Battle of Buzenval | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Siege of Paris and the Franco-Prussian War | |||||||
Defence of Longboyau's gate, château of Buzenval, 21 October 1870; painted by Alphonse de Neuville | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
French Republic | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Wilhelm I | Louis-Jules Trochu Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
8,000-1,0000 infantry 3 divisional cavalry 94-120 fire cannon |
The (First) Battle of Buzenval was part of the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. The besieged troops in Paris, under the orders of General Louis Trochu, made a sortie in the direction of Versailles.
Under orders of the governor of Paris, a sortie was made by General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot in the direction of Rueil with the objective of taking the hamlets of Malmaison, Jonchère, and Buzenval, defended by the 3rd Division of the 5th Prussian Corps, a fraction of the 4th Corps, and a regiment of the Guard Corps.
The attacking troops were organized into three groups plus reserves:
At 1:00 pm, the French military opened fire down the line, concentrating for 45 minutes on Buzenval, Malmaison, Jonchere, and Bougival. In the meantime, the skirmishers and the heads of the French column were approaching their objectives:
After the cannonade, the troops marched to the assigned objectives and arrived at the ravine descending from the woods of Saint-Cucufa to the American railroad, bypassing the Malmaison. The left column of General Noel passed the ravine and climbed the slopes that rise to Jonchere, but they soon were halted by under heavy musket fire leaving the woods from the houses, where the Prussians waited to ambush them. At the same time, 4 companies led by Zouaves, under orders of Commander Jacquot, were caught in the corner that forms the Park of Malmaison below the Jonchere, they were able to disengage because of the intervention from the battalion of Seine-et-Marne mobile. This battalion was carried on the slopes above St. Cucufa was its night supported the park of the malmaison, and opened fire on the Prussians who were forced to retreat, thus allowing the 4 companies of Zouavas to enter the park.
Meanwhile, the snipers of the second division (commanded by Captain Favre-Biguet of the Cholletou column) rushed to Buzenval, entered it, and advanced, under the cover of the woods to the border of the Saint-Cucufa forest.
Around 5:00 pm, the night arrived and the fire ceased everywhere, General Ducrot commanded troops to return to their barracks.
In the main, the column of General Martenot was a diversion on the left. A battalion settled on the farm of Fouilleuse, and skirmishers pushed up the ridges, even for a moment holding the redoubt Montretout and heights of Garches. On the right, the 6th Dragoon Regiment, supported by a cavalry battery, was carried in the direction of the Seine between Argenteuil Bezons and fired cannons upon some Prussian positions.
During the sortie, the batteries of Commander Miribel, particularly the 4th battery of Captain Nismes, who was positioned close to the gate of Longboyau, were surprised by Prussian elements. The incident, known as Defense of the gate of Longboyau, consisted of the French and Prussians fighting at close range through the bars of the gate. During the fighting, the French lost the commander of the support company, 10 cannoniers, and 15 horses.
General losses of the French for 21 October 1870 were as follows:
German losses are unknown.
The Battle of Craonne was a battle between an Imperial French army under Emperor Napoleon I opposing a combined army of Imperial Russians and Prussians led by Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The War of the Sixth Coalition engagement began when the bulk of Napoleon's army tried to drive Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov's 22,000 Russians off the Chemin des Dames plateau to the west of Craonne. After a bitter struggle, Napoleon's attacks compelled Vorontsov's force to withdraw, but French casualties exceeded Russian losses. While the battle raged, Blücher's attempt to turn Napoleon's east flank ended in failure due to poor planning.
The Battle of Vauchamps was the final major engagement of the Six Days Campaign of the War of the Sixth Coalition. It resulted in a part of the Grande Armée under Napoleon I defeating a superior Prussian and Russian force of the Army of Silesia under Field-marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher.
The Battle of Wattignies saw a French army commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan attack a Coalition army directed by Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After two days of combat Jourdan's troops compelled the Habsburg covering force led by François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt to withdraw. The War of the First Coalition victory allowed the French to raise the siege of Maubeuge. At a time when failed generals were often executed or imprisoned, Jourdan had to endure interference from Lazare Carnot from the Committee of Public Safety. The village, renamed Wattignies-la-Victoire in honor of the important success, is located 9 kilometres (6 mi) southeast of Maubeuge.
