Fortress War (1813)

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Battles of the Wars of Liberation (1813-1815)

The fortress war of 1813 encompasses all armed events of 1813 about those fortresses in Europe outside France that were still occupied by French troops. These events were related to the wars of liberation or were a direct consequence of these campaigns.

After the Napoleonic army withdrew from the Russian campaign at the end of 1812, the fortresses east of the Rhine, occupied by French troops, were initially without the support of their main army. This changed for those fortresses that were not too far to the east during the Napoleonic campaigns in 1813. After the Battle of Leipzig, however, the remaining French troops withdrew across the Rhine, with the result that all were still French troops occupied fortresses east of the Rhine were subject to siege by Allied troops.

The total strength of the Napoleonic troops in the fortresses they held was considerable. You have to assume a number well over 100,000.

French fortresses on the Vistula

Danzig

The siege of Danzig in 1813 was one of the longest and most costly of the 19th century with a duration of 11 months and involved military personnel between 60,000 and 80,000 men. It was only surpassed in terms of military expenditure by the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War.

prehistory

City panorama of Danzig around 1643, from the east with the old fortifications

Danzig was besieged and bombarded by Napoleonic troops from mid-March 1807 to May 24, 1807. On May 24, 1807 the Prussian occupation of Danzig surrendered and left the city on May 27, 1807. In the Treaty of Tilsit of July 7th and 9th, 1807, Danzig was declared an independent state structure and on July 21, 1807 the so-called Republic of Danzig was proclaimed. This republic was always under the hegemony of France and Danzig remained occupied by Napoleonic troops and received a French governor. In the interests of France, the existing fortifications were expanded by the occupation.

After the failed Russian campaign of 1812, Napoleon left a strong garrison in Gdansk and declared the fortified city a fortress of the first order . The occupation troops were under the command of the French general Jean Rapp , who also held the position of governor of Danzig, which he had previously held for two years. General Rapp had participated in Napoleon's Russian campaign in 1812 and was wounded several times. On December 18, 1812, he arrived in Danzig. The crew, which was under him, was composed of French, Polish, Bavarian, Saxon, Dutch and Italian teams, and those from the states of the Rhine Confederation. Among them were many fighters from the Russian campaign who had suffered injuries and frostbite.

Monument to General Jean Rapp on the Champ-de-Mars in Colmar

On January 26, 1813, Napoleon had the Moniteur stated:

“Gdansk is an impregnable place, 30,000 men of the best troops are gathered there, ... and the governor ... is an intrepid soldier. ..., and the place has everything for two years. "

- Napoleon in the Moniteur on January 26, 1813

In fact, there were 36,000 Napoleonic troops in Danzig on January 20, 1813, of which 5,900 were in the hospital and around 20,000 had returned from Russia, exhausted and ill, unable to fight. Typhus broke out in the city and it would kill thousands in the months that followed.

After 1807, Danzig had been expanded to become a so-called main arsenal for Napoleonic troops. The city was crammed with weapons, ammunition and military equipment: over 100,000 muskets and over 500 pieces of artillery were stored there.

The occupation not only held the fortified city, but also the villages in front of it, in order to get food and fodder from there. The fiercest fighting in the following months raged over these suburbs.

Events up to May 1, 1813

At the beginning of 1813, the occupiers faced only 6,000 to 7,000 Cossacks under Platow , who were largely able to enclose the city by January 21, 1813. Russian infantry troops arrived in early February 1813. The Russian field marshal Wittgenstein now appointed the Russian general Friedrich von Löwis to command the siege troops in front of Danzig.

On February 4, 1813, General Rapp ordered his Neapolitan troops to make a sortie to capture the village of Strieß (now Strzyża in Polish ). This succeeded only temporarily and the Neapolitans were repulsed with losses. It was the same with Reichsbund troops who let themselves be carried away and lost 250 men. On February 6th, the crew attacked their Russian besiegers again in order to take Langfuhr (now Wrzeszcz in Polish ). This succeeded and the Russians now also gave up the neighboring Strieß.

On February 27, 1813, the Radaune was diverted by the Russians, which later led to a lack of fire water in Danzig. One made do with water from the Motlawa .

Gdansk in 1898, still with the strong fortifications in the east

In the early morning of March 5, 1813 at 4:30 a.m., the Russian troops attacked the suburbs and their garrisons from all sides outside Danzig. After initial successes, the occupying troops showed themselves to be better tactically guided by their predominantly French officers, and by evening they regained almost all positions. The Russians lost 850 men and 170 prisoners, the occupation forces 670 men.

On March 9, 1813, the first Prussian Landwehr troops arrived outside Danzig.

From March 12, 1813, English warships blocked Danzig from the seaside. Until then, supply ships had repeatedly entered Gdansk, which has now been prevented.

On March 24, 1813, the garrison of Gdańsk successfully undertook a major outage east along the coast to get food. Since the supply of the crew was and remained critical even after this action, the French governor of Danzig General Rapp set up a so-called "catering commission" under General Heudelet , which immediately carried out house searches in order to uncover hidden supplies. This commission stipulated that all expendable horses should be slaughtered one by one.

The typhus cost in Gdansk by far the most victims: In January 1813 there were 50 deaths from this disease a day in February already 130 deaths per day; at the end of the month 15,000 sick people were bedridden. In the second half of March 1813 the number of daily deaths rose to 200, and 18,000 sick lay on straw in the hospitals. In April 1813 there were still 3,000 people, in May 2,000.

On April 23, 1813, the Russian general Duke Alexander von Württemberg arrived outside Danzig to take command of the siege troops. Before this could happen, on April 27, 1813, the garrison of Danzig went back east along the coast to stock up on fresh food, which was successful.

Events leading up to the end of the Pläswitz armistice

On May 1, 1813, Duke Alexander took over the command of the siege troops, General Löwis took over one of the divisions outside Danzig.

Duke Alexander Friedrich Karl von Württemberg , painting by George Dawe in the military gallery of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg

The Duke immediately got down to business: he had all food and all cattle carried away within a radius of 10 km so that it was safe from the surrender of the besieged but was at the disposal of the besiegers. Residents of the villages who wanted to stay in this belt around Danzig were allowed to keep food with them for a maximum of 3 days. The Duke also had 3 columns of 160 carts each set up for 4 horses, which were assigned the task of bringing food and fodder from East Prussia and Pomerania under military cover. The order was also given to protect the Fresh Spit east of Danzig by means of entrenchments from further requisitions by the besieged. Since there was no Vistula bridge outside of Danzig, armed ferries were provided with which cavalry could cross.

On May 1, 1813, the besiegers had no more than 13,000 troops. This team strength was now increased step by step to 35,000 to 40,000 men. Retreating Russian troops were replaced by Prussian Landwehr.

The strength of the garrison of Danzig on May 1, 1813 was about 12,000 men fit to fight, 8,000 were in the hospital. At the beginning of May, however, the money that was needed to pay the wages and other expenses ran out. The governor Rapp appointed a '' commission '' under General Heudelet to raise money. Heudelet had two to three dozen wealthy citizens arrested and extorted 2 million francs from them as a formal loan.

