The siege of Danzig (16 January 1813 – 2 January 1814) was a siege of the city of Danzig during the War of the Sixth Coalition by Russian and Prussian forces[1] against Jean Rapp's permanent French garrison, which had been augmented by soldiers from the Grande Armée retreating from its Russian campaign.[2] The garrison included two crack divisions under Étienne Heudelet de Bierre and Charles Louis Dieudonné Grandjean plus whole units and stragglers that had lost contact with their units, all with their health and morale both weakened and most of their equipment lost and carrying their wounded. The siege was begun by cossacks under hetman Matvei Platov, then was continued mainly by infantry, mainly militiamen and irregulars. It ended in a French surrender to Coalition forces.[3][4]
| Siege of Danzig | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the German campaign of the Sixth Coalition | |||||||
 Danzig (Plan of the siege in 1813) | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 French EmpireConfederation of the Rhine  Kingdom of Bavaria Kingdom of Saxony |
 Prussia Russian Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Jean Rapp (POW) Étienne Heudelet Charles Grandjean |
Duke of Württemberg Matvei Platov Fedor Levisa | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 14 general and 15,000 soldier captured or died | Unknown | ||||||
The Treaty of Tilsit of 1807 had made Danzig a Free City nominally under Prussian control.[2] It was sited at the mouth of the River Vistula and along the coast of the Baltic Sea and then had 60,000 inhabitants. It was also a major supply depot for Napoleon's force, with large quantities of food, munitions, forage, weapons, clothing and ammunition, and needed to be held by his forces to keep the Prussians neutral and avoid them defecting to the coalition (as they later did). He was also attempting to re-group an army in his rear in order to confront the Coalition, and so needed to guard the line of the Vistula by garrisoning Danzig, Thorn and Warsaw.[5][pages needed]
Citations
edit- ^ danzig 2001, p. 3.
- ^ a b danzig 2001, p. 17.
- ^ Marchangy 1815, p. 73.
- ^ danzig 2001, pp. 28–29.
- ^ danzig 2001.
References
edit- danzig (2001). "Danzig Report 112 – July, August, September 2001". www.danzig.org. Archived from the original on 5 April 2018. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
- Marchangy, Louis Antoine François de (1815). The siege of Dantzic, in 1813. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
Further reading
edit- Artois, Prosper Honoré d' (1813). Relation de la défense de Danzig en 1813 par le 10e Corps de l'Armée Française contre l'armée combinés russe et prussienne.
- Hemmann, Thomas; Klöffler, Martin (2018). Der vergessene Befreiungskrieg - Belagerte Festungen zwischen Memel und Rhein in den Jahren 1813–1814 (in German). ISBN 978-3-7448-6682-8.
- Kiley, Kevin F. (1815). Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars: Artillery in Siege, Fortress, and Navy, 1792-1815.
- The Siege of Dantzic, in 1813 at the Internet Archive
