Siege of Mainz (1792)

Siege of Mainz (1792)

Part of: First Coalition War

The Siege of Mainz, painting by Georg Melchior Kraus

date	October 18-21, 1792
place	Mainz
output	French victory

Parties to the conflict
France	Kurmainz
Commander
Adam de Custine	Clemens August von Gymnich Franz Ludwig von Hatzfeld
Troop strength
18,000 men approx. 50 cannons	5,870 men, 184 cannons and nine howitzers
losses
unknown number of dead and wounded	2 dead and unknown number of wounded

The siege of Mainz in 1792 was a brief episode during the First Coalition War . The victors were the French troops under Custine , who was able to take the city after only three days of siege in October 1792. This was followed by the establishment of the Republic of Mainz .

backgrounds

The French Revolution of 1789 found a resolute opponent in the Elector of Mainz and Archbishop Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal . Like the Trier elector Clemens Wenzeslaus , he took in a large number of noble emigrants who had left France for fear of the effects of the revolution. As a result, Mainz developed into one of the main bases of the counter-revolution in Europe alongside Koblenz .

After the outbreak of war on April 20, 1792, a decision meeting of the emigrants in Mainz resulted in the “Declaration de Mayence” (Declaration of Mainz). It stipulated that if the royal family were exposed to any kind of interference, the revolutionaries would be opposed with all their might. In this case an example should be made to the revolutionaries. After the failed flight of the king and his arrest in Varennes-en-Argonne , the elector of Mainz joined the coalition against France.

Not only did the Allies attempt to invade France in the cannonade near Valmy fail , but the revolutionary troops succeeded in launching a counterattack. When the Duke of Braunschweig reinforced his troops, which were badly battered after the withdrawal from France, with the Austrian corps of General von Erbach from Speyer, he weakened the already very thin line of defense of the imperial border and allowed General Custine von Landau to advance against Speyer , Worms and Mainz . After General Erbach's troops left, there was only a weak security corps near the imperial warehouse in Speyer. It was an Austrian battalion, two battalions from the Kurmainz garrison of Mainz and various smaller units, a total of 3200 men. On September 29th, Custine and his 18,000-strong army advanced from Landau and forced the corps to surrender under the command of the Electorate of Mainz, Colonel Damian von Winkelmann. With this success, Custine not only obtained urgent supplies, but also the possibility of a further advance on Mainz itself.

procedure

In Mainz itself, the defeat of Speyer caused panic. A large part of the nobility, the civil service and the clergy fled. The elector himself appointed two governors and went to his secondary residence in Aschaffenburg . Of the remaining population, with the exception of a few smaller groups who welcomed the French approach, the majority were in favor of defending the city; about 3,000 citizens took up arms. Apart from you, the rest of the crew was very weak. Since the Kurmainzische army - not very strong anyway - had not yet been put on the war level, there were only about 1200 soldiers in the city. There were also smaller imperial contingents from Nassau-Weilburg , Nassau-Usingen , and the prince-bishops of Worms and Fulda . In total, the defenders came to about 6,000 men. Only a small number of the guns could be used because there was a lack of artillerymen.

But Custine was not in an easy position either. His army - separated from the "Armée du Rhin" by order of the National Convention as the "Armée des Vosges" (Vosges Army) on October 1, 1792 - consisted of a good third of voluntary and untrained national guards, he had neither heavy artillery nor a corresponding one Siege Train. He also assumed that if he stayed too long in front of Mainz he would very quickly attract a Prussian or Austrian army. Encouraged by information from Mainz, he slowly marched towards the fortress. On the evening of October 18th, the advance guard of the French with a regiment Chasseurs à cheval ( hunters on horseback ) arrived in front of the fortress and they managed to take two upstream entrenchments. Colonel Jean-Nicolas Houchard stated:

Mainz fortress around 1815. The Hauptstein Vorwerk is to the left of the center in front of the main wall.

“From October 19, the French army began to set up within sight of Mainz. Our right wing stood in front of Hechtsheim, our left wing on the Rhine. We occupied Bretzenheim , Zahlbach , the upper mills of Gonsenheim and the Waldspitze near Mombach . The headquarters were in Marienborn . One of our columns marched in front of Zahlbach in the fire area of ​​the fortress guns and was then shot at by the cannons of the upstream works. Some of our men were wounded in the process. We quickly realized that Fort Hauptstein and the main walls could only be fought with howitzers, but not with field cannons. Furthermore, we had to recognize that the artillery equipment on the ramparts of Mainz was very extensive. It was impossible for us to do anything with our six pounders here. Pioneer Commander Clémencey suggested using glowing cannonballs, but Custine laughed and said that he could have the city safe without being an arsonist. "

