Siege of Corbie

Siege of Corbie

Part of: Thirty Years War

Recapture of Corbie ( La Reprise de Corbie par Louis XIII et Gaston d'Orléans, généralissime de l'armée de Picardie , painting by an unknown master from around 1640 in the Palace of Versailles )

date	September 24 to November 9, 1636
place	Corbie
output	French victory

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of France	Kingdom of Spain
Commander
Louis XIII of the Duc d'Orléans of the Comte de Soissons	Cardinal-Infant Don Fernando Thomas de Savoie-Carignan Johann von Werth
Troop strength
40,000 men, 1,200 riders	35,000
losses
?	?

The siege and recapture of the fortified city of Corbie by French troops took place in late autumn 1636 and was part of the French-Spanish War in the Thirty Years' War . The siege was aimed at retaking the city of Corbie, which had been captured and occupied by Spanish and Bavarian troops on August 7, 1636 . After a six-week siege, the Spanish troops had to surrender in early November 1636.

background

In 1636 the Thirty Years War had raged in Europe for 18 years without France actively participating with troops. Actively and successfully intervened only when in 1635 the Swedes on the side of the Protestants in the war, France began the Swedish war party fighting the hitherto victorious army of the Catholic Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II. And the Bavarian Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria to support . The basis of the support was the Habsburg-French antagonism , which determined the French policy of Cardinal Richelieu . The support was initially only financial and was called "undercover war" by Richelieu.

After the heavy defeat of the Swedes in the battle of Nördlingen at the beginning of September 1634 and after the peace treaty concluded in Prague in May 1635 , which significantly strengthened the position of the Habsburg emperor, Richelieu could no longer defend the previous cautious position. With the declaration of war by France on Spain in May 1635 and on the Emperor in Vienna on September 18, 1635, France opened open war against the Habsburgs in Austria, Spain and the Spanish Netherlands , as well as against all the principalities of the Holy Roman that were allied with the Habsburgs Reichs | such as B. Bavarian and Electoral Saxony .

Corbie was one of the fortified cities on the Somme at the time . At that time the river still formed the northern border of France to the province of Artois in the Spanish Netherlands .

Spanish occupation of Corbie

Spanish troops offensive

On July 2, 1636, Spanish troops under the command of Thomas de Savoie-Carignan , supported by Bavarian and imperial troops under the command of Johann von Werth and Octavio Piccolomini , crossed the northern border of France and took La Capelle on July 8 . Then they occupied Bohain-en-Vermandois , Vervins , Origny-Sainte-Benoite and Ribemont . On July 25, they fell victim to Le Catelet . The Comte de Soissons was hurriedly seconded with 10,000 men to prevent the attackers from crossing the Somme. Bray-sur-Somme initially resisted, but was shot down. The Spanish troops crossed the river at Cerisy . and sacked Saleux , Salouël and Longueau . Johann von Werth occupied Roye , Octavio Piccolomini and his troops devastated the lands on the Somme and Oise . They moved to Pontoise . Only Montdidier could withstand them.

The Spaniards in Corbie

The permanent place of Corbie was commanded by the governor Antoine Maximilien de Belleforière , marquis de Soyécourt, who had a garrison of 1,600 men at his disposal. Opposite him were 30,000 Spaniards. After six days, Belleforière preferred to surrender and thus save the city from pillage. The surrender took place on August 15th. The besieged could keep life and limb and their utensils. The departure (to Amiens ) took place with all weapons, flags and the large baggage. At 10:00 in the morning 3,400 foot soldiers and 250 horsemen (Spaniards, Germans, Flemings , Walloons , Savoyards, Croats and Poles) entered the city. Belleforière was subsequently accused of treason by Richelieu. Thereupon, under the personal presidency of King Louis XIII, a court martial convened, which sentenced de Belleforière to death by quartering . In the meantime, however, he had brought himself to safety in England.

Johann von Werth originally wanted to march towards Paris, while Thomas of Savoy preferred to plunder the region around Amiens to supply his troops. On the way to Paris, the Spaniards arrived before Corbie, which they trapped on September 21. The majority of the troops moved into winter quarters in Artois.

Meanwhile, the Austrian part of the army unsuccessfully attacked Saint-Jean-de-Losne in Burgundy under Matthias Gallas .

French reaction

The news of the fall of the border fortress Corbie panicked the people of Paris, fearing that the 35,000 men of the Cardinal-Infante Don Fernando would attack their city. Those who were able fled south. Even Cardinal Richelieu lost heart for a time. The Capuchin priest François Leclerc du Tremblay - called Père Joseph (adviser and gray eminence of Richelieu) - and the king encouraged him, whereupon Richelieu appeared on the streets to the cheers of the population.