In order to remedy the shortage of food, the occupation troops made trips to the area again from the end of May to provide for themselves. There were minor skirmishes almost every day.

On June 8th, 20 Russian gunboats arrived off Danzig. They accompanied 8 transport ships that were loaded with ammunition.

On June 9, 1813, a small fleet of English warships reached the mouth of the Vistula and reinforced the besiegers with a battery of Congrevesch rockets . On the same day the crew undertook a major sortie, which led to ongoing fighting. Great efforts were made by the troops involved in the sortie to mow all possible grain, even though it was not yet ripe. A number of transport wagons were brought along to bring the mowing into Danzig.

The news of the Armistice from Pläswitz did not arrive until later that day . The duty to supply the besieged city during the armistice agreed there was reluctantly fulfilled by the besiegers. The besiegers barely had enough food to supply Danzig. Both sides used the time of the armistice to further strengthen their positions.

Duke Alexander fell ill with typhus in July and had to temporarily surrender command to Prince Volkonsky on July 31, 1813 .

At the beginning of August, more ships from the Russian fleet arrived. This was now represented with 83 gunboats, 2 frigates and 2 corvettes off Danzig.

On August 18, 1813, news of the end of the armistice arrived. The commanders-in-chief of both sides agreed by dispatch to respect the 6-day period mentioned in the armistice and to resume fighting on August 24, 1813 at 12:00 noon.

The next day, August 19, 1813, the governor issued a proclamation in Gdansk, who probably acted on an express order from Napoleon, that all citizens who had no role in defending Gdansk must leave the city immediately. As a result, around 6,000 old people, women and children left the city at noon on August 24, 1813 and gathered in Niederfeld (now Dolnik in Polish) , including 148 orphans with their teachers and carers. The first of the displaced were allowed to pass the Russian lines, then it was strictly forbidden to let the displaced people pass, who were now trapped between the lines without accommodation or food. Many did not survive the next few weeks, dying of hunger, hypothermia and weakness. Some marauded and attacked the farmers in the surrounding villages, who themselves had little left to live on. The more the order around Danzig dissolved in the course of the siege, the sooner the stronger and healthier among the expellees became able to steal their way through the Russian lines and escape. When the frost set in, the governor of Danzig, General Jean Rapp, took the last few hundred back into the city. The orphans experienced their own fate, who after waiting for two weeks received permission to move into the hinterland and were provided with the bare minimum there. General Löwis, who had his headquarters in St. Albrecht (today in Polish Św. Wojciech) , in the immediate vicinity of Niederfeld and who had perceived the plight of the displaced, had personally spoken out to Duke Alexander for the orphans.

Events leading up to the surrender of the crew

Plan of Gdańsk and its surroundings from 1813

The directory of the districts of Gdansk (Polish - German) can help to better understand the following . It should be noted that the Gdansk Fortress only included the part that is now called the city ​​center .

Immediate hostilities resumed at 12:00 noon on August 24, 1813. On August 28, 1813, Russian and Prussian troops of the besiegers attacked the southern suburb of Ohra (today Orunia in Polish ), but could not hold their own. On the following day, August 29, 1813, the northwestern suburb of Langfuhr (now Wrzeszcz in Polish ) was attacked. However, the French used their artillery very effectively and the attackers had to retreat towards evening. There were some casualties on both sides, fires broke out in the contested areas, causing considerable damage.

On September 1, 2, 4, 16 and 17, 1813, the Vistula fortress Weichselmünde , the surrounding town of Neufahrwasser (now in Polish: Nowy Port) and the Western Platte were shelled from the seaside by English and Russian ship batteries. More than 60 gunboats and corvettes were used. The fortress was not significantly damaged on the ships but there were some losses from the French batteries. At the beginning of October, the ships used were withdrawn to Königsberg because of the weather, which was constantly deteriorating. An English frigate, an English corvette and a Russian frigate were left behind, whose job it was to block the mouth of the Vistula.

On the afternoon of September 2, 1813, the Russians attacked the suburb of Langfuhr (now in Polish: Wrzeszcz), and they finally managed to occupy and hold it the following night. In the course of this action, other places were briefly captured and set on fire when the Russians forced their retreat, such as Zigankenberg (now Polish Suchanino ), Schidlitz (now Polish Siedlce ), Schellmühl (now Polish Młyniska ) and Stolzenberg (now Polish Chełm ).

On September 9, 1813, siege guns arrived on ships from England. To bring them ashore, a 240-meter-long dam had to be thrown out into the sea, which was repeatedly damaged by the waves. Unloading was not completed until September 29, 1813. England had delivered: fifty-nine 24-pound cannons, forty 12-pound cannons, fourteen howitzers and 40 mortars, plus accessories and ammunition. By this time the Prussians had 23 guns, the Russians 16. The besiegers now had over 200 cannons and around 100 howitzers or mortars at their disposal. There were also over 200,000 projectiles (bullets, grenades, etc.) and 400,000 kilograms of black powder in stock. It took considerable effort to get the heavy artillery to its prepared positions: it took 40 to 50 cavalry horses to move a 24-pounder. But they were not used to pulling in the harness and behaved very restlessly.

Parts of the old fortifications of Gdańsk are still preserved today

The besiegers used the following weeks to prepare the storm on the western fortifications of Danzig. Above all, the batteries of the defenders on the Bischofsberg (Polish Biskupia Górka ) were identified as a target. In order to enclose the Bischofsberg , the fortifications west of the Radaune Canal , west of the southern suburb of Old Scotland (Polish: Stare Szkoty), were taken in bloody battles from October 10, 1813 to October 11, 1813 . The town of Ohra (now Orunia in Polish ) was completely burned down in the course of the fighting. Then the canal was crossed and a fortified position was taken in front of Old Scotland . From there, the besiegers began a sustained, strong artillery fire on the Gdansk Granary Island, which set off large fires. In the night of October 29th to 30th, 1813 alone, over 130 warehouses burned down.

At the end of October, the occupation of Danzig reached the news of Napoleon's defeat in the Battle of Leipzig, first as a rumor, then as certain news . This news led to threatening unrest among the German-speaking troops of the occupation. Desertions increased suddenly. Then the troops from German countries demanded that they no longer be used in the defensive battles. The governor General Rapp finally granted them this.

The occupation troops were poorly supplied with supplies: they were given small rations of grain and dried horse meat. Most of the mills were damaged or there was no more water to power them. Hunger was a constant guest.

On November 1, 1813, the besiegers occupied the suburb of Schidlitz (today: Siedlce in Poland ) and on November 3, 1813, Stolzenberg (today: Chełm in Polish ). The Bischofsberg was thus enclosed on three sides. In the days that followed, the besiegers concentrated on storming the Bischofsberg while at the same time advancing towards the Petershagen Gate in the south-west of Danzig

The structure and shape of the fortifications of Gdańsk can still be seen over long stretches in the east

On November 17, 1813, over 130 guns from the besiegers began constant fire on the fortifications on the Bischofsberg , which were badly damaged and had to be abandoned bit by bit by the defenders. Over 8,000 rounds were fired here in the last 11 days of the siege.

surrender

Bad autumn winds had forced the English warships, which had blocked Danzig from the seaside, to retreat. Duke Alexander now feared that Danzig could be supplied again from Denmark. This concern was based on the fact that Denmark had concluded an alliance with France in July 1813 and that both Russia and Prussia had declared war on this.

