The Battle of Elchingen, fought on 14 October 1805, saw French forces under Michel Ney rout an Austrian corps led by Johann Sigismund Riesch.

In late September and early October 1805, Napoleon carried out a gigantic envelopment of the Austrian army in Bavaria led by Karl Mack von Lieberich.

Finally waking up to his danger, Mack tried to break out on the north side of the river, but a lone French division blocked his first attempt.

While a body of Austrians remained at large on the north bank, the near destruction of Riesch's command meant that the bulk of Mack's army was hopelessly surrounded in Ulm.

He decided to concentrate his army farther west on the Iller River so he could counterattack any French invasion coming through the Black Forest.

Jellačić would hold the left flank with 11,000 soldiers while Feldmarschall-Leutnant Michael von Kienmayer 12,000-man corps watched the Bavarians from Ingolstadt.

The emperor sought the advice of Feldmarschall Archduke Charles, who commanded the Army of Italy, and was warned that Mack was making a strategic blunder.

[6] Murat and Lannes crushed the hapless Auffenberg at the Battle of Wertingen, inflicting losses of 400 killed and wounded on the Austrians and capturing 2,900 soldiers and six cannons.

[8] Napoleon placed Davout and Bernadotte at Munich to guard against General Mikhail Kutuzov's Russian army and Kienmayer's troops.

Dupont's 5,350 infantry, supported by General of Division Jacques Louis François Delaistre de Tilly's 2,169 cavalry fought the Austrians to a standstill.

In sum, he ordered Jellačić to march south to the Tyrol, Schwarzenberg to hold Ulm, and Werneck to move north to Heidenheim an der Brenz followed by General-Major Johann Ludwig Alexius von Loudon's division of Riesch's corps.

[13] In one speculative account, the real reason Mack sent Jellačić to the Tyrol was to get rid of Mayer, who led a brigade.

Historian Frederick Kagan surmised that Mack was either confused or he deliberately scattered his army to give it a better chance to escape.

The French emperor ordered Ney and Marshal Joachim Murat to shift their forces to the north side of the river the next day.

[15] Also on the 13th, Soult wiped out General-Major Karl Spangen von Uyternesse's brigade in the Battle of Memmingen, capturing 4,600 men at the cost of 16 casualties.

[16] On 13 October when he arrived at Elchingen, Riesch found Loudon sparring with a French force for control of the bridge over the Danube.

Deployed on the heights under Loudon and General-Major Daniel Mécsery were 14 battalions of infantry, 11 squadrons of cavalry, and 12 artillery pieces.

[21][22] VI Corps: Marshal Michel Ney Total French engaged at Elchingen (not including Malher's division): 6,848 infantry, 1,125 cavalry, 485 artillerymen, 28 guns Dupont was already north of the Danube with Tilly's horsemen.

Ney planned to have Loison's men attack across a partly dismantled bridge directly south of Riesch's position.

Colonel Charles, comte Lefebvre-Desnouettes's 18th Dragoons broke an Austrian square after it was softened up by musketry from the 76th Line.

The next day, Murat and Dupont cut General-Major Rudolf Sinzendorf's brigade to pieces at Herbrechtingen, capturing 2,500 Austrians.

Only Archduke Ferdinand, Prince Hohenzollern, Schwarzenberg, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Ignaz Gyulai and 12 squadrons of cavalry escaped into Bohemia.

[31] Far to the south, the French eliminated another fragment of the shattered Austrian army when Jellacic surrendered 4,000 men to Marshal Pierre Augereau's 15,000-man VII Corps in the Capitulation of Dornbirn on 13 November.