Battle of Dresden

Battle of Dresden
Part of the War of the Sixth Coalition
Battle of Dresden
Date 26–27 August 1813 Location Dresden, Saxony, present-day Germany Result French victory
Belligerents
French Empire	Austrian Empire Prussia Russian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Napoleon I Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr Michel Ney Joachim Murat Auguste Marmont Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier	Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg Emperor Francis II Friedrich Graf Kleist Frederick William III Tsar Alexander I Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly Peter Wittgenstein Jean Victor Marie Moreau †
Strength
135,000	214,000
Casualties and losses
10,000 dead or wounded	38,000 dead, wounded, or captured, 40 guns

The Battle of Dresden (26–27 August 1813) was a major engagement of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle took place around the city of Dresden in modern-day Germany. With the recent addition of Austria, the Sixth Coalition felt emboldened in their quest to kick the French out of Central Europe. Despite being heavily outnumbered, French forces under Napoleon scored a modest victory against the Allied army led by Field Marshal Schwarzenberg. However, Napoleon's victory did not lead to the collapse of the coalition, and the lack of effective French cavalry units precluded a major pursuit. A few days after the battle, the Allies surrounded and captured a French corps at the Battle of Kulm.

On 16 August, Napoleon had sent Marshal Saint-Cyr's corps to fortify and hold Dresden in order to hinder allied movements and to serve as a possible base for his own manoeuvres. He planned to strike against the interior lines of his enemies and defeat them in detail, before they could combine their full strength. He had some 300,000 men and 800 cannons against allied forces totaling over 450,000 and 1200 cannons. But the Coalition avoided battle with Napoleon himself, choosing to attack his subordinate commanders instead (see the Trachenberg Plan). On 23 August, at the Battle of Grossbeeren, south of Berlin, Crown Prince Charles of Sweden (formerly French Marshal Bernadotte, Napoleon's own Marshal) defeated his old comrade Marshal Oudinot. And on 26 August, Prussian Marshal Blücher defeated Marshal MacDonald at the Katzbach.

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