Battle of Issy

Part of the Napoleonic Wars (Seventh Coalition 1815)

Date	2 and 3 July 1815
Location	Issy, France
Result	Prussian victory

Belligerents

Kingdom of Prussia

First French Empire

Commanders and leaders

Field Marshal Prince von Blücher

Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout

Casualties and losses

more than 3,000

The Battle of Issy was fought on 2 and 3 July 1815 in and around the village of Issy, a short distance south west of Paris. The result was a victory for Prussian Field Marshal Prince von Blücher over a French army commanded by Marshal Davout, Prince of Eckmühl.

After French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the armies of the Duke of Wellington, Field Marshal von Blücher, and other Seventh Coalition forces, advanced upon Paris. Wellington and von Blücher continued their operations up to the gates of Paris and, on 30 June, had recourse to a movement which proved decisive to the fate of the city. Marshal von Blücher, having taken the village of Aubervilliers, or Vertus, made a movement to his right, and, crossing the Seine at Saint-Germain below the capital, threw his whole force upon the south side of the city where no preparations had been made to resist an enemy.

This was a thunderbolt to the French; it was then that their weakness and the Coalition's strength were seen most conspicuously, because at that moment the armies of Wellington and von Blücher were separated and the whole French army was between them, yet the French could not move to prevent their junction.

After the war Lazare Carnot (Napoleon's Minister of Internal Affairs) blamed Napoleon for not fortifying Paris on the south side, and claimed he had forewarned Napoleon of this danger. The French were thus obliged to abandon all the works they had constructed for the defence of the capital, and moved their army across the Seine to meet the Prussians.

Although a Prussian brigade was defeated in a skirmish at Rocquencourt near Versailles, the movement of the Prussians to the right was not checked. On the morning of 2 July, the Prussian I Corps under the command of General Graf von Zieten had its right wing positioned at Plessis-Piquet, its left at Meudon, with its reserves at Versailles.

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Wikipedia