On the other hand, the supply situation for the besiegers had become difficult: some food had to be brought in from Russian ports, from where it was always late in bad weather.

For these reasons, Duke Alexander was not reluctant to agree to negotiations with the French: On November 27, 1813, an armistice was agreed between the besieged and besiegers and negotiations began on an honorable surrender, which was granted to the besieged and signed on November 30. On the evening of November 27, 1813, the fire was stopped on both sides. On November 30, 1813, the French withdrew from many suburbs and handed them over to the Russians. The besiegers immediately restored the water supply to Gdańsk.

On December 12, 1813, the Bavarians returned home, and on December 13, 1813, the troops from the Confederation of the Rhine, with the exception of the Westphalians and Saxons. On December 18, 1813, all the Russians who had been captured were extradited.

The deed of surrender was sent to Tsar Alexander for approval. However, the latter refused to give his approval on one essential point and demanded that the French and Italian troops trapped in Danzig should go into Russian captivity. Those affected grumbled and accepted their fate.

On December 31, 1813, the Saxons and Westphalians marched home, they were allowed to keep their weapons. On January 1, 1814, 3,500 Poles set out for their homeland without weapons on the condition that they never fight for France again. In Danzig there were also 400 Spaniards, Dutch and French prisoners of war who could now return home. On January 2, 1814, 6,500 French and 1,600 Italians were to be taken into Russian captivity, among them an enormous number of officers who had been stranded in Gdansk since the French Russian campaign in 1812. 1,500 of them were so sick that they had to stay in Gdansk. The French who were able to march were taken to Kiev, from where they returned to their homeland after the First Peace of Paris . The Italians never got to Russia, they were soon sent home.

In the 11 months of the siege, the occupation of Danzig lost over 19,000 men, of whom just under 2,000 had fallen, 1,000 deserted, 650 were taken prisoner and almost 16,000 died in the hospital. The Russians lost 1,300 dead, 3,000 wounded, 500 prisoners; the Prussians lost 460 dead.

On February 2, 1814, Danzig was returned to Prussian administration. This ended the French Republic of Danzig .

Danzig had suffered greatly during the 11 months of the siege. More than three quarters of the population had fled or died. About 300 warehouses were burned and a quarter of all residential buildings destroyed or uninhabitable.

Modlin Fortress

The aerial photo shows the dimensions of the Modlin Fortress to the right of the Vistula Bridge

The Modlin Fortress , 50 km north-west of Warsaw, was reinforced in December 1812 by Napoleon's troops, who returned from Russia. Its express task was to protect the center of Poland. At the beginning of 1813 the fortress was occupied by 5230 men, including 260 officers. There were 120 guns available. The crew consisted of Poles, French, Saxons and Württemberg citizens. It was commanded first by the Polish general Francis Xavier Kossecki, then by the Dutch general Herman Willem Daendels .

On February 5, 1813, the Modlin Fortress was surrounded by Russian troops between 10 and 12 thousand men under the command of General Ivan Paskevitsch . This was replaced by General Andrej Kleinmichel in July 1813.

Until the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , Daendels tried doggedly to hold the fortress. Only when the French army under Napoleon had withdrawn across the Rhine to the west and half of the garrison had already fallen out, Daendel agreed to surrender negotiations. The handover to the besiegers took place on December 1, 1813. The surviving defenders came into Russian captivity.

Thorn

Thorn Fortress in the 17th century

prehistory

The city of Thorn (Toruń in Polish) is 180 kilometers northwest of Warsaw on the Vistula. It was fixed from ancient times. From 1806 on, troops in the city were under Napoleonic command, who constantly expanded and improved the existing fortifications. At that time the city had about 7,000 inhabitants. The old town of Thorn lies north of the Vistula, which flows from east to west here.

In December 1812, the first French troops retreating from Russia reached Thorn. The city became one of the rallying points of Napoleonic troops on the retreat from the failed Russian campaign. The men were in a miserable condition. Up to 50 of them died every day in the city's makeshift hospitals, many from exhaustion, not a few from typhus . Among the many dead there were also 3 generals who did not survive the hardships of the withdrawal and were buried in Thorn. In January 1813, Marshal Davout also took quarters in the city. He planned to defend the city against the advancing Russians, but refused to deploy a suitable contingent of French troops. So it happened that 4,146 Bavarian infantrymen moved into Thorn to take over the defense of the city together with about 100 Polish artillerymen. Marshal Davout installed the French General Jean Poitevin as commandant of the occupation of the city. A proven officer in the engineering team. However, only 50 guns were available to him.

Marriage to Marshal Davout the city on January 9th jul. / January 21, 1813 greg. left, he ordered that the glacis be cleared for two kilometers in front of the fortifications. So it happened that every tree there was felled and every house was torn down. The orchards of the Thorner citizens in front of the city were destroyed, four villages burned and their inhabitants expelled.

Davoust left over 1,500 French people behind, of whom at most 300 were healthy and fit for action, over 1,200 were sick.

siege

On January 10th, Jul. / January 22, 1813 greg. the first Cossacks arrived in front of the city, followed by regular Russian cavalry. These belonged to the division of Langeron which belonged to the corps under the command of Barclay de Tolly . Russian infantry under General Tschaplitz only met on January 26th July. / 7th February 1813 greg. in front of Thorn.

In the meantime, the crew of Thorn initially used to get rid of the sick French who had been left behind: They were promised to return home and thus persuaded them to leave the fortress. All those who could no longer walk on their own were loaded onto carts and farmers from the area were forced to drive them out of the fortress on their horses. Hardly outside the fortress did the peasants run away with their horses and leave those who remained behind to their fate in the grim winter cold. Only a few who had the strength to drag themselves to a village and were taken in there survived. Everyone else froze to death or starved to death in the next few days.

Furthermore, the crew used the time to break out of the fortress, where they bought stolen cattle and food, although there was no shortage of them in the fortress.

The Russian troops around Thorn initially kept very quiet and only occasionally fired at the city from the south. For one thing, it was still winter, and for another, the Russians lacked heavy fortress guns. Already in the night of January 30th . / February 11, 1813 greg. most of the Russian troops left the area again.

On February 10th, Jul. / February 22, 1813 greg. the ice cover of the Vistula broke open and the subsequent ice drift tore away the bridge between the fortress and the bridgehead on the southern bank. 40 men with 2 guns were now stuck in the fortified bridgehead. They developed a lot of imagination, made a lot of noise, and constantly changed their uniforms in order to give the Russians the impression that at least one battalion was stationed here. The deception worked: the Russians left them alone most of the time.

