Siege of Riga (1656)
Siege Of Riga
Engraving by Adam Pérelle (1638–1695)
| date | August 24, 1656 to October 5, 1656 |
|---|---|
| place | Riga , Latvia |
| output | Lifting of the siege |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 25,000 | 7,400 |
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The siege of Riga was an unsuccessful attempt of Russian during the Russo-Swedish War of 1656-1658 , Riga , the capital of the province of Livonia of the Swedish Empire to conquer. The siege lasted from August 21, 1656 to October 5, 1656 and ended with the withdrawal of the besieging Russian army under Tsar Alexei I.
prehistory
In 1559, Russian troops appeared for the first time in front of Riga, but did not dare to attack the city. During the Livonian War (1558–1583), most of what is now Latvia fell to Poland-Lithuania. The Livonian Confederation dissolved. After initial resistance, Riga also had to submit. During the armed conflict between Poland and Sweden, Riga was again a target of attacks. In 1621 the Swedes managed to take the city under King Gustav Adolf . At that time, Riga was still larger than the already rapidly growing Swedish capital, Stockholm, with 30,000 inhabitants.
Poland-Lithuania had failed in its efforts to end the Khmelnytskyi uprising that had broken out in the south-east of the empire . Tsar Alexei I then signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav with Bohdan Khmelnyzkyj and the Zaporozhian Cossacks . The Ukraine east of the Dnieper was supposed to come under the protection of the Russian tsar. Tsar Alexei I decided to intervene in the conflict and support the Cossacks in their struggle. The aim of the tsar was to regain land in Smolensk and the Ukraine that had been lost in the course of the Polish-Russian war of 1609–1618 . Furthermore, the Russian claim to liberate all Rus areas from foreign rule played a role . This marked the beginning of the Thirteen Years War against Poland-Lithuania . Large parts of Poland-Lithuania were occupied by Russia by the end of 1655. Tsar Alexei I declared himself Grand Duke of Lithuania after the conquest of Vilnius in August 1655 . In the southwest a Russian-Cossack army conquered large parts of the country. The advance was disrupted by the intervention of the Polish ally Mehmed IV Giray , Chan of the Crimean khanate .
Sweden tried to secure its Baltic possessions and intervened in the conflict . Poland-Lithuania was on the verge of collapse at the time. A further penetration of Russian troops into the republic would in turn endanger the Swedish holdings in the Baltic Sea. For this reason, King Charles X invaded the Polish aristocratic republic with a 50,000-strong army in the summer of 1655 in order to prevent further Russian territorial gains.
The Swedish success alarmed Tsar Alexei I. In May 1656 he declared war on the Swedes. The Swedish Baltic provinces were uncovered at this point and were unprotected from a Russian invasion. Sweden had fewer than 10,000 men in the Baltic provinces, who were divided into various garrisons. Tsarist Russian Army attacked Estonia , Ingermanland and Kexholm . They conquered the Swedish fortresses of Schluesselburg and Nyenschanz in Ingermanland. In the summer of 1656 Czar Alexei I. led the army of Polotsk the River Daugava (Dvina Daugava) down and captured Daugavpils in July and the Castle Kokenhusen (Koknese) in August. The small Swedish army withdrew to Riga with retreat skirmishes.
Siege of Riga
On August 21, the Russian army reached Riga. The city was defended by 2,000 horsemen and dragoons, 1,800 infantrymen and a number of citizens, no more than 5,000 men together. The Swedish commander of the city, Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie , tried despite his low manpower and against the advice of his generals to defend the extensive and not yet completed outer works . The following night these were destroyed and the Swedish troops had to withdraw to the actual city. The Russian army took up position on the Daugava and began the siege work. This took place in two places: the castle was besieged with seven regiments, the other place was concentrated on the river side.
At this point the Russian army failed to seize the mouth of the Dunes, which would have cut off Riga from the sea. The siege work was well advanced in the meantime, but was carried out without an overall guiding plan. The trenches were led clumsily and the bombardment was uncoordinated. As a result, the cannons caused great damage in the city, but the fortifications remained intact. However, the Russian artillery bombardment had a major impact on the morale of the citizens. Defectors and prisoners told the Russians that the citizens were demanding that the city be surrendered to the tsar, while the military were strongly opposed and were waiting for reinforcements.
The Russian troops failed to get across the moat. No attempt was made to storm it. The Danish allies of the Russians were unable to ensure a naval blockade of the besieged city, which repeatedly undermined the siege effect.