The king received a promise from the seven craft guilds that they would provide a rider for all gate entrances and a foot soldier for all front doors of the city. He issued the banns for the nobility and the citizens. Weapons, ammunition, supplies and horses were provided.

Meanwhile, Richelieu made a treaty with the Republic of the Seven United Provinces to invade the Spanish Netherlands in support.

On September 1, Louis XIII, at the head of an army of 40,000 foot soldiers and 12,000 horsemen, left Paris and marched north.

Regiments known by name who were deployed in the siege of Corbie

I.	II.	III.
Regiment d'Anjou Regiment d'Aubeterre Regiment de Beauce Regiment de Bellefonds Régiment de Biscaras Regiment de Bussy-Rabutin Regiment de Champagne Regiment de Clère Regiment de Courtaumer Regiment d'Escots Regiment d'Espagny	Regiment de Fouquerolles Regiment de Grollezac Regiment de Gué-Sainte-Flaive Regiment de La Boëssière Régiment de La Trémoille Regiment de Langeron Regiment du Mesnil Regiment de Miossens Regiment de Nanteuil Regiment de Périgord Regiment de Poitou	Regiment de Polignac Regiment de Rabutin Regiment de Saint-Luc Regiment de Saint-Martial Regiment de Saintonge Regiment de Soyécourt Regiment de Tardieu Regiment de Vaubecourt

Most of them only existed for a short time and were released after the campaign.

Siege and capture of Corbie by the French

Cardinal de Richelieu (painting by Philippe de Champaigne , Paris, Musée du Louvre )

Monsieur ( Gaston d'Orléans ) received orders to retake Roye and to prepare the siege of Corbie, which he carried out.

At the same time, Richelieu issued the guidelines for the siege. Nothing was started without his advice, nothing was carried out without his consent, he was the real initiator and master of the whole operation , the officer Jean de Ville noted in his notes.

With the help of the residents of the region, under the command of Philippe Carette and Michel Patou from Albert, limited military actions were carried out to alarm the Spaniards. These included the destruction of one of the guardhouses at the southern gate of the fortress, the destruction of a mill, the diversion of the Somme boulangerie to render other mills unusable , spying on the interior of the fortress, etc.

Louis XIII reached Montdidier on September 24th and moved into his quarters in the castle of Démuin .

Corbie was surrounded by a ditch outside the wall. The ramparts were not bricked, but consisted of mounds of earth that were covered with wood. The real siege began on October 10th. On October 11, a resident of the city counted 800 cannon shots.

The besieged tried unsuccessfully to strike . A Spanish relief army under Johann von Werth reached the Artois on October 25, but was unable to advance against Corbie.

During the siege, the Duc d'Orléans camp - de facto the seat of the lieutenant général des armées du roi in Picardy - was established in Querrieu . The first field hospitals were installed in Querrieu and Bussy-lès-Daours .

Engineers such as Antoine de Ville and Pierre de Conty d'Argencour were hired to hasten the fall of the fortress. During the siege, the Comte François de Clermont-Tonnerre and the only twenty-year-old François de Vendôme distinguished themselves.

The siege lasted six weeks before the starving Spaniards finally surrendered. On November 9th, they asked to negotiate the surrender, which took place on November 14th.

Effects

Louis XIII, roi de France (painting by Philippe de Champaigne (1655), Madrid, Museum in the Prado )

• The Spanish threat to the capital was averted, the enemy had left the kingdom.
• The King issued a declaration in Chantilly on November 14th , according to which the city of Corbie "forfeited all privileges, concessions and other rights [...]". The assets of the citizens who had made pacts with the enemy were confiscated, some of them were lost hanged in Amiens.
• The churchmen who had disobeyed the king were to be sued in a trial and were interned under the guard of the secular clergy in the prison "des Minimes" and in the abbey of Corbie.
• The Marquis de Soyécourt, who had escaped to England, was sentenced to death in absentia on October 29 and symbolically burned in Amiens. His property was confiscated and his castle in Tilloloy was destroyed.
• Picardy, especially the region of Corbie, Albert, Amiénois , Santerre on Somme and Oise, had been terribly devastated, the cities (Corbie, Albert, Bray) and the villages were first plundered by the Spanish and then by the French and made strategic Reasons were burned in order to deprive the enemy of the basis of supplies and accommodation, the churches were also destroyed.
• The devastated villages were deserted, the farmers lived in holes in the ground or in leaf huts in the forest, human corpses and animal carcasses lay around everywhere.
• The prestigious Corbie Abbey, which had existed since 662, lost its importance and aura.
• On March 11, 1638, the king renewed the privileges of the previously abandoned city of Corbie and transferred them to the new residents. Exceptions were the construction of factories for wool, silk and other things.
• Charles de Belleforière-Soyécourt was rehabilitated in 1643 and got his possessions back. The king compensated him for the destroyed Tilloloy Castle.
• The annexation of Artois after the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 made Corbie superfluous as a border fortress.

