{
 "slug": "eckmuhl",
 "title": "Battle of Eckmühl",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "1775–1815",
 "date_text": "22 April 1809 (preceded by the fighting at Schierling on 21 April)",
 "start": "1809-04-22",
 "end": "1809-04-22",
 "war": "Napoleonic Wars",
 "cdb90_war": "THE NAPOLEONIC WARS",
 "place": {
  "name": "Eckmühl (Eggmühl), on the Große Laber, Bavaria, with Unterlaichling, Oberlaichling and the road to Regensburg",
  "lat": 48.8438,
  "lon": 12.1823,
  "wikidata": "Q700860"
 },
 "lede": "On 22 April 1809 Napoleon marched his army north in a few hours to join Davout and broke Archduke Charles's army at Eckmühl in Bavaria. The Austrians escaped over the Danube at Regensburg, so the victory was not decisive.",
 "result": "French victory, but the Austrian army escaped across the Danube",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker loss",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "Austrian army under Archduke Charles",
   "commanders": [
    "Archduke Charles",
    "Johann Kollowrat (II Corps)",
    "Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein (I Reserve Corps)",
    "Friedrich Hohenzollern-Hechingen (III Corps)",
    "Franz Rosenberg-Orsini (IV Corps)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 75000,
    "low": 46832,
    "high": 75000,
    "source": "s1"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 11000,
    "low": 10700,
    "high": 11000,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "French army and German allies under Napoleon",
   "commanders": [
    "Napoleon I",
    "Louis-Nicolas Davout (III Corps)",
    "François Lefebvre (Bavarian VII Corps)",
    "Dominique Vandamme (Württemberg troops)",
    "Jean Lannes (Provisional Corps, on the pursuit towards Landshut)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 70000,
    "low": 36000,
    "high": 70000,
    "source": "s1"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 3000,
    "low": 3000,
    "high": 3000,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "In the spring of 1809 Austria went to war with France again. Archduke Charles's army invaded Bavaria on 10 April. Napoleon, who was not ready, reached the front from Paris on 17 April, the day after Charles's central force crossed the Isar at Landshut. His marshal Berthier had mismanaged the concentration of the army, leaving it scattered. The article calls it the first time since Napoleon had taken the imperial crown that he had lost the strategic initiative.\n\nHe won it back in a few days. Davout won a hard fight at Teugen-Hausen on 19 April; on 20 April Napoleon broke the Austrian left at Abensberg, and on 21 April Hiller's wing, which had withdrawn to Landshut, was beaten there. Those blows split the Austrian army. Charles brought his III and IV Corps north to form a line about 14 km long from Abbach on the Danube to Eckmühl on the Große Laber.\n\nNeither side knew much about the other. Napoleon assumed that the bulk of the Austrians stood at Landshut and covered the road to Vienna. And, unknown to him, Charles had taken Regensburg on 20 April, capturing the French garrison and the Danube bridge. That let him bring his right wing, under Bellegarde and Kollowrat, across the river.",
  "forces": "On 22 April the Austrian line was the army's left and centre: Hohenzollern's III Corps (15,700) and Rosenberg's IV Corps (21,460), with Kollowrat's II Corps (28,168) and Liechtenstein's reserve of grenadiers and cuirassiers coming south from Regensburg. Bellegarde's I Corps (27,653) was left across the Danube without orders and took no part, which the article calls inexplicable. Charles planned to envelop and destroy Davout's corps. The total on the field was about 75,000, of whom fewer than 46,832 were engaged.\n\nThe French and German side was a mixture. Davout's III Corps stood on the Laber, with Lefebvre's Bavarian VII Corps in support; together they had about 36,000. Vandamme led the German troops who stormed Eckmühl itself, and the heavy cavalry divisions of Nansouty and Saint-Sulpice came up later in the day. Lannes's Provisional Corps, with Württemberg troops and cuirassiers, and Masséna's II and IV Corps were intended for the pursuit and for crossing the Isar. Napoleon thought the Austrians in front of Davout were 'a curtain of three regiments', although Davout reported otherwise.\n\nThe armies fought on rolling, wooded country. Napoleon's advantage was his speed: he marched his army about 29 km north in a few hours.",