Since a storm or a long siege was unthinkable, Custine resorted to a ruse. Since he had captured a large supply of tents in Worms, he enlarged the French camp and began a whole series of deception maneuvers to keep the defenders in the dark about his number and intentions. The defenders, in turn, fell for the French deception. Although they had managed to recapture at least one of the upstream entrenchments and to keep the besiegers at a distance with sporadic fire from their fortress artillery, the governor Lieutenant General von Gymnich was grieved and discouraged. Even during the Seven Years' War, Austrian and Electoral Mainz engineering officers had considered a minimum requirement of 8,000 defenders to be necessary. Gymnich was far from having this number, especially since the majority were armed citizens, untrained recruits and invalids. Under these circumstances, both von Gymnich and his council of war considered a successful defense of the fortress out of the question. On October 20, General Custine gave the defenders an ultimatum threatening a charge. The fortress command was intimidated by this. Of the seven Mainz generals who decided the fate of one of the most important imperial fortresses, only Lieutenant General Franz Ludwig von Hatzfeld had some combat experience - only he had previously commanded more than one company in battle. As the commander of the section of the Karlsschanze, however, he appeared completely disillusioned in the council of war and declared that his section in particular could hardly be held in the event of a veritable attack. Although the French had not achieved any notable successes and the electoral governors Albini and Fechenbach advised that the fighting should continue, the generals decided to surrender. On October 21st, the fortress surrendered to the French.

Aftermath

On that day, relations between France and the German Empire changed. A garrison of 20,000 men was placed in the fortress of Mainz, which exceeded the remaining population. The occupiers tried to convince the inhabitants of the advantages of the revolution, which in themselves were not fundamentally against it. This was countered by the food shortage caused by the occupation and the troubles caused by the population. On the other hand, the Général Custine, who now resided in the electoral palace, did everything to protect the university and the properties of the archbishopric. Many citizens therefore did not see the French as intruders, but rather as liberators.

For Custine, the conquest of Mainz marked an unexpected turn in his advance. Suddenly he had a solid base within the empire - and in the form of the largest and most strategically important fortress on the western border. Even his army, which had been poorly reinforced with national guards, was able to keep Prussian and Austrian armies at a distance for the time being. What's more, the Republic of Mainz, which was installed soon after, even gave his approach the appearance of legality.

For the Allies, the loss of Mainz meant the end of all offensive plans against France itself. Only with the reconquest of Mainz did they think about it and such a reconquest would be extremely time-consuming.

For Kurmainz and the Reich, the loss of the Mainz fortress not only heralded a phase of decline, but also the end of the Holy Roman Empire and the spiritual territories on German soil.

Johann Aloys Becker , a citizen of Mainz and later a functionary of the Mainz Republic, wrote to a friend:

“Our people can finally shake off their chains and claim human rights for themselves. We'll be free soon. A few days before our city was besieged by the French, I felt great joy. Freedom and equality have now also reached Mainz! The French are now attacking our despots, first of all our elector, who preferred to leave the city a few days ago.

I confess that I had great pleasure in view of the enormous despair that gripped our noble lords. They panicked as the French approached, took what they could and left town. "

People involved

• Clemens August von und zu Gymnich, General and Governor of the Mainz Fortress
• Rudolf Eickemeyer , lieutenant colonel and leader of the Mainz engineering corps
• Franz Ludwig von Hatzfeldt , Lieutenant General and owner of an Electoral Mainz infantry regiment
• Johann Friedrich von und zum Stein , Prussian envoy
• Baron Franz Joseph von Albini , electoral court chancellor
• Adam-Philippe de Custine, General de division and French army commander
• Jean-Nicolas Houchard , colonel and commander of the French vanguard and a regiment of hunters on horseback
• Lieutenant Jacques Darnaud

literature

• Arthur Chuquet : L'Expédition de Custine (1892)
• Elmar Heinz: double wheel and double eagle. Mainz fortress between the emperor, empire and electoral state in the First Coalition War (1792–1797), Mainz 2002.
• Peter Lautzas : The Mainz fortress in the age of the Ancien Regime, the French Revolution and the Empire (1763-1814), Wiesbaden 1973.
• Christian Lübcke: Kurmainzer Military and Landsturm in the 1st and 2nd Coalition War, Paderborn 2016.

Web links

• Les campagnes de Claude Joseph Tournier - Prize de Mayence

Footnotes

1. ↑ Jean Louis Camille Gay de Vernon, Baron Gay de Vernon: Mémoire sur les opérations militaires des généraux en chef Custine et Houchard, pendant les années 1792 et 1793 ; Firmin-Didot frères, 1844, p. 63
2. ^ Lübcke, Christian: Kurmainzer military and Landsturm in the 1st and 2nd coalition war . Ed .: RWM-Verlag. Paderborn 2016, p. 215 .
3. ^ Lübcke, Christian: Kurmainzer military and Landsturm in the 1st and 2nd coalition war . Ed .: RWM-Verlag. Paderborn 2016, p. 242-250 .
4. ↑ Johan Aloïs BECKER, lettre à mon meilleur ami, 29 November 1792 , Mainz City Archives , anthology 151