Battle at Kirchheimbolanden
| date | June 14, 1849 |
|---|---|
| place | Kirchheimbolanden |
| output | The troops are defeated |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
| Commander | |
|
|
|
| losses | |
|
50 dead; 30 prisoners |
3 wounded |
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
The battle at Kirchheimbolanden was the first battle of the Palatinate uprising . It took place on June 14, 1849 near Kirchheimbolanden and ended with the defeat of the troops against the Prussian troops .
prehistory
The movement of the March Revolution in the member states of the German Confederation led to the election of the Frankfurt National Assembly as the first all-German parliament. On March 28, 1849, this parliament had promulgated a constitution for the German Empire , which provided for the form of a hereditary constitutional monarchy. The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV refused the offered imperial crown. On April 23, the Bavarian king and his government rejected the Paulskirche constitution, which was viewed by the left as a coup.
On May 2, it was decided to set up a ten-member state committee for the defense and implementation of the imperial constitution and on May 7, 1849, the Reich commissioner for central power for the Palatinate, Bernhard Eisenstuck , legitimized the state defense committee. On May 3, 1849, the Dresden May Uprising broke out, which was suppressed by Saxon and Prussian troops on May 9. The third Baden uprising began on May 11th with the mutiny of the Baden troops in the federal fortress of Rastatt .
The request of the Palatinate State Committee for support from Baden and Hesse became known on May 9 in Rheinhessen . and Franz Zitz and Ludwig Bamberger called for the formation of a Rhenish Hessian Freikorps . The military command initially had Karl Ludwig Heussner. The corps gathered in Wörrstadt and moved via Alzey to Pfeddersheim and then to Kirchheimbolanden .
On June 11th the feared intervention of the 1st Prussian Army Corps under Moritz von Hirschfeld began . The avant-garde of his 1st Division under Major General Woldemar von Hanneken crossed the Palatinate border unchallenged at Kreuznach and advanced south.
Associations involved
The Rhenish Hessian Freikorps - under General Sznayde's Pole N. Rouppert - to which in particular the gymnasts from Mainz and members of the workers' association belonged, originally around 1,500 men and four small iron cannons.
The avant-garde of the 4th Division of the 1st Prussian Army Corps with the Berlin Battalion of the 2nd Guard Landwehr Regiment , the Fusilier Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment , two squadrons of the 7th Uhlan Regiment and two artillery under Colonel Gustav von Schleinitz .
course
Already on June 13th, during a reconnaissance of the Prussians near Morschheim, there was a clash with a company of the Freischar, which had one dead and two wounded.
The insurgents left behind as outposts in Morschheim left the town against orders on the night of June 13-14 and returned to Kirchheimbolanden. The advance of the Prussians was noticed in Kirchheimbolanden on June 14th at 5 a.m. A Prussian fusilier campany initially occupied Orbis without a fight and went on from the northwest to Kirchheimbolanden, while the majority of the Prussian units attacked the city directly from the north. A third group advanced from the west. A company of the Freikorps initially offered resistance to the Prussians in front of the city, but withdrew after being attacked from three sides. There, under artillery fire, the situation of the Freikorps became precarious. Since the Polish major Rouppert, who formally had the military command, did not make any decisions, Zitz and Bamberger ordered the retreat to Rockenhausen . A division of the Mainz riflemen stayed behind in the palace gardens for unknown reasons. A company of the Guard Landwehr Battalion first took the barricade in the palace garden. The Landwehr and Fusiliers soon penetrated the palace garden through the main gate. The irregulars perished in battle or were captured. Among the prisoners was Mathilde Hitzfeld , who is shown in a representation with a flag on a barricade, which should probably be linked to representations from the French Revolution.
The Rhenish Hessian Freikorps withdrew to Neustadt an der Weinstrasse , where it united with the People's Army Battalion Schlinke and the Corps Blenker and crossed the Knielingen Rhine Bridge to Baden with the entire remaining Palatinate Revolutionary Army on June 18 . On June 20, the Rhenish Hessian Freikorps disbanded.
The Prince of Prussia , the commander-in-chief of the entire army for the suppression of the revolution in the Palatinate and Baden, accompanied the 4th Division and personally congratulated his troops after the battle.
Commemoration
_b_609.jpg)
On June 16, 1872, a memorial was inaugurated in the Kirchheimbolanden cemetery for the irregulars who fell on June 14, 1849. It shows a Germania with an imperial eagle shield . A certificate with the following text was deposited in the base:
“In the years 1848–1849 the German Imperial Assembly elected by the German people in Frankfurt a. M. to advise and establish a German imperial constitution by legal means, the introduction and implementation of which, however, opposed various German princes against the wishes and well-being of the people. The population of the Bavarian Palatinate and of Baden stood up for their right, but their national armed forces fighting for it was defeated by the superior strength of the armies raised against them by the princes and the hope of the creation of a unified, free German empire was pushed into the unpredictable distance at that time . In this struggle for their right, the people of the Palatinate were supported by men and young people from the neighboring province of Rhineland-Hesse who were enthusiastic about their fatherland and freedom, who formed a free group which, on June 14th, 1849, started the first fight against a Prussian army division moving into the Palatinate here in Kirchheimbolanden had existed, whereby those listed below (the names follow) died the heroic death for freedom and fatherland and found their final resting place in this cemetery. "
literature
- Daniel Staroste: Diary of the events in the Palatinate and Baden in 1849: a memory book for contemporaries and for everyone who took part in the suppression of that uprising . Volume 1. Potsdam 1852, pp. 178–180 ( Google book search )
- Otto Fleischmann: History of the Palatinate uprising in 1849: described according to the available sources , E. Thieme, Kaiserslautern 1899, pp. 284–302 ( archive.org )
- Ludwig Bamberger : Experiences from the Palatinate Survey in May and June 1849 . Frankfurt a. M. 1849, pp. 76–79 ( urn : nbn: de: hebis: 30: 2-25170 )
- Johann Philipp Becker , Christian Esselen : History of the South German May Revolution of 1849. Geneva 1849, pp. 305–307 ( Google book search )
Individual evidence
- ↑ according to the indictment file, established by the General State Procuratorate of the Palatinate, Zweibrücken 1850 , p. 28 designated as a Polish refugee; at Bamberger Ruppert called
- ↑ s. Staroste p. 179
- ↑ s. Staroste S.
- ↑ s. Bamberger p. 8
- ↑ from Kaiserslautern
- ^ Kurt von Priesdorff : Karl Anton Gustav Freiherr von Schleinitz . In: Ders .: Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 5, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1938], DNB 367632802 , p. 294 f., No. 1914.
- ↑ s. Staroste p. 177
- ↑ s. Bamberger p. 75
- ↑ Bamberger (lit., p. 79) cites the number of 17 deaths as a rumor and refers to the fact that the named victims were still alive.
- ↑ Monument to People's Fighters . In: The Gazebo . Volume 37, 1872, pp. 609, 612 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
Coordinates: 49 ° 40 ′ 4 ″ N , 8 ° 0 ′ 50 ″ E