This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2015) |
Capture of Porrentruy | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the War of the First Coalition | |||||||
![]() Count Custine, who seized Porrentuy and would later lead the Army of the Rhine | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
![]() | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
![]() ![]() | ![]() | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
~3000 | 400 |
The capture of Porrentruy was a siege of the Swiss town of Porrentruy. The town was held by Austria and attacked by the French. The event occurred on 28 April 1792 and resulted in victory for the French forces. This engagement marked the commencement of the War of the First Coalition.
On 20 April 1792, France declared war on Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who had presented Louis XVI of France with an ultimatum concerning the possessionary princes of the Alsace five days prior. [1] Coalition (French) forces were sluggish in exploiting their advantage, prompting Nicolas Luckner, commander of the Armée du Rhin, to opt for an offensive against the stronghold of Porrentruy to avert an invasion. At the far end of the Basse-Alsace, situated between Lauterbourg, Landau and Weissembourg, Luckner marshaled 12,000 men.
Luckner instructed Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine, to lead an advance into the province of Porrentruy, then under the jurisdiction of the Prince-Bishopric of Basel. This measure aimed to safeguard this section of the French border from encroachment. [1] Accompanied by Colonel Charles Grangier de La Ferriere, commander of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, as his second-in-command, Custine led a force of 2,000 comprising three infantry battalions, an artillery company and approximately 300 dragoons. They marched into the province and demanded surrender. Although the garrison consisted of 400 Austrian soldiers, the Prince-Bishop chose not to resist a siege and relocated the garrison to Bienne. Consequently, Custine captured Porrentruy without encountering resistance and was able to fortify his position on Laumont mountain, effectively safeguarding the valleys of Fribourg, Bienne, Basel and Solothurn.
The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797 initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that succeeded it. They were only loosely allied and fought without much apparent coordination or agreement; each power had its eye on a different part of France it wanted to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurred.
The French Revolutionary Wars began on 20 April 1792 when the French Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria. This launched the War of the First Coalition.
Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine was a French general. As a young officer in the French Royal Army, he served in the Seven Years' War. In the American Revolutionary War he joined Rochambeau's Expédition Particulière supporting the American colonists. Following the successful Virginia campaign and the Battle of Yorktown, he returned to France and rejoined his unit in the Royal Army.
The Battle of Héricourt was fought on 13 November 1474 near Héricourt, Burgundy, as part of the Burgundian Wars. It resulted in victory for the Swiss Confederacy and its allies over the Burgundian State.
In the First Battle of Porto the French under Marshal Soult defeated the Portuguese, under General Parreiras, outside the city of Porto during the Peninsular War. Soult followed up his success by storming the city.
The Army of the Rhine was formed in December 1791, for the purpose of bringing the French Revolution to the German states along the Rhine River. During its first year in action (1792), under command of Adam Philippe Custine, the Army of the Rhine participated in several victories, including Mainz, Frankfurt and Speyer. Subsequently, the army underwent several reorganizations and merged with the Army of the Moselle to form the Army of the Rhine and Moselle on 20 April 1795.
Ferdinand Karl Friedrich Freiherr von Wintzingerode was a German nobleman and officer in several different armies of the Napoleonic Wars, finally ending up as a general in the Imperial Russian Army and fighting in the War of the Sixth Coalition against the French invasion of Russia and the subsequent campaigns in Germany and France. He appears in Tolstoy's War and Peace.
The Battle of Ostrołęka was fought on 16 February 1807 between a First French Empire force under General of Division Anne Jean Marie René Savary and a Russian force under Lieutenant General Ivan Essen. The French defeated the Russians and forced them to retreat to the east to Wyoki Mazowiecki. Weather conditions caused both sides to go into winter quarters immediately after the battle, which occurred during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. Ostrołęka is located in the northeast part of modern Poland, but in 1807 it belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia.
The Battle of Pombal was a sharp but ultimately indecisive skirmish fought at the eponymous town during Marshal Masséna's retreat from the Lines of Torres Vedras, the first in a series of lauded rearguard actions fought by Michel Ney. The French were pursued by Wellington and his British-Portuguese army but the Allied advance was energetically contested by Ney's efforts, preventing Wellington from crushing Masséna's army when it was critically vulnerable.
The siege of Condé saw a force made up of Habsburg Austrians and French Royalists commanded by Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg lay siege to a Republican French garrison led by Jean Nestor de Chancel. After a blockade lasting about three months the French surrendered the fortress. The operation took place during the War of the First Coalition, part of a larger conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars. Condé-sur-l'Escaut, France is located near the Belgium border about 14 kilometres (9 mi) northeast of Valenciennes.
The siege of Mainz was a short engagement at the beginning of the War of the First Coalition. The victorious French army of Custine seized the town on October 21, 1792, after three days of siege. The French occupied Mainz, and tried to install the Republic of Mainz there.
Marc Armand Elisée Scherb, was a brigadier general in the French Revolutionary Wars.
François Barthélemy Guillaume Laurent, 24 August 1750 in Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye (Nièvre) – 14 September 1825 in Paris, was a French general of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
Charles Grangier de la Ferrière was a French general of the War of the First Coalition.
The Battle of Marquain was a conflict between Austria and the Kingdom of France during the War of the First Coalition. It took place on 29 April 1792 and ended in a French defeat.
Baron Charles-Joseph Christiani was a French Army Maréchal de camp who served during the Napoleonic Wars.
Jacques-Théodore Parisot was a 19th-century French soldier and historian of the French navy, founder and head of the Historical Section of the ministry of Marine.
The Battle of Limburg, also called the Battle of Friedberg, was a battle of the War of the First Coalition, itself part of the French Revolutionary Wars. It took place on 9 November 1792 at Limburg an der Lahn between French Revolutionary forces and Prussian troops, ending in a French victory.
Joseph Perrin was a French general of the Revolutionary Wars.
47°25′05″N7°04′40″E / 47.4181°N 7.0778°E