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Battles commanded by Napoleon

  • Battle of Caldiero (1796)The Battle of Caldiero on the 12th of November 1796 handed Napoleon Bonaparte one of his rarest setbacks on the Italian peninsula.
  • Battle of CevaOn the 16th of April 1796, General Pierre Augereau led French Republican troops straight into a fortified ridge near the town of Ceva, in what is now…
  • Battle of RoveretoOn the 26th of August, orders arrived from Emperor Francis II to immediately attempt a second relief of the fortress of Mantua.
  • Siege of El ArishIn the beginning of 1799, a force of 2,160 soldiers under the command of Jean Reynier marched towards the Ottoman fortress of El Arish.
  • Battle of La RothièreNapoleon stood at the edge of disaster in November 1813. His army had just suffered a crushing defeat at Leipzig, forcing him to retreat across the Rhine…
  • Battle of Shubra KhitThe Battle of Shubra Khit unfolded on the 13th of July 1798, on a stretch of Nile riverbank that most of the French soldiers had never heard of two weeks…
  • Battle of Château-Thierry (1814)On the 12th of February 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte stood within 75 kilometers of Paris, chasing two battered Allied corps toward a single bridge over the Marne…
  • Battle of LaonThe town of Laon rose over 100 meters above the surrounding countryside on the 9th of March 1814. This flat-topped hill provided a commanding view for anyone…
  • Revolt of CairoIn 1798, Napoleon led the French army into Egypt. He swiftly captured and occupied Alexandria and Cairo. The campaign began with a bold military move across…
  • Battle of ChampaubertOn the 10th of February 1814, a 19-year-old French conscript with fewer than six months of military service walked up to one of Russia's senior generals and…
  • Battle of MontmirailThe Battle of Montmirail, fought on the 11th of February 1814, was one of Napoleon's most daring gambles. With only 70,000 soldiers facing roughly 200,000…
  • Battle of HeilsbergThe Battle of Heilsberg was fought near a town on the Łyna River on the 10th of June 1807, and it cost the French army an estimated 12,000 men.
  • Battle of Reims (1814)On the 9th of March 1814, Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher defeated Emperor Napoleon's army at Laon. The French lost 4,000 killed and wounded plus…
  • Battle of BassanoFeldmarschall Wurmser received a direct order from Emperor Francis II to relieve Mantua at once. The first attempt to break the siege had failed at the…
  • Battle of BorghettoThe Battle of Borghetto nearly ended Napoleon Bonaparte's career before it had truly begun. On the 30th of May 1796, somewhere along the narrow bridge at…
  • Battle of Landshut (1809)The first battle of Landshut occurred on the 16th of April 1809. Archduke Louis sent his vanguard under Joseph Radetzky against Bernhard Deroy's Bavarian III…
  • Battle of MillesimoThe Battle of Millesimo, fought on the 13th and the 14th of April 1796, was not quite the battle Napoleon Bonaparte said it was.
  • Battle of Arcis-sur-AubeThe Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube unfolded over two days in March 1814, and it nearly ended with the capture of Napoleon Bonaparte himself.
  • Battle of EckmühlThe Battle of Eckmühl, fought on the 21st and the 22nd of April 1809, began as a potential disaster for Napoleon and ended with him calling the surrounding…
  • Second Battle of DegoNapoleon Bonaparte stood at the edge of a new campaign in northwestern Italy during April 1796. His army numbered roughly 15,000 men after defeating the…
  • Battle of VauchampsThe Battle of Vauchamps, fought on the 14th of February 1814, ended a remarkable six-day stretch in which Napoleon repeatedly beat the same enemy.
  • Second Battle of BassanoOn the 6th of November 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte's French Army of Italy slammed into a Habsburg force near Bassano del Grappa in Northern Italy and came away…
  • Battle of CastiglioneOn the 4th of July, the formal siege of Mantua began. This fortress held by Joseph Franz Canto d'Irles's Austrian garrison and 179 cannons became the focal…
  • Battle of HanauThe Battle of Hanau lasted just two days, the 30th and the 31st of October 1813, yet it decided whether Napoleon Bonaparte would escape Germany alive.
