Key Facts
- Duration
- 18 November – 22 December 1793
- Theater
- Alsace, Bas-Rhin department, France
- Coalition composition
- Habsburg Austria, Hesse-Kassel, Electoral Bavaria, French Royalists
- Key turning point
- Battle of Froeschwiller, 22 December 1793
- Coalition withdrawal
- Wurmser retreated from Zorn to Moder to Lauter River
Strategic Narrative Overview
Beginning 18 November 1793, Pichegru launched continuous frontal assaults on Wurmser's Coalition lines, slowly forcing them back. The Battle of Berstheim was a notable action in this grinding offensive. Simultaneously, Lazare Hoche's Army of the Moselle, unopposed by Prussian forces that failed to pin it down, began pressing the Coalition's western flank, placing Wurmser in an untenable two-front situation he lacked the reserves to address.
01 / The Origins
Following the outbreak of the War of the First Coalition, a Coalition army composed of Habsburg Austrian, Hesse-Kassel, Electoral Bavarian, and French Royalist troops broke through French frontier defenses at the First Battle of Wissembourg on 13 October 1793, overrunning Alsace as far as the Zorn River. The French government responded urgently by appointing Jean-Charles Pichegru to command the Army of the Rhine and ordering an immediate offensive to reclaim the lost territory.
03 / The Outcome
On 22 December 1793, Hoche's forces turned the Coalition's western flank at the Battle of Froeschwiller, compelling Wurmser to abandon his Moder River line and withdraw to the Lauter River. This ended the battle and effectively reversed the Coalition's earlier conquest of Alsace. Fighting continued immediately afterward with the Second Battle of Wissembourg on 25–26 December 1793.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
2 belligerents
Jean-Charles Pichegru, Lazare Hoche.
Side B
4 belligerents
Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser.
Kinetic Engagement Axis
Scroll horizontally to view full axis. Events plotted relatively.