Battle of Grauholz

The Battle of Grauholz on 5 March 1798 was a battle between a Bernese army under Karl Ludwig von Erlach against the French Revolutionary Army under Balthazar Alexis Henri Schauenburg. The battle took place at Grauholz, a wooded hill in what is now the municipalities of Urtenen-Schönbühl and Moosseedorf in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The government of Bern had already surrendered the previous day and the Bernese defeat at Grauholz ended their resistance to the French in the north of the canton.

Attempting to gain control of key alpine passes and establish a buffer against the hostile monarchies of Europe, France first invaded some of the associates of the Swiss Confederation. Part of the bishopric of Basel was absorbed into France in 1793. In 1797 Napoleon annexed the Valtellina on the border with Graubünden into the new Cisalpine Republic in northern Italy and invaded the southern remainder of the bishopric of Basel.

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