  "course": "**21 April: Schierling.** The day before, Davout and Charles had fought a meeting engagement at Schierling, near Eckmühl. Bodart credits the French with victory; Castle and Epstein describe it as an indecisive, back-and-forth affair. Charles had meanwhile drawn III and IV Corps into a line about 14 km long, from Abbach on the Danube to Eckmühl on the Große Laber, with the army's right wing now able to rejoin him through Regensburg.\n\n**The Austrian plan.** With Regensburg in his hands, Charles meant to envelop and destroy Davout's corps. III and IV Corps would hold the left and pin Davout, while Kollowrat's II Corps and Liechtenstein's reserve advanced south from Regensburg against Davout's exposed flank.\n\n**The French plan.** Napoleon's plan was for Masséna's two corps to cross the Isar and block the Austrian retreat, while Lannes, the Württembergers and two cuirassier divisions (about 51,000 men) pursued the beaten Austrians. Davout, supported by Lefebvre, would attack in the morning.\n\n**The march.** Napoleon set his army moving about 2 am on 22 April. His men marched about 29 km (18 miles) north in a few hours, so reinforcements reached Davout sooner than promised. The Austrian leading elements met Montbrun's cavalry, helped by the hills and woods. Rosenberg became alarmed when Davout's troops did not move to join the fight, and his flank guard was then brushed aside by French reinforcements. CDB90 gives the fighting from about 1:30 pm to 7:30 pm.\n\n**Eckmühl.** Vandamme's German troops stormed the bridge at Eckmühl and took the town's château after strong Austrian resistance.\n\n**Unterlaichling.** Davout attacked the Austrian centre at Unterlaichling and the woods to the north. The 10th Léger fought hard there until Bavarian troops under Deroy reinforced it and took the positions.\n\n**Oberlaichling.** North of Unterlaichling, Friant and Saint-Hilaire pushed back the defenders of Oberlaichling, overran a redoubt held by Hungarian grenadiers, and forced Charles to order a general retreat. Charles did not commit Kollowrat's or Liechtenstein's forces.\n\n**The cavalry fight.** The retreat became a series of cavalry clashes. The Vincent Chevau-légers and Stipsic Hussars held the Bettelberg ridge until Bavarian infantry stopped them. Napoleon ordered the heavy cavalry divisions of Saint-Sulpice and Nansouty forward. They took fire from Austrian artillery, reached the guns and sabred the gunners.\n\n**The road to Regensburg.** At a chokepoint on the road, three French cuirassier divisions with German light cavalry attacked. The Austrians were outnumbered and fell back. More French cavalry struck their flank, and the surviving Austrian horse fled north to Regensburg.",
  "aftermath": "The French won, but, as the article says, it was not a decisive engagement. Napoleon had hoped to trap the Austrians between Davout and the Danube, but he did not know that Regensburg had fallen, and that gave them a route across the river. Charles's army got away. The French are credited with 10,700 Austrian casualties for 3,000 of their own, though the infobox casualty lines are not labelled by side.\n\nThe march to Eckmühl also turned Napoleon's army from a north–south axis to an east–west one, and the article credits this with the defeat of the Austrians. Later operations retook Regensburg, drove the Austrians from southern Germany, and led to the fall of Vienna; a council of war after Eckmühl led to the battle of Regensburg. Napoleon is alleged to have called the manoeuvres that led to Eckmühl the finest he ever made.\n\nThe Austrian failure to use II Corps and the reserve, and to give Bellegarde orders, is part of what gets argued over. Even the preliminary fight is disputed: Bodart calls Schierling a French win, Castle and Epstein call it indecisive.",
  "wargaming": "Eckmühl is a battle of timing, and it plays well as a large scenario at about 1:60 or as a small one at Unterlaichling and Eckmühl itself. The main question is whether the French arrive in time. A game can use hidden reinforcement rules: Napoleon's army is on a forced march and arrives on a die roll, and the Austrian player sees only the units already on the table.\n\nThe Austrian player holds the key decision that Charles did not make, which is to commit Kollowrat's II Corps and Liechtenstein's reserve. With about 28,000 more men in the line, the French assault on the Laichling positions is a much harder fight. A cavalry rule matters at the end: the French heavy cavalry of Nansouty and Saint-Sulpice sabre the gunners, and the pursuit toward Regensburg needs a rule for cuirassiers attacking a chokepoint on the road.\n\nTerrain does a lot: the Große Laber, the bridge at Eckmühl, the woods and the Bettelberg ridge. Two what-ifs are obvious. If Bellegarde's I Corps had crossed, the Austrians would have had a fourth corps on the field. If Napoleon had known of Regensburg's fall, he might have changed his plan to cut off the Austrians. That is a lot to try in one game, but a scenario can give the French player the Regensburg bridge as an objective."