At the end of February 1813 the Russians began again to bombard Thorn fortress with field guns. The Vistula was soon navigable again and so after Prussia declared war on France on March 5th, July / March 17, 1813 greg. , the Prussians bring 32 heavy fortress guns on boats up the Vistula from the Prussian fortress Graudenz , which on March 20th July. / April 1, 1813 greg. arrived with Prussian officers before Thorn. The following night the besieged attempted to set fire to the Prussian barges, which was completely unsuccessful because the incendiary ships burned themselves before they had reached the Prussian barges.

On the night of March 26th, Jul. / April 7, 1813 greg. on March 27th July / April 8, 1813 greg. four gun positions were set up and equipped north of the city: the first with 4 mortars, the second with 8 twelve-pound siege guns, the third with 6 mortars and the fourth again with 8 twelve-pound siege guns. There were also a number of old, large-caliber Russian unicorns . The artillerymen were well protected against enemy fire in their positions, but the protective structures were damaged in the artillery duels over the next few days and had to be repaired again and again at night. When the occupiers of Thorn on March 27th, July / April 8, 1813 greg. Noticing the work of the night in the daylight, they immediately fired at new gun emplacements. Their fire was returned by the Russian mortars.

In the following nights the Russians continued to set up more gun emplacements and to equip them with large-caliber mortars. They carried out their work with determination, even under fire from the occupiers. During the day, the city of Thorn and its fortifications were shelled by the siege guns.

April 3rd July / April 15, 1813 greg. the Russian shelling had had such an effect that the occupiers hoisted two white flags and shortly afterwards entered into negotiations for a surrender. When General Poitevin had still not complied with the besiegers' terms by the next noon, the bombardment of the city was resumed with the effect that within an hour a courier from the city brought the signed document of surrender.

April 6th July / April 18, 1813 greg. left Poland and Bavaria Thorn and went home unarmed. Just under 50 Bavarians had been harmed by fighting, but 920 of them had died of typhus in the few weeks. The few remaining French including the fortress commanders went to Dresden, which was still held by the Napoleonic troops.

What happened next

On the same day, April 6th, July. / April 18, 1813 greg. , Thorner citizens plundered the camps of the fortress structures.

Thanksgiving services were held in the Russian army on the orders of the High Command.

Thorn was immediately occupied by a Russian garrison, which soon began to repair the fortifications. The Russians levied the same duties and taxes on the citizens of Thorner as the French did before. They built a ship bridge on the Vistula, which hindered traffic and trade on the Vistula and was not removed even when requested. Just a few days after the arrival of the Russians, they searched all the stores and the houses of the merchants in order to find the goods and objects of the plunder of April 6th July. / April 18, 1813 greg. to bring them back for the benefit of the Russians. On September 9th Jul. / September 21, 1813 greg. the Russians left Thorn again and the next day a Prussian administration again moved into Thorn. At that time, after the war damage, only 400 of the former 770 houses were still habitable, 100 were completely destroyed, and a third of the old population had fled. It is estimated that some 25,000 shells and bullets were fired into the city during the siege of 1813. For a long time the city did not recover from this destruction. It was now near the border between Prussia and Congress Poland, later Russia. The Prussians began to expand the fortress and the garrison gained dominant influence over city life while trade declined sharply.

Further fortresses in Poland

Fortress wall on Klarenberg after the restoration from 1843

Mary's fortress Jasna Góra (Klarenberg) in Czestochowa

The fortress of Mary on the Klarenberg in the city of Czestochowa (Częstochowa in Polish) was enclosed by Russian troops on March 25, 1813 and abandoned by the Polish occupation on April 2, 1813. In the months that followed, the fortifications were razed on the orders of Tsar Alexander: the fortifications were demolished, the walls removed and the trenches filled.

Zamosk fortress

The structures of the Zamosk fortress are still preserved today

The fortress near Zamosk (Polish: Zamość, German also Samosch or Zamesch) in the Lublin Voivodeship in south-east Poland was occupied and defended by 4,000 Poles after Napoleon's defeat in Russia. They were initially under the command of Colonel Francis Żymirskiego; later General Hans Moritz Hauke took over command. The crew was provided with food for 4 months.

In February 1813 the fortress was surrounded by Russian troops, initially no more than 4,000 to 7,000 men. The number of Russian besiegers grew steadily over the following months. In June 1813 there were 10,000, in August 1813 17,000 men. At that time the siege army had 160 guns. As early as April 1813, however, the besiegers began systematically bombarding the fortress for days.

In the same month scurvy broke out among the besieged.

During the armistice of Pläswitz , the fortress had to be supplied from outside according to its regulations, which was only hesitant. Nevertheless, during the summer harvest, the occupiers managed to replenish their supplies. The fortress had its own mill, forge, brewery, distillery, tannery and soap factory. General Hauke ​​even had his own coins struck in order to be able to pay his men the wages due.

Although there was no longer any heavy fighting between besiegers and besieged after the end of the armistice, the further the time progressed, the more the occupation had to struggle with supplies. First all horses were slaughtered, then the dogs and cats and even crows were hunted and eaten. In the fall, 1,200 men were sick, 450 died in a month and the number of desertions increased.

On October 22nd, the news of Napoleon's defeat reached Leipzig and the hope of relief vanished completely among the besieged. On November 19, 1813, General Hauke ​​began negotiations with the Russians and signed the document of surrender on November 23, 1813. On November 25, 1813, the fortress was evacuated, in which only 500 men fit to fight were found, 1,500 had died. Anyone who was still able to move away on their own was released back home without weapons.

French fortresses on the Oder

Map around Szczecin from 1896, the location of the dam to Szczecin and the dam's lake reflects

Szczecin

Szczecin was built into a strong fortress by the Swedes from 1630 and then by the Prussians from 1720. The fortifications were almost without exception in the west and secured Stettin from the land side, while in the east large expanses of water, the Oder and Dammsche See, provided protection.

Events leading up to the Pläswitz armistice

Engraving by Merian of the fortress of Stettin around 1640
French troops captured the fortified city of Szczecin in 1806

From 1806 Stettin was occupied by Napoleonic troops. After the withdrawal of the French army from Russia in the winter of 1812, the occupation forces had risen to 8,000 in 1813. General Grandeau was in command of the fortress of Szczecin .

After only Cossacks had circled the city at the beginning of 1813, on March 18, 1813, the day after Prussia declared war on France, the Prussian Lieutenant General von Tauentzien took over command of the siege troops. He had at his disposal: 13 battalions of Prussian infantry, 4 escadron cavalry, a bunch of Cossacks and 4 Swedish gunboats on the Dammschen lake. Tauentzien divided his troops: one part stood to the left of the Oder in front of the fortress Stettin, another part to the right of the Oder in front of the then independent city of Damm , which is now a district of Stettin as Altdamm (pl. Dąbie) and was also occupied by Napoleonic troops . Other units observed the Dammschen lake and the connection between Stettin and Damm.

In the late afternoon of April 7, 1813, the occupation troops on the right of the Oder from the village of Damm undertook a sortie, reached the village of Finkenwalde (now in Polish Zdroje) south of Damm and set it on fire. Rushing Prussian troops began a sustained night battle that lasted until the early morning of the next day when the French withdrew to Damm. The Prussians lost 130 men that night.

In order to prevent such events from happening in the future, Tauentzien decided to seize the old toll bridge over the Oder between Stettin and Damm and thus cut off the dam from the fortress Stettin. The attack took place on April 15, 1813 at 4:00 a.m. The bridge was reached and temporarily damaged, but the Swedish gunboats arrived too late and proved ineffective, so that the Prussians withdrew at 8:00 a.m. after losing 200 men.

Further failures of the crew took place on April 17th, May 1st and May 10th, 1813. On the morning of May 12th, 1813, the occupiers undertook another outage from the fortress on the left of the Oder to the north to the village of Grabow, which was in the firing range of the fortress guns lay to burn down. But this venture had been betrayed, and the Prussians were able to repel their opponents, losing 300 men. The Prussians lost 80 men.

On May 18, 1813, by royal order, all regular Prussian troops were withdrawn from the siege of Stettin and assigned to the Prussian Corps Bülow . Tauentzien were also assigned to other uses.

The events after the Pläswitz armistice

After the armistice, Major Plötz took command of the remaining siege troops. He had at his disposal: 4 battalions of Prussian reserve infantry, which left at the end of October 1813 for other purposes, 12 battalions of Pomeranian Landwehr and 4 Escadron Landwehr cavalry.

There were no more costly fighting off Stettin. The complete lack of food eventually led to the crew's abandonment. The deed of surrender was signed on November 21, 1813 and on December 5, 1813 Prussian troops took over the fortress of Stettin.

At the time of the surrender, the defeated crew of Szczecin consisted of 7 generals, 533 officers and 7,100 soldiers, including 1,400 Dutch, who were allowed to go home unarmed.

French fortresses on the Elbe

Dresden

Events up to the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig

Engraving of the Dresden Fortress around 1750

In August 1809 the demolition of the centuries-old fortifications of Dresden began. In 1812 this work was stopped and in 1813 the construction of new fortifications started again. After the battle of Dresden on August 26th and 27th, 1813, Dresden remained a large Napoleonic army camp. On October 7, 1813, Napoleon left the city and its surroundings with his army, but left behind a strong garrison under Marshal Saint-Cyr . The Allies deployed 20,000 Russian armed forces, mostly militias, under General Ostermann-Tolstoy to enclose Dresden. On October 17, 1813, the Napoleonic occupiers managed a successful sortie, which exposed the weakness of the besiegers for everyone and allowed the French occupation of Meissen to escape to Dresden. Another failure on October 24, 1813 was rejected.

siege

Immediately after the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig from October 16 to 19, 1813, the besiegers were reinforced by regular Austrian troops under General Klenau . On October 27, 1813, their number was 45,000. Because of this overwhelming power, the occupiers saw themselves pushed back to the innermost circle of the fortifications. On October 28, 1813, Marshal Saint-Cyr ordered all residents of Dresden who did not have food for at least two months to leave the city immediately. This order had no effect, however, since the besiegers did not let civilians out of the city.

When it became generally known in October that Napoleon had suffered a great defeat and the Napoleonic army withdrew to the west, unrest broke out among the German-speaking sections of the occupying forces. Saint-Cyr had the troops from the states of the Rhine Confederation and the Netherlands disarmed and driven in front of the city. On October 29, 1813, all Saxon troops had to leave the city.

As Saint-Cyr realized that he could no longer expect any support from the French army, he decided to attempt a breakout and try to reach the French fortress of Torgau on paths to the right of the Elbe . On November 5, 1813, he ordered the citizens of Dresden to hand over at least the third part of their food supplies to the occupiers and at dawn on November 6, 1813, a column of 15,000 French moved in an enormous convoy of wagons packed with food, from Dresden to the northwest of it. They were accompanied by Italian and Polish cavalry.

The train was arrested at Reichenberg and taken under heavy artillery fire by the Austrians. After several hours of fighting and the loss of 800 men, the French turned around and returned to Dresden, abandoning all wagons with food. As they retreated, they plundered the vineyards along the way and took great pains to bring the fallen horses back with them in order to provide themselves with meat.

surrender

Great misery broke out in the city. The French occupiers pressed the last of the food from the citizens. In response to urgent reproaches from the city fathers, the French quartermaster Dumas replied:

"All the citizens of the city are more likely to die than a French soldier perish of starvation."

- The French quartermaster of Dresden in November 1813

Drinking water became scarce in the city as the occupiers were very committed to cutting off all inflows.

Since the city's hospitals were decried as places of certain death, the wounded in the unsuccessful attempt to escape preferred to lie down in the city's streets, which did not prolong their lives significantly.

Marshal Saint-Cyr finally entered into negotiations with General Klenau and signed a document of surrender on November 11, 1813, which contained very favorable conditions: Although the occupiers had to lay down their weapons in front of the city's entrenchments and consider themselves prisoners of war, they were allowed to withdraw to France . Every day from November 12 to 17, 1813, a column of occupiers would leave the city.

When the French left, there were 12 division generals, 20 brigadier generals, 1,760 officers and 33,745 men, of which over 6,000 were sick or wounded. There remained 69 French field guns and 25 howitzers.

A few days after the occupiers moved out, however, a despatch came from Prince Schwarzenberg , who refused to approve the treaty of surrender. Under no circumstances did he want over 30,000 French people to move behind him, even if they were temporarily without weapons.

Marshal Saint-Cyr was informed of the new situation and given the choice of either allowing himself to be locked up in Dresden with his men or being taken to Austria as prisoners of war. Knowing that they would not be able to survive in Dresden, Saint-Cyr chose the second alternative.

Word of the fate of Marshal Saint-Cyr quickly got around, which had serious consequences, because hardly a French fortress commander was ready to sign a deed of surrender in the following years.

Torgau Fortress

prehistory

Aerial view of Torgau, on which the star-shaped structure of the old fortress can still be seen today
Plan of Torgau at the time of the siege in 1813

The expansion of the Torgau Fortress began in 1811 at the express request of Napoleon. Torgau, which was then Saxon, lies west of the Elbe. The city was protected from the land side by a semicircle of six bastions and two half-bastions in the north and south. The Elbe bridge, which led out of the city, ended on the eastern bank of the Elbe in a heavily fortified bridgehead made up of four other bastions. Since the city was dominated by the surrounding mountain ranges, a higher fort consisting of four bastions was built in the village of Zinna from 1812, which offered further protection to the west.

After Napoleon's failed campaign to Russia, survivors also gathered in Torgau. Around a quarter of them quickly contracted typhus, which was brought in from Russia. This disease soon spread to the civilian urban population, where there were many deaths.

On July 10, 1813, Napoleon stayed overnight in Torgau and also visited the new fortifications on this occasion.

After the defeat in the Battle of Dennewitz on September 6, 1813, many fighters of Marshal Ney's defeated French corps fled to Torgau. On September 12, 1813, Napoleon appointed Torgau to be the main depot of his army and, with effect from September 14, 1813, appointed General de Narbonne-Lara as commandant.

