Siege of Hamburg (1686)

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Siege of Hamburg (1686)
Siege and shelling of Hamburg by the Danes
Siege and shelling of Hamburg by the Danes
date August 20 to September 10, 1686
place Hamburg and Altona
output Danish withdrawal
consequences Hamburg pays 300,000 thalers in compensation to Denmark
Peace treaty Recess from Gottorf (1686)
Parties to the conflict

HamburgHamburg Hamburg Lüneburg Brandenburg supported by: Calenberg Gottorf Holy Roman Empire Sweden
DEU Fuerstentum Lueneburg COA.svg
KurbrandenburgBrandenburg-Prussia 

Coat of Arms of Brunswick-Lüneburg, svg
Coat of Arms, House of Holstein-Gottorp.svg
Holy Roman Empire 1400Holy Roman Empire 
Sweden 1650Sweden 

DenmarkDenmark Denmark
supported by: France
France Kingdom 1792France 

Commander

HamburgHamburg JG von Uffeln
DEU Fuerstentum Lueneburg COA.svg General Bongard (?) Franz du Hamel J.B. by Dewitz G.A. by micrander
KurbrandenburgBrandenburg-Prussia
KurbrandenburgBrandenburg-Prussia
KurbrandenburgBrandenburg-Prussia

DenmarkDenmark Christian V. UF Gyldenløve
DenmarkDenmark

Troop strength
at least 20,000 men, of them
  • 3,600 Hamburg infantrymen and dragoons
  • 8,000 to 11,000 Hamburg militiamen
  • 8,000 allies (including 4,900 Lüneburgers, 500 Calenbergers, 2,600 Brandenburgers)
16,000 to 18,000 infantry and cavalry
losses

unknown

more than 1,000 dead

The three-week siege of Hamburg in 1686 was the violent climax of an ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the Danish King Christian V to subdue the Hanseatic city.

background

Question of hereditary homage

Despite its affiliation with the Hanseatic League , Hamburg was initially not yet an imperial-free or imperial city. The elevation of Hamburg to a Free Imperial City by the Roman-German Emperor Maximilian I (1510) and its confirmation by the Imperial Court of Justice (1618) were not recognized by the Danish kings. From a Danish perspective, Hamburg was still formally part of the Duchy of Holstein , and as Dukes of Holstein, the Danish kings therefore continued to demand homage from their Hamburg subjects. Most recently, in 1603, King Christian IV and Duke Johann Adolf were honored in a very mild form ; later Danish attempts to subjugate the Hamburgers by military force failed in 1616, 1629 and 1630–1643. After a first siege in 1643 , the superficial and half-hearted homage and tribute payment did not mean effective Danish sovereignty over the Hanseatic city. Just two years later, the people of Hamburg made themselves independent again with Swedish help.

In 1650 and 1651, both the Danish royal family and the ducal branch line Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp , which shared control of Holstein, offered Hamburg for the first time to finally replace the obligation to pay homage with a one-off payment. Negotiations were actually held up to 1652, but the Hanseatic city, which was concerned with thrift after the losses of the Thirty Years' War, rejected this solution.

However, the Danish attacks meant that the Hamburgers reinforced their fortifications. Up to 1626 an up to 9 meter high rampart with 21 bastions was built ( Hamburg ramparts ), after the Danish siege of 1679 the Sternschanze was built in 1682 . A new watch order led to the establishment of new vigilante regiments and companies, in the 17th century the city had 80,000-100,000 inhabitants and up to 11,000 armed citizens. There was also a paid militia made up of professional soldiers. The Danes, in turn, built a customs post in Glückstadt on the Lower Elbe in 1616, and in 1664 in the immediate vicinity of Hamburg, the Holstein Altona into a rival city.

Compensation for loss of territory

After defeats in three wars, Denmark had lost its Skåne homeland and thus a third of its territory to Sweden through the peace treaties of Brömsebro (1645) , Roskilde (1658) and Copenhagen (1660) . A war of revenge attempted with Dutch help failed despite initial successes. In the Peace of Lund (1679) Denmark had to surrender its recaptures. As a replacement for the loss of territory, Hamburg should now serve. Only a few days after the peace agreement, Christian V began a first siege of Hamburg, but withdrew his troops after Hamburg had paid 220,000 thalers and promised a legal review of the claims to homage in the Pinneberg appeal .

