon: The Allied Invasion of France 1813-1814. Vol. 1. New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-87542-4.
Nafziger, George (2015). The End of Empire: Napoleon's 1814 Campaign. Solihull, UK: Helion & Company. ISBN 978-1-909982-96-3.
Petre, F. Loraine (1994) [1914]. Napoleon at Bay: 1814. London: Lionel Leventhal Ltd. ISBN 1-85367-163-0.
Smith, Digby (1998). The Napoleonic Wars Data Book. London: Greenhill. ISBN 1-85367-276-9.
Smith, Digby; Kudrna, Leopold. "Biographical Dictionary of all Austrian Generals during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792-1815: Friedrich Joseph Ludwig, Erbprinz zu Hessen-Homburg". napoleon-series.org. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
Smith, Digby; Kudrna, Leopold. "Biographical Dictionary of all Austrian Generals during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792-1815: Philipp August Friedrich, Prinz Hessen-Homburg". napoleon-series.org. Retrieved 20 March 2016.

External links

Edgar, Rob (2010). "Battle of Limonest, 20th March 1814". The Napoleonic Wargamer.
Media related to Battle of Limonest at Wikimedia Commons

[FOOTNOTEBodart1908478-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Bodart 1908, p. 478.

[1]