Siege of Mainz (1795)

The siege of Mainz by the French lasted from December 14, 1794 to October 29, 1795 and was part of the First Coalition War . The third ten-month blockade only encompassed the western bank of the Rhine and did not lead to the goal. On the decisive last day of the blockade, the Austrians under Count von Clerfayt carried out a surprise attack against four divisions of the French Rhine and Moselle Army under General Schaal . The right French division fled the battlefield, forcing the other three divisions to withdraw, losing all of the siege artillery.

prehistory

Captive balloon during the siege of Mainz in 1795

Mainz was occupied by the French without a fight in October 1792 and made happy with the achievements of the revolution. After a three-month siege (April – July 1793) , the city was recaptured by the Prussians under General von Kalckreuth . In November 1794 General Kleber received the order to conquer the Mainz fortress, which he knew well from previous operations. On November 7th and 8th, the Mainz outposts of the crew were pushed back into the outer works of the square, - on November 12th the forest near Gonsenheim and the village of Mombach were taken by the French. The French lines on the left bank ran from the beginning of November 1794 along Laubenheim , Weisenau , Hechtsheim (Division Courtot), Marienborn (Division Saint-Cyr), Ober-Olm (Division Mengaud), Gonsenheim (Division Reneauld) to Mombach on the right bank Kastel bis Kostheim . The headquarters of Mainz, where the French Commissioner Merlin de Thionville resided, was in Ober-Ingelheim . The French blockade troops stood in a semicircle with two divisions under Saint-Cyr and Desaix of the Rhine Army and three divisions under Colaud , Reneauld and Desbureaux of the Moselle Army, the right wing on the Rhine at Laubenheim, further via Hechtsheim, Marienborn and the left wing Budenheim on the Rhine again.

The siege

The third siege began at the end of 1794 under General Jean-Baptiste Kléber , who on November 14th successfully ended the siege of Maastricht . Kléber's army was not big enough to adequately man the blockade lines, and he lacked heavy artillery to destroy the walls. At the end of December, Kleber took over command of the Armée de Mayence , newly formed in front of Mainz , which was formed from the right wing of the Moselle Army and the left wing of the Rhine Army. From December 14, 1794, French troops besieged the west side of Mainz fortress. The conquest of Mainz was impossible for the French as long as the connection with the right bank was open, because the coalition army camped there could supply the fortress. French troops fought repeatedly with the German outposts for the village of Weisenau , settled in Bretzenheim and captured the Zahlbacher Schanze, which they had to vacate again in the evening. On December 2, Kleber divided his five divisions standing in front of Mainz (52 battalions and 23 squadrons with about 33,000 men) into three attack groups: the right group, commanded by General Desaix, consisted of the Desaix and Tugnot divisions ; the middle group formed under General Saint-Cyr and the left group under General Desbureaux, formed from his division and that of General Reneauld. The French built an entrenched line that enclosed the fortress on the left bank of the Rhine in a semicircle. The positions were secured by a threefold series of wolf holes and which were particularly well developed between Laubenheim and Hechtsheim. In the middle between Marienborn and Gonsenheim an additional line was established, which was secured with 160 to 200 artillery pieces during the months.

In the spring of 1795 the Austrians had organized a small Rhine flotilla off Mainz, whose gunboats gradually controlled the rivers between Mannheim , Frankfurt and Koblenz, the Rhine , Main and Moselle . After Mainz was no longer able to finance its own troops and supplies to the Mainz garrison, the electorate made attempts to conclude a separate peace with France . Since this would have meant the loss of Mainz fortress for Austria and thus the collapse of the entire front on the Rhine, the imperial commander was forced to act.

The siege was intensified in the summer of 1795 when the French launched a new offensive across the Rhine with two armies. The military successes of the French in the other theaters of war ensured that the French armed forces standing in front of Mainz were overestimated and therefore did not dare to make an effective sortie. On the other side of the Rhine, two Austrian armies formed under Count Clairfayt and Field Marshal Wurmser . At the beginning of September 1795, the French Sambre and Maas Army crossed the Lower Rhine, advanced towards the Main and then threatened to block Mainz on the east side of the river. South of Mainz, the Rhine and Moselle armies under General Pichegru conquered Mannheim , while at the same time in the north the Sambre and Maas armies under General Jourdan crossed the river at the beginning of September and advanced towards Nassau . While one waited for further instructions from Paris, Jourdan's army moved on to Mainz, Pichegru's troops wanted to advance from Mannheim to the northeast.