France's King Louis XIV saw the anti-French tradition of earlier German historiography as the driving force behind the second siege of 1686, but partly wrongly, because France had repeatedly called for a negotiated solution and offered its own mediation. Sweden's King Charles XI. Christian V had encouraged to direct his efforts against Hamburg in order to distract him from another war of revenge against Sweden.

In fact, the Danish attack took place against the background of the dissolution of two traditional alliances that had shaped the conflict in the Baltic Sea region and northern Germany for decades - the Swedish-French and the Danish-Dutch alliance. In 1679, Sweden had to experience that its commitment to French interests could cost Swedish property in Germany. Pomerania, Wismar and Bremen-Verden had been conquered by Danes, Brandenburgers and Lüneburgers. Through the intervention of France, Sweden got most of it back in the Peace of Saint-Germain (1679) , but nevertheless lost some smaller areas (Wildeshausen, Thedinghausen, Dörverden, Kammin, Greifenhagen). Denmark, on the other hand, had to realize that the Dutch aid was insufficient to regain the territories that were lost to Sweden. With the Franco-Brandenburg alliance (1679) and the annexation of the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken (1681), which was linked in personal union with Sweden, by France ( reunification policy ), Franco-Swedish relations deteriorated rapidly. While France was still on the side of Sweden and then Hamburg in 1679, Louis XIV and Christian V signed a secret alliance treaty in 1682, which brought Denmark French subsidies and recognition of its claims.

Hamburg was at the center of the Danish sphere of interest in northern Germany, which also included the Swedish possessions

Without French support, Sweden initially sought a compromise with Denmark in order to gain time for its own new armaments (especially the reconstruction of the defeated fleet) and the search for new allies. In August 1682 and May 1683, Swedish negotiators are said to have offered Denmark all Swedish possessions in Germany in exchange for Norway and for a final renunciation of Scania, the recognition of Danish claims to Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf , which is allied with Sweden, and even military assistance with the Conquest of Hamburg and Lübeck. (Both the seriousness and the effectiveness of such Swedish military aid were doubtful, however, Sweden had not been able to prevail in two similar wars in 1654 and 1666 against the comparatively weaker Hanseatic city of Bremen.) When Christian V in 1684 and 1685 the prince-bishopric of Lübeck and the ducal -gottorfschen part of Schleswig and Holstein occupied, let Karl XI. Granted it, but in 1686 Sweden and Brandenburg , which had changed sides again, joined the anti-French Augsburg alliance . France was isolated, and with it Denmark too.

prehistory

The direct trigger for the conflict was not foreign policy constellations, but domestic power struggles and unrest in Hamburg - the so-called Jastram-Schnitger turmoil . The conflict between the aristocratic or oligarchical senate and a democratic popular movement in the citizenship of the Hanseatic city had led to the expulsion of the authoritarian mayor Heinrich Meurer in 1684 . Leader of the "Committee of Thirty" (also Thirties-Committee, Thirties-college or short thirties ) organized popular movement were Cord Jastram and Jerome Snitger , new mayor was Johann Slüter .

Ex-Mayor Meurer had fled to the court of Duke Georg Wilhelm von Lüneburg in Celle and called Emperor Leopold I for help. The emperor, who was employed in southeastern Europe because of the Turkish war , commissioned the duke with the execution of the Reich and the reinstatement of Meurer in Hamburg. Lüneburg was feuding with both Hamburg and Denmark and had allied itself with Brandenburg in August 1684. In January 1686, the Duke dispatched a force of 2,000 men against the Hanseatic city and had the Hamburg suburbs Moorburg , Vierlande and Bergedorf occupied. At the Heckkaten (between Billwerder and Bergedorf), the Hamburg grenadiers and musketeers suffered a defeat against the Lüneburgers on January 29, which then occupied Billwerder . After negotiations, the Lüneburgers withdrew from Vierlande, Bergedorf and Billwerder in April, but continued to occupy the strategically important Moorwerder .

