Battle of Dermbach

Battle of Dermbach
	Part of Austro-Prussian War
	; Cäsar Rüstow in the Battle of Dermbach
Date	4 July 1866
Location	Dermbach, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 50°41′57.8357″N10°11′29.2596″E / 50.699398806°N 10.191461000°E
Result	Prussian Victory
Territorial; changes	Prussian capture of Dermbach
Belligerents
Prussia	Bavaria
Commanders and leaders
August von Goeben ; Cäsar Rüstow ; Eduard von Falckenstein	Prince Karl of Bavaria
Units involved
13th Division	3rd Division; 4th Division
Strength
Unknown, around 5,000 soldiers	15,000 soldiers
Casualties and losses
48 killed; 274 wounded; 22 missing and captured	62 killed; 364 wounded; 106 missing or captured
	class=notpageimage\| Location within Thuringia Battle of Dermbach (Germany)

Last updated October 26, 2023

The Battle of Dermbach was the first clash between Prussian and Bavarian troops in the Austro-Prussian War near Dermbach, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in modern-day Thuringia on 4 July 1866.

Starting Positions

The Prussian Main Army, formed from three divisions under the command of General Eduard von Falckenstein, had been advancing from Eisenach towards Fulda since 1 July. This was also the aim of the Bavarian Army, which wanted to unite there with the allied 8th Federal Corps (contingents from Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Kassel, the Nassau and Austria).

On 2 and 3 July there had already been minor skirmishes between the Prussian and Bavarian armies near Immelborn and Dermbach. Falckenstein believed that he was only dealing with weak Bavarian forces. He therefore gave the 13th Prussian Division the order to push back the enemy with a "short advance". The two skirmishes at Zella and Neidhartshausen and at Wiesenthal developed from this.

The Battle

The Prussian advance with about 5000 men on Neidhartshausen and Zella was successful. It was possible to drive the Bavarian troops from their positions there. There was fierce fighting in the area of the Zella monastery. In the afternoon the Prussian troops withdrew from the occupied positions as ordered.

The advance against Wiesenthal, also with about 5000 men, was intended to secure the flanks of the units advancing towards Zella. Contrary to the order of the day, which had indicated the occupation of the village as the target, the rapidly advancing troops attacked the Nebelberg, southeast of Wiesenthal. Despite considerable losses, they managed to storm this extremely solid position and hold it for a long time. Since the Prussians withdrew in this phase, it was believed that the Bavarians had won a victory.

Aftermath

The fight on the two battlefields did not result in a clear winner. The Prussian armed forces had achieved limited success by occupying Wiesenthal, Nebelberg and Zella, but were unable to force the Bavarians to retreat in general. The withdrawal of the Prussians was only an apparent success for the Bavarian army, since the return to the starting position was planned from the outset.

The fierceness of the fighting made the Bavarian army command feared that a comprehensive attack by the Prussian Main Army was imminent. The order was therefore issued to concentrate the army on 5 July at Kaltennordheim south of Zella. The Prussian attack did not take place, however, because the Main Army continued its advance towards Fulda after a short interruption, thereby distancing itself from the Bavarian army. Under the impression of the heavy defeat of the allied Austrians on 3 July 1866 in the Battle of Königgrätz, the Bavarian army command decided to retreat from Thuringia to Bavaria, because now the defense of Bavarian territory had to be a priority.

Literature

August Karl von Goeben: Das Gefecht bei Dermbach am 4. Juli 1866, Verlag Eduard Zernin, Darmstadt & Leipzig 1870 Digitalisat
Theodor Fontane: Der deutsche Krieg von 1866. Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2001, ISBN 3-934748-75-9
Berichterstatter des Daheim : Der Feldzug der preußischen Main-Armee im Sommer 1866, Verlag Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld und Leipzig 1867
Heinz Helmert; Hansjürgen Usczeck: Preußischdeutsche Kriege von 1864 bis 1871 – Militärischer Verlauf, 6. überarbeitete Auflage, Militärverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-327-00222-3

Related Research Articles

Falkenstein or Falckenstein may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">August Karl von Goeben</span> Prussian general

August Karl Friedrich Christian von Goeben, was a Prussian infantry general, who won the Iron Cross for his service in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.

The Battle of Langensalza was fought on 27 June 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, near Bad Langensalza in what is now modern Germany, between the Kingdom of Hanover and the Kingdom of Prussia. The Hanoverians won the battle but were then surrounded by a larger and reinforced Prussian army. Unable to link up with their Bavarian allies to the south, the Hanoverians surrendered.

The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse. It assumed the name Hesse und bei Rhein in 1816 to distinguish itself from the Electorate of Hesse, which had formed from neighbouring Hesse-Kassel. Colloquially, the grand duchy continued to be known by its former name of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Eduard Ernst Friedrich Hannibal Vogel von Fal(c)kenstein was a Prussian General der Infanterie.