literature

• Michel Carmona: Richelieu, l'ambition et le pouvoir. Fayard, Paris 1983, ISBN 978-2-213-01274-2 .
• Roger Caron, Madeleine Marleux: Trois cent cinquantième anniversaire du siège de Corbie. 1636-1986. Ed .: Les Amis du Vieux Corbie. Corbie 1986.
• Antoine Deville : Le siège de Corbie. 1636. Traduction du latin en français du récit d'Antoine de Ville, ingénieur du roi, qui dirigea les travaux de circonvallation en 1636. Ed .: Les Amis du Vieux Corbie, Corbie 1994.
• Gérard Folio: La citadelle et la place de Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, de la Renaissance à l'époque contemporaine (= Histoire de la fortification ). In: Cahier du Center d'études d'histoire de la defense. No. 25. 2005, ISBN 978-2-11-094732-1 .
• Alcius Ledieu: Deux années d'invasion espagnole en Picardie. 1635-1636. In: Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie. Volume 9. A. Chossonnery, Paris 1887 / A. Douillet, Amiens 1887, pp. 252-358 ( full text in the Internet Archive ).
• Alcius Ledieu: Esquisse militaire de la Guerre de Trente ans. 1888.
• Abbé Henri Peltier: Corbie, ville frontière. In: Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie. Volume 19. Amiens 1941, pp. 102-122.
• Jean-Christian Petitfils: Louis XIII (= Tempus ). Perrin, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-262-02385-0 .
• Cardinal de Richelieu: Mémoires. Volume XIV. 1636. In: L'Année de Corbie. Éditions Paleo, Clermont-Ferrand 2007.
• Albert Wamain: Héros oubliés, épisodes et notes biographiques relatives au siège de Corbie 1636. Ed .: Les Amis du Vieux Corbie, Corbie 1994.
• Corbie, la bataille oubliée. In: Le Nouvel Observateur . September 22, 2011 ( archived on corbie.over-blog.com ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gérard Folio: La Citadelle et la place de Saint-Jean-Pied-de- Port , de la Renaissance à l'époque contemporaine (= Histoire de la fortification ). In: Cahier du Center d'études d'histoire de la defense. No. 25. 2005, ISBN 978-2-11-094732-1 , p. 38.
2. ^ Christian Pantle: The Thirty Years' War. When Germany was on fire . Propylaen Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-549-07443-5 , p. 211 ff .
3. ↑ today part of Cartigny (Somme)
4. ↑ Roger Caron, Madeleine Marleux: Trois cent cinquantième anniversaire du siège de Corbie. 1636-1986. Ed .: Les Amis du Vieux Corbie. Corbie 1986.
5. ^ Mémoires de François de Paule de Clermont, Marquis de Montglat. P. 126. In: M. Petitot: Collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France. Volume 49. Foucault, Paris 1825 ( full text in the Internet Archive ).
6. ↑ "La Boulangerie" was a branch used as an anchorage south of Corbie.
7. ↑ Albert Wamain: Heros oubliés, épisodes et notes Biographiques relative au siège de Corbie 1636. Ed .: Les Amis du Vieux Corbie Corbie 1994th
8. ↑ Alcius Ledieu: Deux années d'invasion espagnole de Picardie. 1635-1636. In: Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie. Volume 9, Chapter 3: Prize de Corbie. A. Chossonnery, Paris 1887 / A. Douillet, Amiens 1887, pp. 341-350 ( full text in the Internet Archive ).
9. ^ Anne Duménil, Philippe Nivet (Ed.): Les Reconstructions en Picardie. Éditions Encrage, Amiens 2003, ISBN 978-2-911576-39-3 ( limited preview in Google book search).
10. ↑ Michel Carmona: Richelieu, l'ambition et le pouvoir. Fayard, Paris 1983.
11. ↑ In 1638 the monks of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés monastery came to Corbie to study manuscripts there, and they took 400 of them with them to Paris.

Web links

• Musée de l'Histoire de Corbie
• M. Petitot: Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu sur le règne de Louis XIII, depuis 1610 jusqu'à 1638. Volume 9. Foucault, Paris 1823, p. 275 ( limited preview in the Google book search)

Coordinates: 49 ° 54 ′ 29 "  N , 2 ° 30 ′ 37"  E