Christian V had used the Lüneburg military action as an opportunity to gather troops in Bad Oldesloe and Ottensen in Holstein from February 1686 . Danish warships blocked the Elbe. Among the 16,000 men at first were heavy artillery and 7,000 men of the royal guard; King Christian V entrusted his half-brother Ulrich Friedrich Gyldenløve with the command . The 1930s sent City Councilor Pauli to Christian V to negotiate Hamburg subsidies and Danish support in the event of a renewed attack on Hamburg by Lüneburg. On August 19, 1686, Christian V moved to Altona and had his ambassador Andreas Pauli von Liliencron of the Hanseatic city convey his conditions and counterclaims: In addition to the hereditary homage and the payment of 400,000 thalers, Hamburg was to permanently accept a Danish garrison of 2,000 and 3,000 men and entertain. Otherwise the city would be destroyed by Danish artillery and shot ready for assault.

course

Hamburger Sternschanze during the siege of 1686

On August 20th, the Danish army advanced on Eimsbüttel , meanwhile the defenders hurriedly reinforced the crew of the Sternschanze. The Danish ultimatum led to an overthrow in the city. On August 22nd, when the Danes began a massive bombardment of the Sternschanze , Snitger and Jastram, who had been discredited as pro-Danish, were arrested. Duke Georg Wilhelm placed his Lüneburg troops under the Hamburg command. Until August 25th, the Sternschanze, defending it from Hamburg, Lüneburg and local Swedish volunteers, was the main arena. Failures of the defenders and the shelling of Altona by the Hamburg artillery commanded by Swedish officers disillusioned the Danes and led to the destruction of Altona. An armistice was agreed on August 26 at the suggestion of Brandenburg and England.

The Danish besiegers had not completely enclosed Hamburg. While there was bitter fighting in front of the Dammtor and the Millerntor , for example thousands of war-trained Lüneburgers and, from August 29th, also Brandenburg reinforcement troops were able to move into the city repeatedly through the Steintor . While Christian V was only able to bring in 2,000 other Danes as reinforcements, the number of German auxiliary troops on the Hamburg side grew to 8,000 men during the armistice. On September 5, part of the Lüneburg troops were replaced by fresh Brandenburg regiments. So there were 20,000 men in Hamburg, and a further 6,000 Brandenburgers were on their way up the Elbe. In view of an impending counter-offensive, the Danish king gave the order to retreat to Ottensen on September 6th. The withdrawal was completed on September 10th.

consequences

Intensive diplomatic negotiations began immediately with the start of the armistice. While the emperor, Sweden and the Netherlands assumed a threatening position, France also advocated Hamburg, and Brandenburg adopted a conciliatory tone. Although King Christian V initially only wanted to negotiate directly with Hamburg, he finally accepted the mediation of England, Hesse-Kassel and Saxony in addition to France and Brandenburg. The king insisted on Gottorf Castle in occupied Schleswig as the place of negotiation . Negotiations began there on September 22nd. Hamburg, which initially protested both against the place of the negotiation and against compensation payments, was in the end pushed primarily by Brandenburg to give in, Denmark by England. Denmark demanded compliance with the Pinneberger Recess agreed in 1679. The French proposal provided for the payment of the 400,000 thalers originally requested by Christian. After the Hamburgers had drawn up a damage calculation of 100,000 thalers in return and the Danes threatened to break off the negotiations, an agreement was reached on a payment of 300,000 thalers for war costs to the Danish king and that Christian V's claim to homage should be legally checked again . This agreement was finally reached on October 16, 1686 and sealed in the Gottorf trial on November 2. The Lüneburg and Brandenburg troops then left Hamburg in mid-October. On November 7th, Christian VI. the state of war with Hamburg ended. For their mediation efforts, the Danish king honored the Saxon Elector Johann Georg and his son Friedrich August with the Elephant Order .

Before the agreement was reached, Snitger and Jastram were convicted in a show trial and on October 4, 1686 they were gutted, quartered and beheaded. Their heads were impaled on stakes and displayed in front of the Millern Gate and the Stone Gate. Christian V had unsuccessfully called for an amnesty for the two and the other "thirties". Slueter died in prison on October 21. On November 11th, Meurer was again mayor.