Before the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig on October 16, 17 and 18, 1813, Torgau was only observed by a Prussian brigade on the right, eastern bank of the Elbe. After the Battle of Nations, Saxon troops who had just defected to the Allies arrived immediately and enclosed the fortress from the western side of the land. When the French crew failed, there were several skirmishes.

Siege and Surrender

On October 20, 1813, General Tauentzien and other Prussian troops moved from Berlin to Torgau, where he arrived on October 31, 1813. While the Saxon troops were moving on, the newly arrived Prussian troops began to encircle the fortress.

On November 1, 1813, Napoleonic troops were expelled from the villages of Zinna and Welsau, where they were still stuck. On November 2, 1813, General Tauentzien personally explored the area and recognized the weak point of the fortress: The advanced, higher Fort Zinna protected Torgau from the land side as long as it was in the hands of the crew; but if it fell into the hands of the besiegers, it was a fatal threat to the city, which was dominated by its gun emplacements.

As early as November 3, 1813, the Prussians began firing artillery at the Torgau Fortress. A crew failure was bloodily repulsed.

On November 17, 1813, the commander of Torgau, General de Narbonne-Lara, died as a result of a riding accident. General Adrien du Bosc Dutaillis took command of the fortress. On November 22nd, 1813, the Prussians increased the shelling of the city and some outposts, the latter being captured one after the other. On the night of November 26th to 27th, 1813, the first protected battery positions were set up in front of Fort Zinna and on the following day the fort began to be bombarded from these positions. On November 28, 1813, the crew of Fort Zinna attempted a sortie to destroy the battery positions. But these were successfully defended and the crew members involved were repulsed.

During this time, typhus was rampant in the city, favored by the cold weather. Soon there were no more burial places. People started throwing the dead into the Torgau bear pit, which was flooded with Elbe water so that the corpses slowly drifted into the river.

After heavy bombardment of the fortress, its commanding officer asked for an armistice on December 5, 1813, which the Prussians canceled the next day. The following night the bombardment caused severe fires in Torgau and in Fort Zinna.

On the night of December 10th to 11th, 1813, the crew of Fort Zinna fled. Before that, she had pulled her own guns out of the fort after being blown up.

After the fall of Fort Zinna, the expected development occurred: The fortress commander Dutaillis entered into negotiations and signed the surrender of Torgau on December 26, 1813.

In the fortress there were still 5 generals, 250 artillery pieces, 6,000 men capable of fighting and at least 4,000 sick fighters. The Prussians, however, did not dare to enter and occupy the city for fear of contamination. It was not until January 10, 1813, after taking some precautions, that the Prussians took over the city.

What happened next

Torgau was taken from the Saxons at the Congress of Vienna and added to Prussia. These expanded the fortress over the next few decades.

Wittenberg

Prussian troops in front of Wittenberg

Wittenberg had long been a fortified Elbe crossing with fortresses on both sides of the river and a bridge from 1787. As an Elbe crossing, the city and fortress had clear military significance. This was recognized by Napoleon, who had the then Saxon city occupied by his own troops in 1806 after the battle of Jena and Auerstädt . Napoleon immediately issued an order to repair the fortifications of the city and to strengthen them so that they could withstand a siege. On October 25, 1806, Napoleon visited Wittenberg personally and gave extensive instructions on how to expand the fortress.

In the following years, strong Napoleonic army corps repeatedly moved through Wittenberg, to which the population had to provide board and lodging. The strength of the crew rose at times to 60,000 men.

Events up to the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig

Storm on Wittenberg on the morning of January 12, 1814 over the snow-covered glacis and the frozen moat. In the background on the right the castle

After Napoleonic troops withdrew from Russia at the end of 1812, the advancing Russian troops watched Wittenberg, whose French garrison had remained there. Your commanding general inspected the situation in front of Wittenberg on April 2, 1813 and arranged for the French occupiers to be expelled from the suburbs of Wittenberg outside the fortress. Due to this action, the French city commandant Wittenbergs had the suburbs burned down on April 6, 1813, in order to obtain a clear field of fire for the guns of the fortress.

On April 16, 1813, the Russian military leadership decided to take Wittenberg. On the morning of April 19, 1813, 27 field guns began to bombard the city. These did little damage and it was not possible to storm the fortress. On April 20, 1813, the Russian besiegers withdrew, leaving only a small contingent to keep watching the city.

On July 11, 1813, Napoleon visited Wittenberg again and urgently demanded that the fortress be further repaired, which the crew subsequently endeavored to achieve.

On September 24, 1813, Prussian and Russian siege guns and an English missile battery finally reached the besiegers off Wittenberg. The bombardment of the city began on the night of September 25th to 26th, 1813. The effect was little because the guns were still too far from the fortress. From September 27, 1813 8:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. the next morning, the city was again fired at. There was major damage and several houses burned down. The next day many citizens of Wittenberg left their city. This was possible because Wittenberg was still not completely enclosed by the besiegers. On the night of September 29, 1813 to September 30, 1813, there was again shooting, 6 houses burned down. After that there was no ammunition to continue the fire.

Siege and storm

After the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig from October 16, 1813 to October 19, 1813 and the subsequent withdrawal of Napoleon, Prussian troops were again released from the Allies and were now used to siege Wittenberg. From December 2, 1813, the city was occasionally fired again. But only after the surrender of the occupation of Torgau, when the siege guns tied there became free and could be brought to Wittenberg, did a systematic, textbook-like siege of Wittenberg begin on the night of December 28, 1813 to December 29, 1813. Night after night the besiegers worked to bring their guns closer to the fortress. The bombardment of Wittenberg continued. The defenders resisted violently and caused the besiegers with their artillery significant losses of man and material.

During this time it became increasingly colder and it froze, which on the one hand made the nocturnal earthworks difficult and on the other hand caused the moats around the city to freeze so that they could be walked on and overcome.

After 15 nights the besiegers decided to storm the city. At 1:00 a.m. on January 13, 1814, four detachments of the besiegers set out to storm the Elbe Bridge, the Elbe Gate and the city. Three divisions were immediately successful, the fourth caught fire and turned back. The defense of the defenders was low, many fled the defensive positions immediately into the city to hide there. The last resistance they offered came from the occupied town hall and the city barracks. At 2:00 that night the last resistance was broken. The Prussians had lost 8 officers and 100 men in the storming of the fortress. 96 artillery pieces, 2 French eagles and large quantities of grain were still found in the city . 77 French officers and more than 1,000 men had to go into captivity. The Prussians had lost about 400 men through siege and storming.

The council of the city of Wittenberg published the following report in March 1814:

At the beginning of 1813 Wittenberg had 602 residential buildings, 320 of them in the city and 282 before that. In the course of the events of 1813, 285 residential buildings were destroyed, 26 in the city and 259 before; 37 houses in the city were so badly damaged that they were uninhabitable afterwards. About 100,000 fruit trees were cut down. By January 12, 1814, Wittenberg had to endure over a million billeting days. The population has decreased by about a third.

Other French fortresses outside France

Spandau Fortress

prehistory

Plan of the fortress Spandau in 1812. On the right the citadel in the east of the city

In 1813 Spandau was located far outside Berlin at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers. The centerpiece of the fortifications was the citadel east of Spandau, which was laid out as an equilateral square with a moat. The Havel filled the ditch with water. Further fortifications protected the city on the land side to the north.

In 1812 the citadel was again under French occupation in preparation for the Napoleonic Russian campaign. Initially, the Prussian occupation also stayed on site, but soon had to withdraw.

At the end of February 1813, the first Russian Cossack pulks under the orders of Tschernyschow and Tettenborn reached Berlin and so alarmed the French troops stationed there that their commanding Marshal Saint-Cyr and his troops moved west from the city on March 4, 1813.

Marshal Saint-Cyr left General Bruny in command of the Spandau Citadel, who immediately took action and on the same day, March 4, 1813, ordered a number of houses outside the fortifications to be burned down to create a clear field of fire.

At that time the military garrison of Spandau consisted of 530 French, 500 Dutch and Germans from the Rhine Confederation, 1,800 Poles, 260 artillerymen and a train with 125 horses, which were looked after by 50 men.

Siege of Spandau in April 1813

West side of the Spandau Citadel with a moat

On April 1, 1813, the Prussian Major General August von Thümen took on the task of enclosing the Spandau Fortress, besieging it and forcing it to give up. At his disposal were 1,800 Prussian soldiers and a 6-pound foot battery as well as 400 Russian horsemen, including 80 Cossacks, and another Russian 6-pounder battery. Because of the large expanses of water around Spandau, it turned out to be very difficult to enclose the city on all sides. The Russians took over the northern bank of the Havel, the Prussians the southern. Although two more temporary bridges had been built out of range of the fortress guns and barges were ready, the besiegers knew that long distances would have to be marched if the troops had to rush to each other's aid.

On the night of April 9, 1813, the besiegers brought a battery of field guns into a protected position a thousand meters south of the citadel near the hamlet of Ruhleben. During the day they could use this to coat the southern outskirts of the citadel and stop all work on it.

The next day the besiegers received the first 4 howitzers and on April 11, 1813 they received 6 large-caliber mortars which were initially not used because no ammunition was supplied for them.

On April 12, 1813, the French commandant of the Spandau Fortress and General Thümen reached an agreement that the city of Spandau would be evacuated by May 1, 1813 and that neither of the parties would be allowed to reoccupy it. According to this agreement, the occupiers had to withdraw to the citadel.

This agreement was reported to the commanding Count Wittgenstein by courier . The couriers returned on April 16, 1813 and reported that Count Wittgenstein had not approved the agreement and ordered the citadel to be bombarded immediately. Since ammunition for the mortar had arrived in the meantime, three protected positions, each with two mortars, were set up behind the school hill the following night, a thousand meters north of the citadel. The next day, April 17, 1813, the citadel was shot at by the 6 mortars from the north and the 4 howitzers from the south from 7:00 a.m. Soon a large number of the wooden buildings in the citadel caught fire and around noon one of the projectiles hit a powder magazine in the southeastern bastion, the "bastion queen". This was largely destroyed by the subsequent explosion and its walls partially slipped into the surrounding moat, which left a wide breach in the fortress. 580 grenades were thrown at the citadel in 24 hours. They also destroyed the only bridge that led from the citadel over the moat into the city.

When the besiegers realized the extent of the destruction, they attempted on the night of April 21, 1813 to storm the citadel through the resulting breach. Since this required boats that did not arrive, the attempt failed completely. The French snipers killed ten of the attackers.

Nevertheless, the commandant of the crew declared himself ready to evacuate the fortress the next day. After Count Wittgenstein had agreed to the agreed terms, the crew withdrew to the west with their small arms on April 27, 1813. The Russian Uhlans and a Prussian battalion on foot accompanied them to the Elbe.

A total of 244 officers and 2,985 ordinary soldiers left the fortress. 500 sick and wounded remained behind.

When General Bruny was back in Paris, an investigation into his behavior was opened on Napoleon's orders, but this had no consequences for him.

Pillau fortress

Pillau fortress
Pillau fortress on a nautical map from 1880

Pillau (today RussianBaltijsk) is a small fortress west ofKoenigsberg. It should secure the access to theFrischen Haffand thus also the access to the lake side of Königsberg. The fortress was designed as a regular pentagon, which was surrounded by a moat.

On March 29, 1812, the Prussian king had to agree to a treaty that provided for a French occupation of the fortress on the condition that the Prussian garrison, with the exception of the artillerymen, was allowed to remain in the fortress under French command. It was also agreed that only the Prussian flag could be shown and that the fortress with its inventory and guns would remain the property of the Prussian king. In the period that followed, the French garrison grew to 1,600 men, while the Prussian garrison decreased to 300 men.

After Napoleon's retreat from Russia in pursuit of the French army, Russian troops reached jul on December 26, 1812 . / 7 January 1813 greg. Koenigsberg. To counter the threat posed by the French occupation in the fortress of Pillau, the local Russian commander, Major General von Sievers, with several thousand men and a number of guns , advanced on January 25th July. / February 6, 1813 greg. approached and initially occupied the place Alt-Pillau . Von Sievers then sent the French commandant of the fortress, General Castella, the request to withdraw and return the fortress in full to the Prussian crown. Amazingly, Castella agreed to the terms the very next day and on January 27th July. / February 8, 1813 greg. 1,200 French soldiers withdrew. They left 400 sick men behind. The fortress was not occupied by the Russians, but received a purely Prussian occupation again.

When General Castella arrived in Paris, he was arrested by order of Napoleon and had to justify his behavior before an investigative committee. He was threatened with the death penalty imposed by Napoleon in 1812 for any fortress commander who had capitulated to the enemy. However, on July 16, 1813, after the abdication of Napoleon, Castella was exonerated of all accusations, like some others in his situation, and on October 13, 1813, was again honored to be released.