Lifting of the siege
On September 12, the Swedish garrison received a reinforcement of 1,400 soldiers. The tsar then called a council of war to discuss the possibility of an immediate capture of the fortress by storming and the advisability of another siege. Most generals expressed reasonable doubts that a storm would lead to success. A few days later preparations began to lift the siege. At the same time rumors arose that a plague epidemic had broken out in Riga , which also spoke against a continuation of the siege. The Russian army left on October 6th. According to Swedish information, the Russian army is said to have lost 14,000 men, which, however, seems very exaggerated in view of the failure to attempt to storm it.
The motives for lifting the siege on the Russian side were primarily of a diplomatic nature. At the end of the siege of Riga, the foreign policy situation had changed. The original reason for war disappeared as the danger of a Polish-Swedish real union no longer existed. The Tsar's campaign against Riga turned into a great demonstration of power, against the background of which active negotiations were conducted with Poland, Brandenburg, Courland and Denmark. Under these conditions, an unsuccessful and loss-making storming of the city or a protracted siege would be more dangerous for the prestige of the Tsar than an orderly and timely retreat. As a general, Alexei Michailowitsch never took adventurous steps and preferred to maintain the army and use other methods if there was a lack of certainty about the successful outcome of his ventures.
The decision to lift the siege came after the failure of the surrender negotiations with the Riga garrison. The Tsar's hopes for diplomatic help from the Duke of Courland and the Elector of Brandenburg had not come true.
Despite the military failure at Riga, Moscow felt that the Baltic campaign of 1656 was a success. Documents testify to the Tsar's triumphant entry into Polotsk, Smolensk and Moscow. The conquest of almost the entire course of the Daugava, including Daugava and Kokenhusen, opened an important connection line to the Baltic States for Russia.
consequences
Despite the retreat near Riga, Dorpat fell into Russian hands a little later in October 1656. The Russo-Swedish War gave the aristocratic republic time to reorganize. The following year, Russian troops again invaded Livonia . In 1658 the Tsar and the Swedish king signed a three-year armistice agreement.
After another siege , Riga was conquered by the troops of Tsar Peter the Great in 1710 . The city then remained with Russia until the First World War .
swell
- Joh.Georg Schleder: Theatrum Europaeum - Volume 7 . Frankfurt am Main 1663, p. 967–982, information on military losses p. 981 ( online copy )
literature
- Tony Jaques: Dictionary of battles and sieges: a guide to 8,500 battles from antiquity through the twenty-first century . Volume 3, Greenwood Publishing Group 2007, ISBN 9780313335396 , p. 853 ( excerpt in the Google book search)
Individual evidence
- ↑ (at the end of the siege, after reinforcements have arrived)
- ^ Susanne Dell: Riga, Zugvogel Verlag, Norderstedt 2010, p. 32
- ^ William Young: International Politics and Warfare in the Age of Louis XIV and Peter the Great. iUniverse , Lincoln 2004, p. 418, ISBN 0595329926 ( excerpt in the Google book search)
- ^ Gotthold Rhode : History of Poland. An overview . 3rd edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG), Darmstadt 1980, ISBN 3-534-00763-8 , p. 276.
- ^ William Young: International Politics and Warfare in the Age of Louis XIV and Peter the Great. iUniverse , Lincoln 2004, p. 419, ISBN 0595329926 ( excerpt in the Google book search)
- ^ William Young: International Politics and Warfare in the Age of Louis XIV and Peter the Great. iUniverse , Lincoln 2004, p. 420, ISBN 0595329926 ( excerpt in Google book search)
- ↑ Geijer, Carlson, Stavenow, Heeren et al .: History of Sweden: Until the Reichstag 1680 , Volume 4, Gotha 1855, p. 169 ( excerpt in the Google book search)
- ↑ Geijer, Carlson, Stavenow, Heeren et al .: History of Sweden: Until the Reichstag 1680 , Volume 4, Gotha 1855, p. 171 ( excerpt in the Google book search)
- ↑ Мальцев А. Н. Международное положение Русского государства в 50-х годах и русско-шведская война 1656—1658 гоетври иСоск // ОчСков // Оч Период феодализма, XVII в. / Под ред. А. А. Новосельского и Н. В. Устюгова. - М., 1955. - С. 502.
- ↑ a b c d Курбатов О. А. Рижский поход царя Алексея Михайловича 1656 г .: Проблемы и перспективы исследования // Проблемы социальной и политической истории России: Сборник научных статей / ред. Р. Г. Пихоя. - М., 2009. - С. 83-88.