In Gottorf, the participants also agreed to seek a negotiated solution for the claims of Duke Christian Albrecht of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf (and his brother, Lübeck's Prince-Bishop August Friedrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf ), but for France as well as Brandenburg opposed imperial, Lüneburg and Swedish demands to ultimately combine this with the solution of the Hamburg question. The negotiations in this regard therefore only began in Altona in 1687 and did not lead to the Altona recession until 1689, as a result of which Christian V surrendered the duke's confiscated possessions. The Danish-Lüneburg conflict, which intensified again in 1689 with the extinction of the Ascanian dukes of Saxony-Lauenburg , remained unsolved. When Duke Georg Wilhelm von Lüneburg had Lauenburg, which was also claimed by Denmark, occupied, Christian responded with the siege, bombardment and destruction of the Lauenburg capital Ratzeburg . Denmark's ally France, however , was busy with the Palatine War of Succession ; Without French help, Christian V finally had to give up his claims on Lauenburg in the Hamburg settlement (1693) . Instead of the Netherlands or France, Denmark allied itself in 1699 with Russia and Saxony-Poland . In the Great Northern War, Denmark besieged Hamburg again in 1712 (and had 246,000 thalers paid for the withdrawal) and conquered Bremen-Verden, reoccupied Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf in 1713 and finally also conquered Wismar and parts of Western Pomerania in 1715/16.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g Gustav Kopal: War journeys of the Hamburgers on water and on land , pp. 178–192. Dörling, Hamburg 1911
  2. ^ A b Robert Bohn: History of Denmark , pp. 43f and 68. CH Beck, Munich 2001
  3. a b c d Gustav Wilhelm Hugo: The Mediatization of the German Imperial Cities , p. 78f. Braun, Karlsruhe 1838
  4. a b Wolfgang Vacano: 350 years Altona , pp. 12-21. Sutton, Erfurt 2014
  5. ^ A b c Johann Georg Büsch: Outline of a history of the strangest world trade of recent times , pp. 215ff and 481. Bohn, Hamburg 1783
  6. ^ Ludwig Brinner: The German Greenland Voyage , page 151. maritimepress, Bremen 2014
  7. ^ Gustav Kopal: War voyages of the Hamburgers on water and on land , pp. 158f and 164. Dörling, Hamburg 1911
  8. a b Martin Philippson: Der Große Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (1660 to 1688) , p. 267. European History Publishing House, Paderborn 2015
  9. ^ A b Walter Platzhoff: European History in the Age of Ludwig XIV and the Great Elector , p. 72. GGTeubner, Leipzig / Berlin 1921
  10. a b c d Christian Friedrich Wurm: The European background of the Snitger-Jastram'schen confusion in Hamburg 1686 , pp. 16-19 and 31f. JA Meissner, Hamburg 1855
  11. Martin Philippson: The Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (1660 to 1688) , pp. 271-295. European History Publishing House, Paderborn 2015
  12. a b Martin Philippson: The Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (1660 to 1688) , p. 299 and 324. European History Publishing House, Paderborn 2015
  13. Martin Philippson: The Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (1660 to 1688) , p. 359. European History Publishing House, Paderborn 2015
  14. a b Klaus Grot: Outline of the military events around the city of Hamburg , p. 27. Dassendorf 2010
  15. Gustav Kopal: War journeys of the Hamburgers on water and on land , pp. 174–177. Dörling, Hamburg 1911
  16. A. Tuxen: Overfaldet paa Hamburg 1686 , p 552. Historisk Tidsskrift, Copenhagen 1894
  17. Hamburg's history: Free imperial city
  18. ^ Anonymus: Tratziger continuation. Mathias Nagel, accessed on May 5, 2017 .
  19. a b Martin Philippson: Der Große Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (1660 to 1688) , p. 435. European History Publishing House, Paderborn 2015
  20. Steffen Martus: Enlightenment - an era image - The German 18th century , p x . Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek / Berlin 2015

See also