Siege of Wismar (1715)

This article deals with the siege of Wismar (1715/16) during the Great Northern War . Under the disambiguation page Siege of Wismar you can find further sieges of Wismar at other times.

Siege of Wismar 1715/16

Part of: Great Northern War

Fortification of Wismar

date	June 11, 1715 to April 1716
place	Wismar
output	allied victory

Parties to the conflict
Sweden	Denmark Prussia Kurhannover
Commander
Baron Martin Simon Schoultz von Ascheraden	Franz von Dewitz George von der Albe
Troop strength
3,000 men	10,000 Danes, 4,000 Prussians, 4,000 Hanoverians

The siege of Wismar (1715/16) took place in the course of the Pomeranian campaign of 1715/1716 from June 11, 1715 to April 1716 during the Great Northern War . A Prussian - Danish army division , consisting of 10,000 Danes, 4,000 Prussians and 4,000 Hanoverians, under the command of the Danish general Franz Joachim von Dewitz, besieged the Swedish city ​​and took it. The fortress Wismar at the time was the largest fortress in Europe, with 700 guns, 18 bastions, 9 Revelins and two citadels been repeatedly besieged and was unsuccessful in advance of the Allies.

course

View of Wismar

His father, Frederick I , the possibility of a Prussian war participation still in Dreikönigstreffen of 1709 failed to pursue the final analysis, then this passive attitude changed under his son I. Friedrich Wilhelm complete. This was mainly due to the forces freed up by the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and the determination with which Friedrich Wilhelm I promoted Prussia's participation in the war. Prussia's declaration of war officially took place on May 1, 1715.

From the beginning, only one siege was planned for Wismar. On June 11, 1715, Friedrich Wilhelm I issued the marching orders to his troops. On June 14th, a Prussian army of two battalions and twelve squadrons under Major General Georg Friedrich von der Albe from Stettin set out and marched via Wredenhagen and Lenzen to Wismar , where it arrived on June 27th and was reinforced by Danish units that were in the had started the advance through Mecklenburg in the second half of June. The Danish division made up four battalions and twelve squadrons. Von der Albe handed over command to the Danish Lieutenant General Friedrich von Legardt and moved on to Rostock . At sea, Danish ships also blocked access to Wismar. The Prussian-Danish siege troops now comprised 8,150 infantry (two Prussian and four Danish battalions, together 4,110 infantry) and cavalry (12 Prussian and 12 Danish squadrons, together 4,032 horsemen).

One side of the city of Wismar is by the sea and the island of Poel is in front of it on the sea side . The western access between Poel and the mainland was blocked by a small island, the whale , on which an outer structure of the fortress was laid out. The approach to the land made it difficult to approach the swampy terrain, which was only accessible through five gates on dams . The Poeler Tor led to the northeast to the village of Nedentin, the route to the east to Hornstorf led through the Wismar Gate, the Mecklenburg Gate to the south and the Lübeck Gate to the northwest. The so-called Galgenberg, on which the Swedes had built a battery , rises in front of the Mecklenburg Gate . In Wismar there were 3,000–5,000 men, the remains of what were once 30 regiments with food for three to four months. An attempt by the Swedes to drive a herd of cattle into the fortress was thwarted. The fortress was not well armed; In mid-June eight field guns had been removed from Wismar to reinforce the Stralsund fortress. The strength of the artillery was 166 men. Even during the second siege of the city the citizens were in arms and in July 1715 numbered 33 officers, 37 non-commissioned officers and 671 corporals and men in ten companies . When the Wismar Cavalry Corps (352 riders) left for Stralsund in October 1714, only a small cavalry command (63 men) remained in Wismar. Of the Swedish troops, only about 1,000 were national Swedes. In contrast to the first siege, there was a great lack of cavalry during the second. City governor was Major General Martin Simon Schoultz von Ascheraden , the commandant was Colonel von Fürstenberg.

The Prussian detachment was only given its position on October 29th and received the right wing in the east and southeast of the city. The installation began on the sea coast near the village of Redentin. The cavalry camp reached as far as the village of Lübow , on which the two squadrons of the Dragoons regiment "von der Albe" leaned. In Lübow itself, Lieutenant General von Legardt and Major General von der Albe had set up their headquarters. In the southeast, east of the Blumenhofe, stood the battalion of the infantry regiment of Prince Christian Ludwig, between this and the village of Lübow stood a battalion of the von Arnims infantry regiment. In the south-west stood the Danish infantry, to which the cavalry joined up to the coast opposite the Walfisch outworks .

On November 2, 1715, a contingent of the Electoral Hanover Army joined the siege. The siege was uneventful, but difficult because of the severe weather. On November 13th, Major General Schoultz had to evacuate the island of Poel, which was still occupied until now. Once again the Swedes succeeded on December 29th in bringing a regiment of infantry (Skaraborg), which was originally intended for Stralsund, into the fortress by sea and in landing large amounts of food. But then the supply situation became critical. After the fall of Stralsund at the end of December 1715, the Danish General Dewitz took over the supreme command of the containment corps. When, on April 10, 1716, the Wismar Bay was blocked by a row of palisades with rafts anchored in between, and the connection to the small fortress Walfisch , the fate of Wismar was sealed. On April 19, the Wismar garrison capitulated. For 89 officers and 1000 national Swedes of the crew free withdrawal to Sweden was granted, the rest of the crew was captured. With Wismar, the last Swedish position fell on German soil. This also ended the Pomeranian campaign.

consequences

Towards the end of the siege, there was almost armed conflict between the Allies and a Russian contingent who had approached on Peter's orders and who also asked for admission to the fortress when the city was surrendered. The background was the ongoing disputes about the expected share of the victory, so Wismar was claimed by Denmark and equally by Russia, which created a powerful position in northern Germany and was now viewed with suspicion by its allies.

From 1717 to 1718 the fortress including that on the offshore whale island was razed. The peace treaties in Stockholm of November 20, 1719 and February 1, 1720 restored peace between Sweden and England (Hanover) and Prussia, and the Peace of Frederiksborg of July 3, 1720 also that between Sweden and Denmark. In return for a payment of 600,000 thalers to Denmark, Sweden received its properties in Pomerania north of the Peene, Norway and Wismar on the condition that it was not re-fortified.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walter Westphal: From Bornhöved to storming the Düppeler Schanzen, p. 54
2. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ Hermann Voges : Contributions to the history of the campaign of 1715 against Karl XII. of Sweden. Phil. Diss. [Printed]. Stettin 1904. p. 21

literature

• Hermann Voges : Contributions to the history of the campaign of 1715 against Karl XII. of Sweden . Phil. Diss. [Printed]. Szczecin 1904.
• Walter Westphal: From Bornhöved to storming the Düppeler Schanzen . ISBN 978-3-8391-5871-5 .
• Georg Tessin : Wismar's Swedish regiments in the Northern War , in: Yearbook of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology, Volume 101 (1937), pp. 101–156. ( Digitalisat) , Vol. 102 (1938), pp. 201-252.

Web links

• 30 years of war and Sweden time in the Hanseatic city of Wismar at wismar-tourismus.de