 },
 "images": [
  {
   "file": "File:Battle of Eckmühl.jpg",
   "kind": "painting",
   "caption": "The Battle of Eckmühl, by Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Battle_of_Eckm%C3%BChl.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Battle_of_Eckm%C3%BChl.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Eckm%C3%BChl.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti",
   "credit": "Own work",
   "width": 900
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Eckmuhl April 21.jpg",
   "kind": "map",
   "caption": "Location of forces at midnight, 21–22 April 1809.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Eckmuhl_April_21.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Eckmuhl_April_21.jpg/960px-Eckmuhl_April_21.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eckmuhl_April_21.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "History Department, USMA",
   "credit": "http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/napoleon/napoleon%20pages/napoleon%20map%2041.htm",
   "width": 1236
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Louis nicolas davout.jpg",
   "kind": "portrait",
   "caption": "Louis-Nicolas Davout, whose III Corps carried the fighting.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Louis_nicolas_davout.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Louis_nicolas_davout.jpg/960px-Louis_nicolas_davout.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Louis_nicolas_davout.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "After Pierre-Claude Gautherot / Tito Marzocchi de Bellucci",
   "credit": "http://perso.club-internet.fr/ameliefr/E-Davout.html",
   "width": 1275
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Anton Einsle - Erherzog Carl von Österreich.jpg",
   "kind": "portrait",
   "caption": "Archduke Charles of Austria.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Anton_Einsle_-_Erherzog_Carl_von_%C3%96sterreich.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Anton_Einsle_-_Erherzog_Carl_von_%C3%96sterreich.jpg/960px-Anton_Einsle_-_Erherzog_Carl_von_%C3%96sterreich.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anton_Einsle_-_Erherzog_Carl_von_%C3%96sterreich.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Anton Einsle",
   "credit": "Neumeister Kunstauktionen, München, 30 March 2011, lot 613 via Arcadja auctions results",
   "width": 1210
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  {
   "id": "s1",
   "title": "Battle of Eckmühl (English Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Eckm%C3%BChl",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s2",
   "title": "Bodart, Gaston, Militär-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon (1618-1905), Stern, 1908 (p. 399), seen only as cited in s1",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s3",
   "title": "Gill, John H., 1809: Thunder on the Danube, vol. 1, Frontline Books, 2014 (pp. 257, 279), seen only as cited in s1",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s4",
   "title": "Castle, Ian, Eggmühl 1809: Storm over Bavaria, Osprey, 1998, seen only as cited in s1",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s5",
   "title": "Epstein, Robert M., Napoleon's Last Victory and the Emergence of Modern War, University Press of Kansas, 1994, seen only as cited in s1",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s6",
   "title": "Battle of Abensberg (English Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Abensberg",
   "kind": "web"
  }
 ],
 "cdb90": [
  124
 ],
 "order": 77,
 "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/eckmuhl/",
 "oob": [],
 "oob_lwtv": [],
 "scenarios": [],
 "orbat": null,
 "orbat_lwtv": null,
 "reading": {
  "prose": [],
  "history": [],
  "fiction": [],
  "poetry": []
 },
 "reading_lwtv": {
  "prose": [],
  "poetry": []
 },
 "photos": [],
 "photos_kind": "photographs",
 "newspapers": null
}