Siege of Stralsund (1711)

Siege of Stralsund (1711)

Part of: Great Northern War

Siege of Stralsund from 1711 to 1712

date	1st siege: September 7, 1711 to January 7, 1712 2nd siege: May 1712 - September 26, 1712
place	Hanseatic city of Stralsund , today's Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
output	Demolition of the siege

Parties to the conflict
Sweden	Denmark Russia Poland-Lithuania
Commander
Major General Claes Ekeblad	Friedrich VI. Alexander Menschikow Jakob von Flemming
Troop strength
9,000 men	26,000 Danes and 20,000 Russians and Saxons

The siege of Stralsund from September 7, 1711 to September 26, 1712 by a united army of Russians , Danes and Saxons in the Great Northern War ended with the lifting of the blockade by the Allies after the successful landing of Swedish troops under General Graf Stenbock .

The first state of siege of the city lasted from September 7, 1711 to January 7, 1712, the second following state of siege took place from May 1712 to September 26, 1712.

The parties

Stralsund Fortress, which has belonged to Sweden since the Thirty Years' War , was defended by 9,000 men under the command of Major General Claes Ekeblad .

The Danish King Friedrich IV , who was again in the alliance against Sweden from 1710, marched with an army of 20,000 men from Holstein towards Stralsund. Together with the 20,000 Russians and Saxons under the command of General Alexander Menshikov , they began the siege of Stralsund in May 1711.

prehistory

Encouraged by the victories of the Russians, the Danes raised an army of 20,000 men. This consisted of 27 battalions of infantry and 59 squadrons of cavalry . The assembly point of the troops was Delmenhorst . On July 25, 1711, Friedrich VI met. even in the army camp. To cover the costs of the installation, he pledged the city of Delmenhorst to the Duchy of Hanover . The Saxon and Russian contingents marched united through Prussian territory towards Stralsund. Since Prussia had a self-interest in Swedish Pomerania , they were not prevented from marching through.

In August 1711 the Danish troops left . The army marched towards Wismar via Mölln and Gadebusch . The fortress was defended by the Swedish General Scholtz. General Schönfeld and about 5,000 men were assigned by the Danish king to enclose and siege them. The main army marched over Rostock towards Western Pomerania . In Damgarten the Swedes were defeated in a battle and pushed back to Stralsund.

A large part of the rural population of Western Pomerania withdrew to the fortresses of Stralsund and Stettin. The island of Rügen was also used as a retreat for the population. On the advance of the Russians and Saxons, Anklam and Greifswald surrendered voluntarily to the Allies. On September 7, 1711, the troops under Menshikov reached the suburbs of Stralsund. The following day the Danish army reached the siege site.

First siege: September 7, 1711 - January 7, 1712

The Danish troops positioned themselves between Kedingshagen and the Kniepertor , the Saxons between Langendorf and Lüdershagen. The Russian camp was located from Lüdershagen to Andershof across from the Frankentor . Due to internal disagreements, the allies lacked the artillery guns for a siege of the city. In addition, the Russian troops were very poorly equipped, they lacked food and tents. At the beginning of the siege, the soldiers buried themselves in caves in the earth. Due to the poor supply situation, diseases quickly spread in the Russian camp, and many Russian soldiers died in the first months of the siege. As a result, no attacks on the fortress could be undertaken by the Russian side. The Saxons hardly carried out any siege activities either. Danish troops attacked the fortifications repeatedly, but were always repulsed.

New troops were raised in Sweden and shipped to Rügen in December 1711 with 24 ships of the line and four frigates . The landed troops served to strengthen the fortress. In addition, the Stralsund food stores were refilled. The supplies lasted until the summer of 1712. When the Danish king heard about this supply of troops and supplies, he withdrew with his army to Mecklenburg. The Danes had lost a third of their soldiers to disease during the siege. Frederick IV now tried to force Wismar to give up, but this fortress was also supplied by the sea with 2000 Swedish soldiers as well as provisions and ammunition in January 1712. The Danes withdrew to Holstein in early February 1712.

