10 April 1796: French forces under General Jean-Baptiste Cervoni were defeated by Austrian forces led by Feldzeugmeister Johann Peter Beaulieu at the Battle of Voltri in Northern Italy during the Italian campaign of 1796-1797, which was part of the War of the First Coalition.
10 April 1814: British, Portuguese, and Spanish forces under Field-Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington, defeated Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult's forces at the Battle of Toulouse. The battle happened four days after Napoleon's abdication, but the commanders had not yet received the news.
9 April 1815: A treaty was signed between Great Britain and the King of Sardinia. This agreement was an extension of the broader Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance (signed 25 March), aimed at providing financial and military support to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte following his return from Elba.
On 7 April 1814, during the War of the Sixth Coalition, an armistice was declared in the Low Countries after Napoleon's abdication on 6 April. French forces under General Nicolas Joseph Maison in Belgium signed an armistice with the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, ending hostilities there.
"The Devil's Own" 88th Regiment at the Siege of Badajoz, by Richard Caton Woodville
6 April 1812: Anglo-Portuguese forces under Lieutenant-General Arthur Wellesley, Earl of Wellington, captured the Spanish fortress of Badajoz from French forces after heavy casualties. The fall of Badajoz, along with Ciudad Rodrigo, removed the last major French obstacles on the Portuguese border.
5 April 1813: Prusso-Russian forces under General Peter Wittgenstein engaged and defeated French forces commanded by General Eugène de Beauharnais at the Battle of Möckern during the German Campaign of the War of the Sixth Coalition.
📸 Battle of Möckern by Otto Fikentscher, 1863
5 April 1799: Austrian forces led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Pál Kray defeated the French Army of Italy under General Barthélemy Schérer at the Battle of Magnano in northern Italy during the War of the Second Coalition.
4 April 1814: Napoleon signed a conditional abdication at Château de Fontainebleau, following the fall of Paris to the Allies. Pressured by his marshals who refused to march on Paris, Napoleon offered the throne to his son with Marie-Louise as regent. This was rejected for unconditional surrender.
3 April 1801: Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson landed in Copenhagen and secured an armistice with Denmark, following the destruction of the Danish fleet. The British victory broke the League of Armed Neutrality, a Russian-led alliance, which quickly fell apart after Tsar Paul I's assassination.
2 April 1801: A Royal Navy fleet under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the Dano-Norwegian navy under Vice-Admiral Johan Olfert Fischer and Vice-Admiral Steen Andersen Bille at the Battle of Copenhagen during the War of the Second Coalition.
31 March 1814: Allied forces entered Paris following the surrender of the city, effectively ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. This pivotal event, which followed the Battle of Paris, led to the immediate downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte, forcing his abdication and exile to Elba.
On 19 March 1813, Tsar Alexander I and King Frederick William III signed a manifesto declaring the dissolution of the French-aligned Confederation of the Rhine. This document urged German princes to join the anti-Napoleonic alliance or risk losing their states during the War of the Sixth Coalition.
Felician Myrbach's 1906 drawing of officers of the elite Prussian Garde du Corps sharpening their swords on the stone steps of the French Embassy in Berlin in 1806 in an effort to provoke war with Napoleon.
His Majesty's Ship Scourge capturing the French privateer Sans Culotte on 13 March 1793, by Thomas Yates. West of the Isles of Scilly, the Scourge fell in with the Sans Culotte and engaged in a fierce battle. During the fight, the French attempted to board the Scourge but were successfully repelled.
13 March 1811: The Battle of Lissa resulted in a British victory over a numerically superior Franco-Venetian squadron. Fought in the Adriatic Sea near the island of Vis (then Lissa), it solidified British naval control in the region and disrupted Napoleon's ability to supply his army in the Balkans.
On 13 March 1815, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the Allied powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw for escaping Elba and violating the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The Allies agreed to assemble significant forces to secure the defeat of Napoleon.
On the night of 18-19 December 1813, 562 British regulars and Canadian and native militia under Colonel John Murray crossed the Niagara River from Canada and took the American garrison at Fort Niagara by surprise. Murray's forces won the short but fierce battle, capturing the fort at bayonet point.
17 December 1812: The 29th Bulletin of the Grande Armée was published in Paris, revealing the full extent of the French army's annihilation in Russia to the French public. It shocked France and the rest of Europe, as previous bulletins had minimised losses or exaggerated victories.
17 December 1807: The Milan Decree was issued by Napoleon in response to the British Orders in Council (1807), under which ships from any country trading with France could be seized by the Royal Navy. The Decree, an expansion of the Continental System, intensified the economic war against Britain.
In December 1793, the 79th (Highland-Cameron Volunteers) Regiment of Foot paraded for the first time at Fort William in Lochaber. A Letter of Service authorising the raising of the regiment had been issued by the War Office on 17 August, with Alan Cameron of Erracht as major commandant.
15 December 1805: In Vienna, France and Prussia signed the Treaty of Schönbrunn. Under this agreement, Prussia was to enter an offensive-defensive alliance with France, cede certain territories, and in return acquire Hanover.
14 December 1794: The French began the third and ultimately unsuccessful siege of Mainz, a major fortress city on the Rhine River during the War of the First Coalition. The siege would last until October 1795 when Austrian forces launched an attack on the besiegers and drove them off.
13 December 1812: The battered remnants of Napoleon's Grande Armée finally crossed the Niemen River, the border between Russia and the Duchy of Warsaw, marking the end of Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia.
12 December 1812: The remnants of Napoleon's Grande Armée arrived at Kovno (modern-day Kaunas) in a state of severe disarray. Their arrival was marked by a fresh attack from Russian Cossacks, which triggered a widespread panic among the already demoralised soldiers.
11 December 1807: The Siege of Graudenz concluded with a Prussian victory as French and allied forces abandoned the blockade after nearly 11 months. The French finally abandoned the siege once the borders between Prussia and the newly created Duchy of Warsaw were officially defined.
The Battle of Port Louis was a naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars that took place on 11 December 1799 off Port Louis, then on Île de France (modern-day Mauritius). The 74-gun HMS Tremendous and the 50-gun HMS Adamant intercepted the 40-gun Preneuse and destroyed her.
The Treaty of Valençay, signed on 11 December 1813, was Napoleon's attempt to end the Peninsular War by restoring Ferdinand VII to the Spanish throne and securing Spanish neutrality or support against Britain and Portugal. It failed as the Spanish Cortes repudiated it and Ferdinand reneged.
During the War of the Fourth Coalition, the Electorate of Saxony signed the Peace of Posen with France on 10 December 1806. This treaty brought Saxony into the Confederation of the Rhine, an alliance of German states under Napoleon's influence, and transformed the Elector of Saxony into a king.
10 December 1792: The trial of the former French king (referred to as Citizen Louis Capet) opened before the National Convention. He was brought before the convention the following day, charged with high treason and conspiracy against public liberty.
10 December 1813: At the battle of Sehested in Holstein, a Danish army commanded by Prince Frederik of Hesse defeated a Coalition army of Swedish, Prussian, Russian, British, Hanoverian, and Mecklenburg troops led by Major-General Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn.