Siege of Wexford
| date | 2. bis 11. October 1649 |
|---|---|
| place | Wexford , Ireland |
| output | Cromwell's troops take the city |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Alliance between the Irish Confederation and English Royalists |
English Parliamentary New Model Army |
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 4,800 | 6,000 |
| losses | |
|
several hundred soldiers and around 1,500 civilians |
approx. 20 |
The siege of Wexford ( English Sack of Wexford , Irish Léigear Loch Garman ) took place in October 1649 during the reconquest of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell in the city of Wexford . The English parliamentary troops ultimately stormed the city while the garrison commander was in surrender negotiations, massacred soldiers and civilians and destroyed the city and its port.
background
At the start of the Irish Rebellion , 1,500 locals gathered in the city to fight the rebels. In 1642, the local commandant Lord Mountgarret ordered that all Protestants must leave the town of Wexford. Approx. 80 English Protestants drowned when their boat leaving Wexford sank. Wexford was also the base of a fleet of privateers that ambushed English ships and gave 10% of the captured goods to the Confederate government in Kilkenny. By 1649 there were 40 such ships in Wexford that raided English shipping lanes. There have been attacks on both sides of this fleet: English ships threw captive seamen from Wexford overboard with their arms tied; In return, around 150 English prisoners were held in Wexford and threatened with death if these killings did not stop.
In 1648 the Confederation signed a treaty with the English royalists, forming an alliance against the English parliamentarians who had emerged victorious from the English civil war . Because of its importance, the town of Wexford was one of Oliver Cromwell's first military targets after landing on the island of Ireland.
Siege and pillage
Cromwell reached Wexford on October 2, 1649 with 6,000 men, eight heavy siege cannons and two mortars . On October 6, Cromwell concentrated his troops on a hill south of the city where 1,500 Confederate soldiers under David Sinnot were. But morale in the town was low - presumably a result of the Confederate defeat at the siege of Drogheda the month before - and many civilians in Wexford wanted to surrender. But Sinnot managed to negotiate surrender with Cromwell, while building the strength of his garrison to 4,800 men by October 11th. Furthermore, the main force of the Irish-royalist alliance had arrived in the nearby city of New Ross .
During the negotiations, Sinnot insisted on a number of conditions that Cromwell would not consider, such as: B. the free practice of the Catholic faith, the evacuation of the garrison with their weapons and the transfer of the pirate fleet to another port.
After further attacks by Cromwell on the city wall, which also enabled a storm attack, negotiations were resumed. In the middle of the negotiations on October 11th, parliamentary troops unexpectedly stormed the city, looted and destroyed it. The circumstances that led to this storm have not yet been clarified - it is believed that these actions, particularly the looting, were not ordered by Cromwell.
The incursion of the English troops led the Confederate soldiers to panic trying to flee. But they were persecuted and some were killed. Several hundred soldiers, including Davin Sinnot, were shot or drowned trying to cross the Slaney River. Much of the city and port burned down and was looted. A referendum in the 1660s estimated the number of civilians killed at around 1,500 - this number is inconclusive, but many historians assume that the number of civilians killed could have been this high.
The destruction of Wexford was so severe that the town could not serve as either a harbor or winter quarters for parliamentary troops.
literature
- Antonia Fraser : Cromwell, Our Chief of Men. Panther, St. Albans 1975, ISBN 0-586-04206-7 .
- John Kenyon, Jane Ohlmeyer, (Eds.): The Civil Wars. A Military History of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1638-1660. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-866222-X .
- Pádraig Lenihan: Confederate Catholics at War, 1641–49. Cork University Press, Cork et al. 2001, ISBN 1-85918-244-5 .
- Tom Reilly: Cromwell, to Honorable Enemy. The untold Story of the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland Brandon, Dingle 1999, ISBN 0-86322-250-1 .
- James Scott Wheeler: Cromwell in Ireland. St. Martin's Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-312-22550-4 .