The Austrians and their allies under the Count of Clerfayt left on 10/11. October over the Main and advanced to the Nidda . In the Battle of Höchst the Austrians defeated the French troops under Jourdan and forced them to retreat back to the west bank of the Rhine. Field Marshal Wurmser, meanwhile, struck Pichegru near Mannheim on October 18 and enclosed his troops. This delay gave the Austrians time to restore the situation in their favor. Wurmser concentrated his army to relieve Mannheim and gave Clairfayt a free hand with Jourdan. Jourdan's army was spread out from Mainz right via Höchst to Nassau and theoretically protected by neutral territory in Frankfurt, but Clairfayt marched through part of that area and was able to circumnavigate the French left flank by October 11th. In a council of war, Jourdan's officers rejected any idea of ​​attacking the Austrians and voted to withdraw. On the night of October 16, the army began to withdraw to the north and crossed the Rhine between Neuwied and Düsseldorf by October 20 . The French troops blocking Mainz were thus dangerously isolated. Jourdan was now a little northwest of Koblenz , while Pichegru was in Mannheim. General Clairfayt decided to break the Mainz blockade. With the east bank of the Rhine in Austrian hands, he was able to increase the strength of the garrison in Mainz, and on October 29 the Austrians launched a surprise attack from the city

Clerfayt and his army moved from Wiesbaden to Mainz on October 27 and went to the city incognito to clear up the lines of the French on the left bank of the Rhine. He quickly noticed the weak point of the opposing positions between Laubenheim and the valley floor on the Rhine, where a gap in defense remained open at 1500 paces due to insufficient teams. He planned to focus on this point for his attack on October 29th.

The assault on October 29, 1795

Charles de Croix, Count of Clerfayt

The Austrian armed forces, the troops intended for the attack, comprised 28 battalions, 32 companies and 33 squadrons with a total of 30,600 men, including 5,118 horsemen. General Feldzeugmeister Clerfayt led the attack personally, as chief of staff who served Count of Wartensleben , the entire artillery was under the Count Kolowrat Krakowsky . It was planned that the enemy's attention should be drawn to his left wing at daybreak by mock attacks on Mombach and Gonsenheim, and the main attack should be carried out against the right wing of the French. A small column had to cross the Rhine and attack via Bodenheim, 7 companies under Major Williams were landed on gunboats, which were then to attack at Laubenheim. A strong detachment was to be set up in the Weisenau against the right flank of the enemy at the Holy Cross Church . While this point, which was seen as the key to the enemy’s defense, should be stormed, other forces have to roll up the French right wing by embracing it from the rear.

General Schaal, who led the blockade, had occupied the French positions on the west bank of the Rhine as follows: his headquarters were two miles away in the village of Ober-Ingelheim .

• Courtot Division with 9,000 men from Laubenheim to Hechtsheim; Headquarters in Bodenheim.
• Division Gouvion St.-Cyr with 6,800 men from Hechtsheim to Marienborn; Headquarters in Nieder-Olm.
• Mengaud division with 6,700 men between Marienborn and Gonsenheim.
• Reneauld division with 8,200 men between Gonsenheim and Mombach on the Rhine. The French cavalry was distributed in the outer parts of the city and in the nearby villages on the Selz .