The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War from 1 to 2 September 1870. Resulting in the capture of Emperor Napoleon III and over a hundred thousand troops, it effectively decided the war in favour of Prussia and its allies, though fighting continued under a new French government.
The Battle of Gravelotte on 18 August 1870 was the largest battle of the Franco-Prussian War. Named after Gravelotte, a village in Lorraine, it was fought about 6 miles (9.7 km) west of Metz, where on the previous day, having intercepted the French army's retreat to the west at the Battle of Mars-la-Tour, the Prussians were now closing in to complete the destruction of the French forces.
The Battle of Pułtusk took place on 26 December 1806 during the War of the Fourth Coalition near Pułtusk, Poland. Despite their strong numerical superiority and artillery, the Russians suffered the French attacks, before retiring the next day having suffered greater losses than the French, disorganizing their army for the rest of the year.
The Battle of Wissembourg or Battle of Weissenburg, the first of the Franco-Prussian War, was joined when three German army corps surprised the small French garrison at Wissembourg on 4 August 1870. The defenders, greatly outnumbered, fought stubbornly "especially considering they were surprised and greatly outnumbered, that the French sustained their old renown as fighting men and that the first defeat, although severe, reflected no discredit on the soldiers of the 1st Corps." The fall of Wissembourg allowed the Prussian army to move into France and compelled Marshal Patrice MacMahon to give battle, and suffer defeat, at the Battle of Wörth on 6 August.
The Battle of Reims was fought at Reims, France between an Imperial French army commanded by Emperor Napoleon and a combined Russian-Prussian corps led by General Emmanuel de Saint-Priest. On the first day, Saint-Priest's Russians and General Friedrich Wilhelm von Jagow's Prussians easily captured Reims from its French National Guard garrison, capturing or killing more than half of its defenders. On the second day, an overconfident Saint-Priest carelessly deployed his forces west of the city, not grasping that Napoleon was approaching with 20,000 troops. Too late, Saint-Priest realized who he was fighting and tried to organize a retreat. In the battle that followed, the French army struck with crushing force and the Allies were routed with serious losses. During the fighting, Saint-Priest was struck by a howitzer shell and died two weeks later.
The Battle of Kápolna was one of the decisive battles of the Hungarian war of Independence of 1848-1849, fought on 26 and 27 February 1849 between the Hungarian revolutionary army led by Lieutenant General Henryk Dembiński and the Austrian main army operating in Hungary Field Marshal Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz. After the Austrian offensive from the winter of 1848-1849, which resulted in losing the Western part of the country, the Hungarian army tried its first major counter-attack, but due to the disastrous leadership of the Polish Henryk Dembiński, the battle ended with an Austrian victory, and this did not influence only the military situation, but also the politics of central Europe: Franz Joseph I announced the March Constitution of Austria on 4 March 1849.
The Battle of Rocquencourt was a cavalry skirmish fought on 1 July 1815 in and around the villages of Rocquencourt and Le Chesnay. French dragoons supported by infantry and commanded by General Exelmans destroyed a Prussian brigade of hussars under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eston von Sohr.
The Battle of Schleiz took place on October 9, 1806 in Schleiz, Germany between a Prussian-Saxon division under Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien and a part of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's I Corps under the command of Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d'Erlon. It was the first clash of the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. As Emperor Napoleon I of France's Grande Armée advanced north through the Franconian Forest it struck the left wing of the armies belonging to the Kingdom of Prussia and the Electorate of Saxony, which were deployed on a long front. Schleiz is located 30 kilometers north of Hof and 145 kilometers southwest of Dresden at the intersection of Routes 2 and 94.
In the Battle of Halle on 17 October 1806 a French corps led by Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte fought the Prussian Reserve under Eugene Frederick Henry, Duke of Württemberg. The French defeated their opponents, forcing the Prussians to retreat northeast toward Dessau after suffering heavy losses. The clash occurred in the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. The city of Halle is located about 30 kilometers northwest of Leipzig on the Saale River.
