Battle of the Göhrde The battle of the Göhrde was a battle of the War of the Sixth Coalition on 18 September 1813 between Napoleonic and Coalition troops at Göhrde in Germany . The Napoleonic troops were defeated and withdrew to Hamburg . Site . It occurred near what is now the site of the Göhrde State Forest ( " Staatsforst Göhrde " ) , near Dannenburg , near Lüneburg . At that time this area belonged to the electorate of Braunschweig - Lüneburg ( Hanover ) , which had been occupied by the French since 1803 . The battlefield lies on the border between the modern - day districts of Lüneburg and Lüchow - Dannenberg , between Oldendorf an der Göhrde and Göhrde . Context . In spring 1813 , Russian troops under Friedrich Karl von Tettenborn forced the French out of Hamburg and some northern areas of Hanover . In the wake of Prussia ' s reentry into the war against France , the eastern areas of Hanover also rose against Napoleon . Wallmoden then received overall command of all the Allied troops on the lower Elbe : troops from Prussia , Russia , the United Kingdom , Hanover , Hamburg , Mecklenburg and Sweden , including the Russian German legion , the Lützow Free Corps , the Hanseatic Legion and a part of the King ' s German Legion , under the overall command of Generalleutnant Ludwig von Wallmoden - Gimborn . The Free Corps such as that from Lützow again and again attacked French supply lines and bases in the area around Mecklenburg , south of the Elbe . The XIII Corps there , under marshal Davout , had up to this point behaved quite passively , restricting itself to holding Wallmoden ' s corps in check . As an anti - skirmishes measure , in September Davout sent general Pécheux on the western Elbufer with a brigade of 50th infantry division and moved on Lüneburg with 3 , 000 troops . After completing his mission , Pécheux was ordered to rejoin the French troops in Magdeburg . Wallmoden ' s corps advanced on Dömitz on 15 September with 12 , 300 men , crossed the Elbe , marched toward the Frenchmen and set up camp in Dannenberg . Course . The French division under Pechaux decided to attack the allies . On the early afternoon of 18 September 1813 , it reached the Steinker Höhen ( Steinker Heights ) in Nahrendorf and gave battle . Wallmoden ' s units arrived one after the other and attacked the poorly - coordinated French force , though these single attacks were all repulsed until in the evening Hugh Halkett ' s Hanoverian brigade managed to force the French troops to withdraw . Results . The battle was the first victory over the French troops garrisoning Germany , and interrupted the link between XIII Corps under general Davout ( with its headquarters in Hamburg ) and Napoleon ' s main army ( then in Saxony ) and the Napoleonic armies ' supply - lines across Hanover from France to Magdeburg and Berlin . This result was critical for the outcome of the Battle of Leipzig soon afterwards . Commemorations . A large stone monument stands as a memorial to the battle in 1839 , at a site now north of Bundesstraße 216 about 2 km behind Oldendorf in Richtung Dannenberg . 1000 dead soldiers from both sides were buried in a mass grave in the forest , 100m from where the memorial is sited . This grave was rediscovered in 1985 . Rudolf von Bennigsen ' s father Karl von Bennigsen fought in this battle ( as a lieutenant ) , as did the famous freedom fighter Eleonore Prochaska . She had disguised herself as a man and joined the Lützow Free Corps . During the battle she was wounded and soon afterwards succumbed to her injuries in the hospital at Dannenberg . A reconstruction of the battle occurs every two years at Dahlenburg . At the Heimatmuseum in the town a diorama of the battle is on permanent display , with 1500 tin soldiers .