Napoleonic Wars, Battle of Ebelsberg, 1809

Napoleonic Wars, Battle of Ebelsberg, 1809

The Battle of Ebelsberg, known in French accounts as the Battle of Ebersberg, was fought during the War of the Fifth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. Separated from the main Austrian army by the battles of Abensberg and Landshut, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Hiller retreated east to Linz with the three left wing corps. The leading elements of Marshal Masséna's corps overran Hiller's rear guard on the west bank of the Traun on the morning of May 3, 1809. In the rout that followed, the first French infantry brigade rushed the 1800 foot long bridge and got into the streets of Ebelsberg. To keep from being thrown into the river, the French committed an entire division to the street fight, in which the Ebelsberg castle loomed as the key position. After Masséna threw in a second division, the French finally ejected the Austrians from the castle. Unwilling to recapture the town, Hiller ordered his artillery to set fire to the place. In the blaze that followed, hundreds of wounded soldiers from both armies died. The battle and the heavy casualties were unnecessary because Hiller was already flanked out of position by a second French corps that crossed the Traun upstream.

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