In the Battle of Prenzlau or Capitulation of Prenzlau on 28 October 1806 two divisions of French cavalry and some infantry led by Marshal Joachim Murat intercepted a retreating Prussian corps led by Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen. In this action from the War of the Fourth Coalition, Hohenlohe surrendered his entire force to Murat after some fighting and a parley. Prenzlau is located about 90 kilometers north of Berlin in Brandenburg.
The Capitulation of Pasewalk on 29 October 1806 resulted in the surrender of Oberst (Colonel) von Hagen's 4,200 Prussian soldiers to an inferior force of two French light cavalry brigades led by Generals of Brigade Édouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud and Antoine Lasalle. The Prussians were completely demoralized after a two-week-long retreat following their decisive defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. Pasewalk is 110 kilometers north of Berlin and about 40 kilometers west of Szczecin (Stettin), Poland.
In the Battle of Mohrungen on 25 January 1807, most of a First French Empire corps under the leadership of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte fought a strong Russian Empire advance guard led by Major General Yevgeni Ivanovich Markov. The French pushed back the main Russian force, but a cavalry raid on the French supply train caused Bernadotte to call off his attacks. After driving off the cavalry, Bernadotte withdrew and the town was occupied by the army of General Levin August, Count von Bennigsen. The fighting took place in and around Morąg in northern Poland, which in 1807 was the East Prussian town of Mohrungen. The action was part of the War of the Fourth Coalition in the Napoleonic Wars.
The Battle of Czarnowo on the night of 23–24 December 1806 saw troops of the First French Empire under the eye of Emperor Napoleon I launch an evening assault crossing of the Wkra River against Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Ostermann-Tolstoy's defending Russian Empire forces. The attackers, part of Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout's III Corps, succeeded in crossing the Wkra at its mouth and pressed eastward to the village of Czarnowo. After an all-night struggle, the Russian commander withdrew his troops to the east, ending this War of the Fourth Coalition action. Czarnowo is located on the north bank of the Narew River 33 kilometres (21 mi) north-northwest of Warsaw, Poland.
In the Battle of Guttstadt-Deppen on 5 and 6 June 1807, troops of the Russian Empire led by General Levin August, Count von Bennigsen attacked the First French Empire corps of Marshal Michel Ney. The Russians pressed back their opponents in an action that saw Ney fight a brilliant rearguard action with his heavily outnumbered forces. During the 6th, Ney successfully disengaged his troops and pulled back to the west side of the Pasłęka (Passarge) River. The action occurred during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. Dobre Miasto (Guttstadt) is on Route 51 about 20 kilometers (12 mi) southwest of Lidzbark Warmiński (Heilsberg) and 24 kilometers (15 mi) north of Olsztyn (Allenstein). The fighting occurred along Route 580 which runs southwest from Guttstadt to Kalisty (Deppen) on the Pasłęka.
The Battle of Châtillon, also known as the Battle of Châtillon-sous-Bagneux, was a skirmish in the Siege of Paris between France and North German Confederation in the Franco-Prussian War, took place on 13 October 1870. This is also considered the first battle in the history of the French Third Republic. In this fierce battle – occurred at Châtillon and Sceaux, Corps V of the Prussian army under the command of Lieutenant General Infantry Hugo von Kirchbach, along with the II Corps of the Kingdom of Bavaria by the Supreme Minister infantry Jakob von Hartmann which were the forces of the army Group 3 of Prussia by Prince Friedrich Wilhelm as General command., won a victory against an attack by the XIV Corps under General Renault - of the French army under General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot. Although some soldiers under Ducrot fought well, the majority of his army became agitated. The French were forced to flee to Paris, losing the Châtillon Plateau - a very favorable defensive position overlooking the fortresses south of Paris - to the Germans. This was a disaster for the "justice" of the French army during the war, although the French reported that they suffered only minor losses.
After their defeat at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, the French Army of the North, under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte retreated in disarray back towards France. As agreed by the two Seventh Coalition commanders in chief, the Duke of Wellington, commander of the Anglo-allied army, and Prince Blücher, commander of the Prussian army, the French were to be closely pursued by units of the Prussian army.
Adrien Alexandre Adolphe de Carrey de Bellemare, more commonly known as Carey de Bellemare was a French Divisional General who was most notable for his service during the Franco-Prussian War.