Siege of Barcelona (1697)

Siege of Barcelona (1697)

Map of the Siege of Barcelona printed in Paris by an unknown author

date	June 12 to August 5, 1697
place	Barcelona , Catalonia , today's Spain
output	French victory

Parties to the conflict
France	Spain
Commander
Duc de Vendôme	Prince Georg of Hesse-Darmstadt
Troop strength
about 32,000 men	garrison
losses
between 9,000 and 15,000 men	between 5,300 and 12,000 men

The siege of Barcelona of 1697 took place during the Palatine War of Succession . In its course, Barcelona was captured by French troops.

course

The commander-in-chief of the French troops, Duke Louis de Vendôme , had assembled around 32,000 men to conquer the city of Barcelona. These included troops who had joined the front after the conflict in Italy had ended. The city was defended by its garrison under the command of Prince Georg of Hesse-Darmstadt .

The first fighting took place on June 12, 1697, when Vendôme sent troops under Count de Mailly against the city. On the night of June 15, the besieged attempted an escape, but it was repulsed. On the night of June 19, another attempt to break out followed, in which Georg von Hessen-Darmstadt attacked both French wings at the same time. But even this attempt was unsuccessful. Although the French saw themselves threatened by a 6,000-strong Spanish force under the viceroy, they managed to completely isolate Barcelona on July 5th. An attempt by the Spanish army to relieve the city by force failed in a battle at the gates of Barcelona. The entire Spanish army was killed or captured by the French.

On July 14th, the French managed to break through a mine in the city walls. With two more breakthroughs, which could be made by July 28, the French finally succeeded in taking the bastion. Although the besieged were able to recapture the bastion in bloody battles the next day, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt and his men soon had to surrender the bastion for good. In the besieged city itself, the Spanish soldiers and residents made all sorts of attempts to sabotage the occupiers' work, but this only achieved short-term success. On August 10, 1697, Georg von Hessen-Darmstadt had to capitulate and finally hand over the city to the French. However, this happened against his will under pressure from the then Viceroy of Catalonia, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y Sandoval .

losses

The fights in and around Barcelona were very costly overall: According to John Lynn, the French casualties amounted to 9,000 men, the Spaniards accordingly had 12,000 dead, wounded or missing. Antonio Espino López puts the Spanish losses at 4,500 dead and 800 wounded, while the French are said to have lost 15,000 men, including 52 engineers.

literature

• John Childs: The Nine Years' War and the British Army . Manchester University Press, Manchester 1991, ISBN 0-7190-3461-2 (English).
• Antonio Espino López: El frente catalán en la Guerra de los Nueve Años, 1689-1697 . Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ​​Barcelona 1994, ISBN 84-692-0227-8 (Spanish).
• John A. Lynn : The Wars of Louis XIV: 1667-1714. Longman, Harlow 1999, ISBN 0-582-05629-2 (English).
• Hanns Eggert Willibald von der Lühe: Militair-Conversations-Lexikon . C. Brüggemann & O. Wiegand, Leipzig 1833 ( digitized at Munich digitization center ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Childs gives 25,000 men.
2. ↑ von der Lühe, p. 403 .
3. ↑ von der Lühe, p. 403.
4. ↑ von der Lühe, p. 403.
5. ↑ Biography on the website of the Autonomous University of Madrid ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on September 16, 2018 
6. ^ Lynn, p. 261.
7. ^ Espino López, p. 811