Summary

Medal Bataille de Wurtchen 'Battle of Wurtchen', Issued by France, 1813
Artist: Jean Pierre Droz and Nicholas Guy Antoine Brenet
Minted by Paris Mint

Obverse Description

Laureate head facing right; around, NAPOLEON EMP. ET ROI.; on neck truncation, DROZ F.; below, DENON DIREX / M.DCCCVI.

Reverse Description

At centre, rifles piled together; on the top of their bayonets, a fringed tablet bearing the letter N surmounted by a small figure of Victory, seated and holding a wreath in her right hand and a palm branch in her left; on each side of the rifles are two standards, the imperial eagle on the top of each, the whole is bound together near the tops of the rifles by sashes; on the ground emerging from the left of the rifle stack, a dead horse; the foreground is covered with helmets, hats, caps, swords, saddles, bugles, etc.; around, INFANTERIE FRANCHISE BATAILLE DE WURTCHEN; in exergue, XXI. MAI MDCCCXIII.; below, in small lettering, BRENET F. DENON D.

Edge Description

Plain

Significance

"On the 21st, Napoleon marched towards the heights, three quarters of a league in advance of Bautzen, at 5 o'clock in the morning. At eleven, the Duke of Treviso advanced lOOO toises from his position, and engaged in a dreadful cannonade before all the redoubts and entrenchments of the allies, and by the manoeuvres of the French they were kept in a state of uncertainty respecting the real point of attack. At length, the allies finding that the French had succeeded in turning their right, began to retreat, and this retreat soon became a flight: and at 7 o'clock in the evening, the Prince of Moskwa and General Laureston arrived at Wurtschen. The allies being now forced from all their positions, left the French masters of the field of battle, who found it covered with dead and wounded; they also took several thousand prisoners" Laskey p.221-222

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