The Battle of Schweinschädel took place during the Austro-Prussian War between Prussia and Austria on 29 June 1866. The IV Army Corps of the Austrian Army under Tassilo Festetics tried to stop the advance of the Prussian 2nd Army under Crown Prince Friedrich, but was defeated by the V Army Corps under General von Steinmetz and had to withdraw.

The Bebra–Baunatal-Guntershausen railway is a two-track, electrified main line in the German state of Hesse, connecting Kassel with Bebra and Gerstungen on the border with Thuringia, as well as with Bad Karlshafen (formerly) and Warburg on the border with Westphalia. It was originally part of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn, which was completed in 1849. It was one of the first railway lines in the Electorate of Hesse and in Germany.

The Palatine uprising was a rebellion that took place in May and June 1849 in the Rhenish Palatinate, then an exclave territory of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Related to uprisings across the Rhine river in Baden, it was part of the widespread Imperial Constitution Campaign (Reichsverfassungskampagne). Revolutionaries worked to defend the Constitution as well as to secede from the Kingdom of Bavaria.

The Battle of Ludwigshafen and the subsequent bombardment of Ludwigshafen lasted from 15 to 18 June 1849 and was part of the Palatine Uprising and Baden Revolution. The young settlement of Ludwigshafen was badly damaged by the shells of the Baden artillery and the resulting fires.

The VIII Army Corps was a mixed corps of the army of the German Confederation, which was made up of contingents from Württemberg, Baden and Hesse. Until 1830 contingents from Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Liechtenstein also belonged to this corps.

The Battle of Tauberbischofsheim was an engagement of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, on the 24 July at Tauberbischofsheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden between troops of the German Confederation and the Kingdom of Prussia. It was part of the campaign of the Main and ended with a Prussian victory.

The Battle of Kissingen was a battle between Bavarian and Prussian troops on 10 July 1866 during the Austrian-Prussian War in and around the town of Kissingen in Bavaria. It was part of the campaign of the Main and ended with a victory of the Prussians.

The Campaign of the Main was a campaign of the Prussian Army in the area of the River Main against the allies of Austria in southern Germany during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

The Battle of Frohnhofen or Battle of Laufach took place on 13 July 1866 as part of the Main Campaign of the Prussian Army in the Austro-Prussian War. In a battle lasting several hours, the Prussian 26th Infantry Brigade repulsed attacks by the 3rd (Hessian) Division of the VIII. Corps of the North German Confederation, with the Hessians suffering heavy losses. It thus secured the Spessart crossings and created favorable conditions for the Battle of Aschaffenburg around the Main crossing the next day.

The Battle of Aschaffenburg, sometimes also called The Skirmishes Near Aschaffenburg, was a battle of the Austro-Prussian War on 14 July 1866 between pitting the armies of Prussia on the one hand and parts of the VIII Corps of the German Federal Army on the other side which primarily consisted of soldiers from the Austrian Empire, Hesse-Darmstadt and Hesse-Kassel.

The Battle of Helmstadt was a battle in the Main Campaign of the Austro-Prussian War on 25 July 1866, between the Prussian Main Army and the VIII Corps of the German Federal Army which consisted of soldiers from the Kingdom of Bavaria.

The Battle of Roßbrunn was the last battle of the Main Campaign in the Austro-Prussian War. It took place on July 26, 1866 near Roßbrunn, Uettingen and Hettstadt.

The Battle of Hundheim took place during the Austro-Prussian War as part of the Campaign of the Main on 23 July 1866 between the combined forces of the Prussia and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha against the armies of Baden.

The Battle of Werbach took place during the Austro-Prussian War as part of the Campaign of the Main on 24 July 1866 between the Prussian Alliance and the German Federal Army.

The Battle of Gerchsheim was an artillery battle during the Austro-Prussian War as part of the Campaign of the Main on July 25, 1866, between the Prussian Alliance and the German Federal Army.

References

1 2 Österreichs Kämpfe im Jahre 1866. Die Kriegsereignisse in Westdeutschland im Jahre 1866. Vom k. k. Generalstab. Bureau für Kriegsgeschichte, 5. Band: Wien 1869; S. 32 und 37 (Digitalisat, retrieved 1 October 2017)

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[OeK1866-1] 1 2 Österreichs Kämpfe im Jahre 1866. Die Kriegsereignisse in Westdeutschland im Jahre 1866. Vom k. k. Generalstab. Bureau für Kriegsgeschichte, 5. Band: Wien 1869; S. 32 und 37 (Digitalisat, retrieved 1 October 2017)

[1]