Siege of Dunkirk (1646)
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Siege of Dunkirk and Fort Mardyk
| date | September 7th to October 11th, 1646 |
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| place | Dunkirk |
| output | Franco-Dutch victory |
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Les Avins - Leuven - Tornavento - Guetaria - Fontarrabie - Corbie - Diedenhofen 1639 - Turin - Aire-sur-la-Lys - Honnecourt - Barcelona - Cartagena - Diedenhofen 1643 - Rocroi - Orbetello - Fort Mardyck - Dunkirk - Rethel - Bordeaux - Lens - Arras - Valenciennes - Battle of the Dunes
The first siege of Dunkirk took place between September 7th and October 11th, 1646. Dunkirk was under Spanish rule from 1559. To increase his military fame, the Commander-in-Chief Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé , decided to attack and besiege the city.
background
In 1646, while the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, as allies of France, endeavored to wrest Antwerp from the Spaniards and to do so had to bare its western front, the French troops achieved some extraordinary successes in the territory of the county of Flanders along the Lys . They took Bergues-Saint-Winoc and, on August 4th, enclosed Fort Mardyck . The siege turned out to be difficult, however, as supplies were constantly being brought in from Dunkirk by sea. However, the Dutch Admiral Maarten Tromp managed to block this route - Fort Mardyck had to surrender on August 25th.
In the opinion that he had fulfilled his task in this campaign, the commander-in-chief Gaston de Bourbon, duc d'Orléans , left Flanders with his court and transferred command to the Prince de Condé.
This immediately only thought of how to highlight his military merits, and for this reason decided to attack Dunkirk.
The siege
Condé decided to completely isolate the city, initially taking Veurne and the forts that controlled the surrounding canals on September 7th . He had bridges built over these to secure his communication. A few days later, when the containment was over, he closed the locks that the defenders had opened to flood the area.
3,000 Polish infantrymen and 2,000 Ukrainian Cossacks were also found in the siege forces , commanded by Bogdan Khmelnitzki . It was the first time that Polish soldiers entered French service.
Despite the bad weather, Admiral Maarten Tromp blocked the port with 10 Dutch warships and later 15 frigates from Normandy and Picardy and thus cut off supplies.
The Spanish government made no serious attempts to keep the largest port city in the county of Flanders. After the request for British support had been rejected by parliament - they did not want to come into conflict with France at this stage of the civil war - the city opened its gates on October 11th. The opposition of the defenders, although courageously led and well directed, had become hopeless.
The Prince de Condé was greatly admired by his contemporaries for this military act. It was generally portrayed as his best action.
Effects
News spread across Europe that the dangerous buccaneer's nest of Dunkirk, which had long hindered Dutch and French maritime trade and had been a major base of the Spanish navy, was now in French hands.
The Maréchal de France Josias Rantzau was appointed governor.
After taking Dunkirk, the Dutch signed a truce with the Spanish (which resulted in a final peace in 1648 that ended the Eighty Years War ).
literature
- Henri Martin : Histoire de France, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'en 1789. Volume 2. Furne, Jouvet, Paris 1859 ( full text in the Google book search).
- Charles Sevin, marquis de Quincy : Histoire militaire du règne de Louis le Grand, Roy de France. Volume 1. Paris 1726, pp. 60–64 ( full text in the Google book search; digitized on Gallica ).
Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 0 ″ N , 2 ° 23 ′ 0 ″ E