Battle of Courtrai (1814)

The Battle of Courtrai (31 March 1814) saw Johann von Thielmann's Kingdom of Saxony troops and a few Prussians encounter an Imperial French force under Nicolas Joseph Maison near Kortrijk (Courtrai), a city south-west of Ghent in what is now Belgium. Thielmann attacked only to find himself facing the bulk of Maison's I Corps. The action ended in a rout of the Saxons, most of whom were under fire for the first time.

While Napoleon battled the main Coalition armies: the Army of Bohemia (or the Grand Army), under the command of the Austrian Prince Schwarzenberg and the Army of Silesia under the command of the Prussian General Prince Blücher in a major campaign in north-east France, a secondary campaign was waged in the Low Countries to the north. A third Coalition body, Army of the North led by Prince Jean Baptiste Bernadotte sent major elements into the Low Countries to drive out the Imperial French occupation forces. In time, the Coalition forces, joined by a British expedition and other reinforcements, succeeded in driving the local French forces back to Lille and isolating most of the remainder in Antwerp.

Badly outnumbered by the Coalition forces under Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Maison mounted a daring operation. He marched north from Lille to Antwerp where he added one division from its French garrison to his army. Moving south again, he drubbed the aggressive Thielmann when the Saxon general tried to head him off. The Battle of Paris on 30 March and the subsequent abdication of Napoleon ended the war soon afterwards.