  • Battle of MormantThe Battle of Mormant on the 17th of February 1814 began before sunrise, with French infantry advancing at five in the morning toward a Russian force that…
  • Battle of Saint-DizierThe Battle of Saint-Dizier, fought on the 26th of March 1814, holds a peculiar place in military history: it was a French victory that helped lose a war.
  • Second Battle of SaorgioKing Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia sat on a throne that felt increasingly precarious in the spring of 1792. Two of his territories, the County of Nice and…
  • Battle of Lützen (1813)On the 2nd of May 1813, near the town of Lützen in Saxony, Napoleon Bonaparte rode among disordered conscripts on a battlefield that was going badly wrong.
  • Battle of Tarvis (1797)On the 2nd of February 1797, Feldmarschall Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser surrendered the fortress of Mantua to French forces.
  • Battle of Bautzen (1813)The Battle of Bautzen, fought on the 20th and the 21st of May 1813, came down to a single question: could Napoleon finally destroy the Prusso-Russian army in…
  • Battle of Mount Tabor (1799)Napoleon Bonaparte stood in Nazareth on the 16th of April 1799, staring at a map that showed his army trapped between Acre and a massive Ottoman force.
  • Battle of FombioThe Battle of Fombio began on the 7th of May 1796, when a column of French grenadiers seized a ferry near Piacenza and crossed the Po River in the early…
  • Battle of the PyramidsOn the 2nd of July 1798, French troops landed in Ottoman-controlled Egypt and seized Alexandria. General Bonaparte marched his army across the scorching…
  • Siege of Mantua (1796–1797)The Siege of Mantua began on the 4th of June 1796 and would not end until the 2nd of February 1797 , a grinding, eight-month ordeal that decided who would…
  • Battle of AbensbergOn the 10th of April 1809, Archduke Charles led his army across the Inn River and into the Kingdom of Bavaria. This invasion placed the forces of France and…
  • Battle of FriedlandThe Battle of Friedland on the 14th of June 1807 opened with a trap that snapped shut on the wrong army. Russian General Levin August von Bennigsen spotted…
  • Battle of LignyThe Battle of Ligny, fought on the 16th of June 1815 near a small Belgian stream, marked the last time Napoleon Bonaparte would ever win a battle.
  • Battle of MontereauThe Battle of Montereau was fought on the 18th of February 1814, and it turned on a single bridge. Two bridges, actually.
  • Battle of RatisbonNapoleon I summoned his first council of war on the night of the 22nd of April 1809. The meeting took place about 18 kilometers south of Ratisbon after his…
  • 13 VendémiaireIn March 1793, armed insurrection erupted in the Vendée region of western France. This uprising stemmed from the Revolution's strongly anti-Catholic stance…
  • Battle of Aspern-EsslingOn the 10th of April 1809, Austrian troops under Archduke Charles crossed the border into Bavaria. This action began hostilities without a formal declaration…
  • Battle of CraonneOn the 7th of March 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte stood on the Chemin des Dames ridge with roughly 30,000 men and a problem he had not anticipated.
  • Battle of DresdenThe Battle of Dresden began on the 26th of August, 1813, and within two days it had produced one of Napoleon's most tactically impressive victories.
  • Battle of RivoliThe Battle of Rivoli, fought on the 14th of January 1797, nearly ended in catastrophe for France. By eleven in the morning, an Austrian column under the…
  • Battle of BrienneThe Battle of Brienne on the 29th of January 1814 took place at a site Napoleon knew intimately. He had entered the Royal School of Brienne as a boy of nine…
  • Battle of MontenotteOn the 27th of March 1796, a young General Bonaparte arrived in Nice to take over the Army of Italy. His army included 63,000 troops, but only 37,600 men and…
  • Battle of LonatoNapoleon Bonaparte was outnumbered more than two to one, standing at Lonato with roughly 1,200 French soldiers against 3,000 Austrians who had marched…
  • Battle of UlmIn 1805, the United Kingdom, Austria, Sweden and Russia formed the Third Coalition against France. An Austrian army of 72,000 men under Karl Mack von…
  • Battle of AusterlitzThe Battle of Austerlitz, fought on the 2nd of December 1805, began with a French army that was outnumbered, tired, and deliberately pretending to be weaker…
  • Battle of LodiThe Italian campaign of 1796 began with French forces moving rapidly through northern Italy. Napoleon Bonaparte needed to force a crossing at Lodi to…