literature

  • Friedrich Christoph Förster : History of the Wars of Liberation 1813, 1814, 1815. 2. Volume, G. Hempel, Berlin 1858.
  • Johann Sporschil : The wars of freedom of the Germans in the years 1813, 1814 and 1815. in 9 volumes, Braunschweig 1845.
  • Friccius, Carl: History of the fortifications and sieges of Danzig. Berlin 1854.
  • Plümicke, Johann Karl: Sketched history of the Russian - Prussian blockade and siege of Danzig in 1813. Berlin, 1817
  • Carl von Plotho : The war in Germany and France in the years 1813 and 1814. Berlin 1817.
  • Carl von Plotho : The war in Germany and France in the years 1813 and 1814 , Volume 1, Annex XII. The diary of the siege of Thorn Fortress .
  • Carl von Plotho : The war in Germany and France in the years 1813 and 1814 , Volume 1, Annex XIII. The diary of the siege of the Spandau Fortress
  • K. Hoburg: The sieges of the city and fortress Thorn. Thorn 1844.
  • G. Köhler: History of the fortresses Danzig and Weichselmünde up to 1814 in connection with the war history of the free city of Danzig. Time part, p. 237 ff, Breslau 1883
  • Bernhardt: Wittenberg fifty years ago. The story of his siege and capture (January 13, 1814) , 1864
  • Düring, GW: Diary about the siege of the city of Danzig in 1813. Berlin 1817
  • Vogel, JL: The sieges of Torgau and Wittenberg in 1813 and 1814. Berlin 1844
  • Völderndorff, Ed .: War history of Bavaria. 3rd volume, (1810 to April 1813), Munich 1826.
  • Marchangy, Louis-Antoine-Francois de: Le siège de Dantzig en 1813. Paris 1814
  • JD Campredon: Defense de Dantzig en 1813. Paris 1883
  • AF Blech: History of seven years of suffering in Danzig from 1807 to 1814. Volume 2, Danzig 1815
  • d'Artois, P.-H .: Relation de la defense de Danzig en 1813, par le 10e. corps de l'armée française, contre l'armée combinée russe et prussienne , Paris 1820
  • Duke Alexander von Würtemberg : Apercu des Opérations des troupes alliées devant Dantzig en 1813 , Leipzig 1820
  • Jean Rapp : Memoires du Général Rapp, aide-de-champ de Naloléon, écrits par lui-même , Paris 1823

Notes and additions

  1. ↑ Plotho gives 80,000, but does not take into account the fortresses that were formally still integrated into the French Empire, this applies in particular to Hamburg and Mainz
  2. ↑ more precisely Neapolitan
  3. ↑ Today these are all districts of Gdansk
  4. ^ According to Düring on February 3, 1813.
  5. ↑ the number of victims is given as follows: January 1,500, February 4,000, March 4,000, April 3,000, May 2,000, cf. Köhler, p. 281, other sources name 17,000 dead by mid-April.
  6. ↑ Alexander von Württemberg was married to his sister's uncle of Tsar Alexander I.
  7. ↑ 1.5 Prussian miles
  8. ↑ Sporschil says that Danzig was not supplied. According to the other sources, this seems to be wrong.
  9. ↑ more precisely 24,300 Russian poods
  10. ↑ Bavaria had terminated the alliance with France on October 8, 1813, the Saxon troops had switched sides during the Battle of the Nations.
  11. ↑ Petershagen is located in Danziger Werder between Tiegenhof ( Nowy Dwór Gdański ) and Tiegenort (Tujsk) Nowy Dwór Gdański
  12. ↑ this gate no longer exists today. On the enclosed map from 1898 it is shown in the southwest
  13. ↑ 800 to 900 men in number
  14. ↑ There were two generals Kleinmichel in Russian service: Andrej and Piotr: father and son. This is the less important father Andrej Andrejewitsch Kleinmichel (1757-1815)
  15. ↑ note that the Julian calendar is used in this supplement.
  16. ↑ At the beginning, a castle was built by the Teutonic Order in 1260
  17. ↑ the facilities of the Thorn Fortress, which can still be visited today, were only built by the Prussians after 1870, cf. this Toruń Fortress (language in English) or Twierdza Toruń (in Polish language)
  18. ↑ They were later accepted into the city for compulsory service
  19. ↑ in German-speaking and unicorns called
  20. ↑ Reconstruction began with the permission of Tsar Nicholas I in 1843 and was continued later
  21. ↑ the exact number is not known
  22. ↑ This applies in particular to Marshal Davout in Hamburg
  23. ↑ Numbers up to 40,000 are mentioned in various places. This number cannot be verified. If you relate it to the number of soldiers who withdrew from Torgau after the surrender, almost all of them must have died of typhus.
  24. ↑ some sources speak of typhus . This is the name of the disease in French
  25. ↑ the typhus was transmitted by the clothes louse , which preferred to settle in unkempt winter clothing
  26. ↑ the parts that can still be seen today come mainly from Prussian times
  27. ↑ Some sources say it was October 23rd
  28. ↑ This was Friedrich von Kleist , a Prussian officer who had already fought on the Russian side in 1812 and therefore had the privilege of commanding Russian troops
  29. ^ Mainly by General Wittgenstein
  30. ↑ The details of the siege were well documented in contemporary literature
  31. ↑ approximately at the level of today's Ruhlebener Strasse in Spandau
  32. ↑ Spandauer Schülerbergstraße runs there today
  33. ↑ the figures vary from 2,000 to 6,000 men

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. preferred Köhler, Förster p. 1085 ff and Plotho volume 1, p. 233, volume 2, p. 533.
  2. ↑ cf. Köhler, p. 239, Rapp p. 43.
  3. ↑ cf. Koehler, p. 243.
  4. ↑ cf. Koehler, p. 253.
  5. ↑ cf. Koehler, p. 258.
  6. ↑ cf. Sporschil, Volume 4, p. 170 ff, Köhler p. 280.
  7. ↑ see Köhler, p. 281.
  8. ↑ cf. Koehler, p. 294.
  9. ^ All efforts for peace had failed with Austria's declaration of war on France on August 12, 1813
  10. ↑ cf. on this, Blech page 176 ff and Köhler page 172, also Sporschil, Volume 4, page 170 ff
  11. ↑ cf. Köhler, p. 350 ff, Sporschil, Volume 4, p. 170 ff
  12. ↑ on October 2 and 3, 1813, cf. Koehler, p. 373.
  13. ↑ cf. Koehler, p. 340.
  14. ↑ cf. Koehler, p. 392.
  15. ↑ cf. Koehler, p. 446.
  16. ↑ see also Stare Szkoty
  17. ↑ Campredon 3.11.
  18. ↑ cf. Friccius p. 300
  19. ↑ cf. Friccius p. 300 ff
  20. ↑ cf. Koehler p. 466
  21. ↑ cf. the appendix at d'Artois
  22. ↑ cf. Würtemberg Table III
  23. ↑ cf. Friccius p. 308 ff
  24. ↑ cf. Förster, p. 1085 ff, Plotho Volume 2, p. 539.
  25. ↑ cf. in particular Hoburg, Plotho, Volume 1, Appendix XII
  26. ↑ cf. Hoburg and Plotho, Plotho only gives the total number, Hoburg gives the number of sick people
  27. ↑ cf. Hoburg, p. 78.
  28. ↑ cf. Förster p. 1085 ff and Plotho Volume 2, p. 539.
  29. ↑ cf. Plotho Volume 1, p. 240, Volume 2, p. 539.
  30. ↑ a b cf. Förster p. 1085 ff, Plotho Volume 2, p. 528.
  31. ↑ allegedly more than 200, cf. Plotho Volume 2, p. 528, Förster p. 1085 ff.
  32. ↑ cf. Vogel, Plotho Volume 2, p. 540.
  33. ↑ Contemporary documents count 1,122 dead, including 330 children
  34. ↑ cf. Vogel and Plotho Volume 3, Annex XXV
  35. ↑ cf. especially Plotho, Part 1, Appendix XIII