Siege of Namur (1695)

Siege of Namur

Part of: War of the Palatinate Succession

Siege of Namur (painting by Jan van Huchtenburg )

date	July 2 to September 1, 1695
place	Namur
output	Allied victory

Parties to the conflict
France	Vienna Grand Alliance : United Netherlands England Spain Bavaria Brandenburg
Commander
Louis-François de Boufflers	William III. Maximilian II. Emanuel Friedrich von Heyden Menno van Coehoorn
Troop strength
13,000-15,000	80,000
losses
8000	12,000

The information on troop strength and losses can differ significantly in the literature.

The siege of Namur took place in the summer of 1695 as part of the Nine Years War between French troops and an Allied army. In 1692 the French conquered Namur ( Siege of Namur (1692) ).

The defenders were led by Louis-François de Boufflers . The siege army was under the command of Wilhelm III. and Maximilian II. Emanuel of Bavaria . The siege itself was led by Menno van Coehoorn . The fortress eventually had to surrender. The casualties on both sides were high and the siege was the worst of the war.

prehistory

In 1692, the French took Namur after a siege. For the Allies, the recapture of Namur was an important goal in order to regain supremacy in the Spanish Netherlands . In 1694 they managed to take the nearby Huy . This made it easier to recapture Namur.

The successful Marshal François-Henri de Montmorency-Luxembourg died in the winter of 1694/95, war fatigue spread in France and in the Netherlands the French army switched to defensive warfare. Against this background, the Allies decided to attack Namur. Initially, however, Namur was only a secondary goal. The two main allied armies under Wilhelm III. and Max Emanuel von Bayern wanted to attack the new French defensive lines in Flanders . The French pulled together all available troops there, so that Wilhelm III. renounced an attack. Because the French had left the Meuse region with little security due to their troop concentration , the opportunity for an attack on Namur was favorable.

Namur was heavily fortified. In addition, the Sambre and Meuse flowed in the south and east and the small river Vedrin in the north. The city was also protected by a citadel. This was on the right bank of the Sambre on a high rock. Then there was the new Fort Wilhelm, which Coeshorn had built. After the capture by the French, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban had reinforced the fortifications again.

course

Siege plan with the layout of the fortress of Namur and the positions and movements of the troops

The Allied troops stationed in Brabant received orders to set off for Namur. On July 2nd, Max Emanuel von Bayern arrived at Namur. A short time later, Wilhelm III joined. with part of his troops. His main forces were to bind the French in Flanders. Before the siege began, Boufllers had succeeded in bringing a strong garrison of 13,000 to 15,000 men into the city.

The siege army consisted of 47 battalions of infantry and 200 squadrons of cavalry. In total, the besiegers numbered about 80,000 men. The siege army surrounded the city in three sections. The largest of these sections was in the north between the Meuse and Sambre. There were Dutch, English and German troops under Wilhelm III. In the loop of the Meuse in the southeast, around 13,000 Brandenburgers were under General Friedrich von Heiden . In the southwest, Max Emanuel commanded around 17,000 Spaniards and Bavarians between the Meuse and the right bank of the Sambre.

The technical management of the siege was taken over by Coeshorn, who had not only expanded the fortifications earlier, but also defended the city and fortress in 1692. The circumvallation lines were set up on July 5th . The heavy siege guns arrived on July 11th. The besiegers opened trenches on July 12, and shortly afterwards the bombardment of the city began. Most of the houses in the city were destroyed. The besieged tried to stop the opposing efforts with a series of raids. In the end, they failed, and the French withdrew to the citadel on August 3. The Allies did the same in 1692.

In contrast to then, there was no agreement between the two parties that prohibited an attack from the city. Coeshorn also had the lower fortifications of the citadel on the other bank of the Sambre bombarded from the city. When the walls threatened to break, Boufflers had defensive trenches built. A first assault by the Allies met fierce resistance and the troops had to withdraw with heavy losses. The Allies attacked a second time with a larger number of troops and managed to secure the lower fortifications. Another attack was aimed at the advanced Fort William. The storming was successful for the Allies. But this attack also cost many victims on both sides. The successes so far made it possible to bring the guns closer to the center of the fortress. A hornwork was badly damaged by the bombardment. This was followed by a successful assault by English grenadiers .

The French commander-in-chief in the Dutch theater of war, Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroy , ordered the bombing of Brussels in August in order to induce the Allies to break off the siege of Namur. This attempt failed.

The defenders were eventually pushed back to the medieval part of the complex. Bouffler capitulated on September 4th. In gratitude for the long resistance he was appointed marshal. The French lost 8,000 men. The Allies lost 12,000 men.

consequences

The long duration of the siege meant that the Allied troops could hardly take any further action. There was therefore no conceivable invasion of France. In the following year, both the Dutch and the French were unable to carry out significant operations for financial reasons, so that the ties of the Allied troops in front of Namur inadvertently contributed to the French being able to hold their own.

literature

• William Young: International Politics and Warfare in the Age of Louis XIV and Peter the Great. Lincoln 2004, p. 230
• Julius Mebes : Contributions to the history of the Brandenburg-Prussian state and army. Vol. 2. Berlin 1857, pp. 245-251
• Marcus Junkelmann: Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria as general. Munich 2000, pp. 97-99

Web links

• Description of the siege (Engl.)