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Encyclopedia of Battles

Encyclopedia of Battles

Introduction

On these ever growing pages you will find information about the battles and treaties of the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars.

Much of this information has its origin in the Discussion Forums of this site. Please help us with more information so that this list will get bigger and better in the future. Thanks to all of you and special thanks to Bob Burnham, Max Sewell, Tony Jaques, Tom Holmberg, Thomas Hemmann, Daniel Duldig, Tim Schmidt, Pierre Brial, François Lo Presti, J.M. Toledo, Daniel Caballero, Bernabé Saiz, Mikhail Makarov, Chris Holden, David McCracken and George F. Nafziger.

The period covered here is mostly divided into the following stages:

1792/04/20 – 1797/10/17: War of the 1st Coalition, most famous battle(s): Valmy, Jemappes, Siege of Toulon, Lodi, Castiglione, Arcole, Rivoli

1798/05/19 – 1801/08/30: Expedition to Egypt and Syria, most famous battle(s): Pyramids, Naval Battle in the Bay of Abukir

1799/03/12 – 1802/03/27: War of the 2nd Coalition, most famous battle(s): Novi, Zürich, Hohenlinden, Marengo

1805/09/08 – 1805/12/26: War of the 3rd Coalition, most famous battle(s): Ulm, Austerlitz

1806/10/07 – 1807/07/09: War of the 4th Coalition, most famous battle(s): Jena, Auerstädt, Eylau, Friedland

1807/10/18 – 1814/04/30: Peninsular War, most famous battle(s): Talavera, Valencia, Bailén, Saragossa, Albuera, Salamanca, Vittoria

1809/04/10 – 1809/10/14: War against Austria of 1809, most famous battle(s): Eckmühl, Aspern/Essling, Wagram

1812/04/?? – 1813/03/06: War against Russia, most famous battle(s): Smolensk, Borodino (Moskova), Berezina

1813/04/30 – 1813/10/31: Wars of Liberation, German Part, most famous battle(s): Dresden, Lützen, Bautzen, Leipzig

1813/12/21 – 1814/03/31: Wars of Liberation, French Part, most famous battle(s): Brienne, La Rothière, Montmirail, Arcis-Sur-Aube

1815/06/11 – 1815/07/04: The 100 Days, with the Waterloo Campaign, most famous battle(s): Ligny, Waterloo

1792 – 1815: Other actions and Naval Battles, the events that are not classified in one of the above lists.

Recommended books

Sources of figures and information can be found in this bibliography. Here you can find the references indicated in the battle lists as well as many other works. Most of these sources were recommended in one of the discussion forums.
So if you search for further informations or if you want to know where the figures of the battle lists come from then please have a look into this list.

Restrictions and conventions:

  • You will not find here complete abstracts of the different campaigns
  • Napoleon is always referred as Napoleon (and not as Bonaparte) while Wellington is always referred as Wellington (and not as Wellesley)
  • Names of locations are written in the original language whenever possible.
  • The pure seige of a city resp. the occupation of a city as for example Vienna in 1805/1809, Berlin in 1806, Rome in 1808 or Moscow in 1812 are not included as long as it is not connected with a combat or a siege. Sieges as Mantua or Danzig are, of course, included.
  • The headings of the different wars include a separate section with the french campaigns of these wars.
  • All naval battles are in the “Other actions and Naval Battles” section. Even if they could be classified as parts of one of the different wars (-> Battle of Aboukir Bay/Battle of the Nile is not in the “Expedition to Egypt and Syria” part)
  • There are no strict definition rules concerning the terms “battle”, “action”, “engagement”, “clash” etc.
  • The abbreviations used are: KIA = Killed in action, WIA = Wounded in action, MIA = Missed in action), < means “less than…”, > means “more than…” , <> means “approximately …”, ?? means unknown