After the siege was ended on January 7, 1712 by the Russians and Saxons due to a lack of guns and transport ships, they holed up near Greifswald . The command of the Saxon troops was given to the Russian Lieutenant General Ludwig Nikolaus von Hallart .

After the failed first siege, four battalions of infantry and 18 artillery pieces as well as several dozen cannons were sent from Saxony to Swedish Pomerania to reinforce the siege troops in March 1712. The Allied plan was for the Saxons and Russians to take the island of Rügen in addition to Stralsund and the Danes to occupy the cities of Stade and Wismar. The beginning of the siege of Stralsund was delayed because the Swedes dared a relief attack and the Allies took up action near Damgarten. The Swedish troops withdrew to Stralsund again. The plan of attack was delayed again when the Danes did not start the siege of Wismar until June. The artillery pieces also had to be brought into position first.

Second siege: May 1712 to September 26, 1712

The second siege of Stralsund began at the beginning of September 1712. This siege, too, had to be broken off a short time later due to a lack of ammunition and sufficient artillery, which could cause noticeable damage to the fortress. The Saxons and Russians withdrew again to Greifswald.

At the end of September 1712 General Stenbock landed near Stralsund with a Swedish corps, 6,391 infantry and 4,800 horsemen. Stenbock's provisions and ammunition supplies were intercepted by the Danes when the Swedish transport fleet was destroyed . He then concentrated his 16,000-strong army at Damgarten to take action against the allies. The Russians and Saxons concentrated their forces at the Recknitz and waited for a union with the Danes. Only then did Menshikov want to attack the Swedes. In mid-December 1712, the allies moved towards Schwerin in order to ally themselves more quickly with the Danes. Stenbock, who wanted to prevent this merger at all costs, also turned with his troops in the direction of Schwerin. He bypassed Lake Schwerin and defeated the Danes on December 20, 1712 near Gadebusch . The approaching Saxon cavalry, under the command of General Count Flemming, could no longer help the Danes and had to flee in the direction of Schleswig. The Russians and Saxons rushed after their allies.

The consequences

The two sieges did not cause any great damage to the city, and the city could be supplied with supplies via the island of Rügen. The garrison of the fortress also suffered few losses, so Stralsund continued to be an important fortress in Swedish Pomerania. The allies Saxons, Russians and Danes subsequently fought in Schleswig and Holstein. In 1713, Count Stenbock and his entire army had to surrender in Tönning. The Saxon and Russian troops marched back to Pomerania and resumed their old blockade positions in front of Stralsund in mid-June. The fortress was besieged for the third time from mid-June 1713 to early October 1713.

On October 6th, the Treaty of Schwedt came into force through the mediation of Prussia . Swedish Pomerania was placed under sequestration by Prussia. Russia and Saxony were promised compensation if they were attacked by Sweden.

Historical peculiarities

During the time of the siege of Stralsund, Russian soldiers were allowed to hold services according to the Orthodox rite in the small monastery churches of the Holy Spirit and Saint Juergens .

literature

• Knut Lundblad: History of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden , Volume 2. Hamburg 1840
• Matthias Asche: War, the military and migration in the early modern period . Publishing house Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin 2008
• Johannes Anton Larrass: History of the Royal Saxon 6th Infantry Regiment No. 105 and its prehistory 1701 to 1887. Print: HL Kayser, Strasbourg i. E. 1887.
• Martin Meier: Western Pomerania north of the Peene under Danish administration from 1715 to 1721 . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58285-7

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Lundblad, p. 230
2. ^ Lundblad, p. 231
3. ^ Lundblad, p. 232
4. ↑ Lundblad, p. 234.
5. ↑ Larrass, p. 26.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Larrass, p. 27.
7. ↑ Meier, p. 22.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Larrass, p. 28
9. ↑ Asche, p. 80