Siege of Verdun

Siege of Verdun

Part of: First Coalition War

JW v. Goethe: Verdun Fortress

date	August 29, 1792
place	Verdun , France
output	Victory of Prussia and the Allies

Parties to the conflict
France	Prussia
Commander
Nicolas Beaurepaire	Ferdinand of Braunschweig
Troop strength
approx. 3500-4000 men	about 40,000 men
losses
unknown	unknown

The siege of Verdun took place between August 29 and September 2, 1792 by Allied troops during the First Coalition War . It ended with an Allied victory and the swift surrender of the city. The fear of the fall or the news of the surrender contributed to the radicalization in Paris, which culminated in the September murders.

prehistory

The Allies hoped for a quick victory before invading France. The Commander-in-Chief Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, fanned the revolutionary dynamic with his manifesto of July 25, 1792, in which he threatened the complete annihilation of Paris should the royal family suffer harm, and thus contributed to that the supremacy of the Girondins came under radical pressure.

After the capture of the Longwy fortress on August 23 , the predominantly Prussian troops marched under the Duke of Braunschweig with a strength of about 50,000 men to Verdun . The aim was to prevent the unification of Charles-François Dumouriez and François-Christophe Kellermann . On August 8th the Prince of Hohenlohe had already enclosed Landau on the extreme left wing and had orders to proceed against Thionville . In addition, around 15,000 Austrians had to advance under Count Clerfait from Luxembourg and join the right wing of the Prussians. The Austrian auxiliary corps took the fortress of Montmédy , occupied Stenay and advanced its avant-garde to the left bank of the Meuse .

After Verdun fell to France in 1552 (finally 1648) , the city was fortified. In particular, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban built the citadel and the defense of the city itself at the end of the 17th century. Overall, however, the Allies did not consider the fortification of the city to be very strong. The ownership of the city promised a good transition over the Meuse and a rear base when advancing further. The Duke of Brunswick hoped that a rapprochement with Paris would lead to an anti-revolutionary movement and an overflow of troops loyal to the king. In addition, the memory of the loss of the bishoprics of Verdun , Toul and Metz, which formerly belonged to the empire , was not forgotten at the end of the Thirty Years War . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was an eye-witness of the siege as a companion of Carl August , the Duke of Saxe-Weimar .

course

Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire (painting by Raymond Monvoisin 1834)

When the army arrived, the city was completely enclosed. The fortress was not prepared for a longer defense. The fortifications were in poor condition. The crew was about 3,500 men. It consisted of three battalions of line infantry , several units of the National Guard and quickly armed peasants. The governor Colonel Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire was determined to offer long resistance. On August 31, the besieged were asked to surrender in vain.

Thereupon three artillery batteries were brought into position and, as Goethe reported, Verdun was bombed with incendiary bullets during the night . A district caught fire as a result of the shelling. At daybreak the defensive fire increased. In a letter to Christiane Vulpius on September 2, 1792, Goethe wrote: “The city did not want to surrender and was shot at last night. It's a horrible sight and you don't want to think that you have anything sweet in it. Today she will surrender and the army will move on to Paris. ”On September 1, the crew was again asked to surrender. The governor called for continued resistance. The citizens and the city council turned against this. The governor was forced to agree to a ceasefire. He was later found killed by a bullet. It is unclear whether he took his own life or was killed. The crew capitulated on September 2nd. The troops were given free withdrawal and a short time later united with other units.

Goethe reported in his work "Campagne in France 1792" about the death of the city governor, which was perceived as a suicide, and also about the attack by a soldier on the entering Prussian soldiers. Before he could be caught, the shooter jumped from a bridge into the Meuse and was pulled out dead. Goethe described these episodes as heroic and understood them as a "republican character trait". Goethe made a watercolor sketch of the Verdun Fortress.

consequences

In Paris, fear of a fall of the fortress sparked fear of the Allies' rapid arrival. In a famous speech, Georges Danton called for people to take up arms. In fact, the city was preparing for an attack by fortification work and the deployment of volunteer units. The surrender of Verdun was declared as a collaboration with the enemy. At the same time, the threat helped make the revolutionary terror that Jean Paul Marat and others had long called for, a reality. The development culminated in the September murders of 1792.

Contrary to what was expected, the Allies did not march directly on Paris, but initially stood still. It was not until September 11th that Braunschweig set out to cross the Ardennes near Grandpré . This gave Dumouriez and Kellermann the opportunity to pull together a strong French army. The advance of the Allies ended in the cannonade of Valmy on September 20th. While the Prussians withdrew across the border in October, the French took Verdun again on October 14th. Hundreds of sick Prussian soldiers remained in the hospitals. France had previously promised to return home unmolested after recovery. The promise was kept.

Individual evidence

1. ^ W. Daniel Wilson (ed.): Goethe's Weimar and the French Revolution: Documents of the crisis years. Cologne 2004, p. 350.
2. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Campagne in Frankreich, 1792. Leipzig 1830, p. 40.
3. ↑ Wolfgang Kruse: The Invention of Modern Militarism: War, Military, and Civil Society in the Political Discourse of the French Revolution 1789-1799. Munich 2003, p. 86 f.
4. ↑ Curt Jany : History of the Prussian Army from the 15th Century to 1914. Third Volume 1763-1807. Second supplemented edition, edited by Eberhard Jany. Biblio, Osnabrück 1967, p. 256.

literature

• Carl Renouard: History of the French Revolutionary War in 1792. Kassel 1865, p. 141f
• Alexander Roob: Me too in Verdun. On the views and drawings of the war traveler Goethe. ( meltonpriorinstitut.org ).

Web links

• J. Rickard: Siege of Verdun, August 29 - September 2, 1792. on historyofwar.org