Battle of Limonest

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

200km
125miles

Paris

22

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20

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18

17

16

15

14

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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

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