For his attack, Count Clerfayt divided his army into several columns:

• First column under Feldmarschallleutnant (FML) Andreas von Neu : 9 battalions, 8 companies and 8 squadrons should take Laubenheim and the nearest heights.
• Second column under the command of General Joseph Staader and FML Baron Prugglach with 8 battalions, 5 companies, 4 squadrons and 2 heavy batteries; this column is to march towards the heights of Hechtsheim.
• Third column under FML Count Wenzel von Colloredo-Mels : 5 battalions, 22 squadrons and 3 batteries; this column had to take Bretzenheim and demonstrate against the French center.
• Group of Lieutenant Colonel Klein : 1 battalion had to lead the mock attack over the Hartenberg on Gonsenheim.
• Major Montbach's group: 1 battalion and 2 companies were to carry out attacks on the village of Mombach via Hartmühle.
• The brigade of Major General Prince von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen was the vanguard of Count Erbach-Schöneberg's observation corps with 7 companies on the right bank of the Rhine as far as Bingen, and had to cross the river at Walluf and conduct a mock attack. 4 battalions of grenadiers were also brought into the fortress to support the Mainz garrison in an emergency.

Gautor of the fortress Mainz

On the night of October 29th, all Austrian troops were on the move to get to the various points where the attack was to begin. The movements were carried out in silence, with strong westerly winds favoring the concealment. At 8 o'clock in the morning the vanguard of the main column stood in front of the large star bastion, behind which the main force waited at Mombach for the signal for the attack. A sapper division under Major Williams, consisting of 7 gunboats and 7 transporters, gathered near Ginsheim , drifted between the Benzels-Au and Jakobsberger-Au to the left bank during the night and landed 950 men between Markhof and Nackenheim without encountering enemy posts . The first main column (9,200 men) of General von Neu advanced from Neutor and formed in front of and to the right of Weisenau in three meetings, which were formed by the Wenckheim , Wolkenstein and Nauendorf divisions. The 2 column under FML Staader (7,920 men) advanced through the Gautor and the Marienborn barrier and formed two meetings between this barrier and the ruins of the Church of the Holy Cross while the cavalry followed as the third meeting at Hechtsheim. Colonel Petar Knesevich's column, 4 companies and 10 squadrons strong, advanced from Weisenau to Laubenheim. The vanguard of the 3 column (7,440 men, including 22 cavalry squadrons) under Major General Mercandin had gone ahead to Bretzenheim and unfolded on both banks of the river near Hechtsheim, to the right and left of Zahlbach, which was covered by the entire artillery of FML Count Colloredo. Auxiliary troops under Lieutenant Colonel Klein crossed the cathedral gate and positioned themselves on the Hartenberg. Major Williams remained in the village after the occupation of Bodenheim because of his low personnel strength, a battalion took up position near the Hartmühle, two companies of this column were posted near the factory there. The French division St.-Cyr was threatened in the flank and rear, his second meeting under General Hauvel formed a heel position to the right. This division, which formed the right wing of the defense, gave up its positions before the Austrian onslaught and thereby also forced the three other divisions to retreat, the siege artillery was given up. In this fight, an observation balloon was used for the second time in the First Coalition War. The French lost 138 guns, 250 ammunition wagons and 1,633 prisoners. Among the Austrians, FML von Schmertzing and Major General Wolkenstein fell during the attacks, and there were also losses of 77 officers and 1,386 men.

consequences

On October 29th the Austrians managed to break through the French siege ring around Mainz. The propagandistic and political impetus of this success thwarted all further attempts at a separate peace in Mainz with the French Republic. Clerfait defeated the siege troops of Mainz on the left bank and pushed them back behind the Nahe . In the further course of the campaign the Austrians were on the offensive everywhere, but could not really exploit their success through internal disputes. Clerfait defeated the French army on November 10 at the Battle of Pfeddersheim . This victory made it possible to besiege the French garrison in Mannheim more effectively. On November 22nd, 1795, after a month-long siege, the 10,000-strong French garrison under General Montaigu surrendered . The campaign of 1795 ended. Despite these Allied victories, Mainz fell back to France as a result of the campaigns of 1797 and had to be ceded to France in the Peace of Campo Formio . The French annexed the entire left bank of the Rhine.

literature

• Karl Anton Schaab : The history of the federal fortress Mainz , Mainz 1835, S, 410–437 f.
• August von Witzleben : Prince Friedrich Josias von Coburg-Saalfeld, Duke of Saxony , Volume 3, Berlin 1859
• Günter Schneider: 1794 - The French on their way to the Rhine , Helios-Verlag, Aachen 2006, ISBN 3-938208-24-4 .