Battle at Waghäusel

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Battle at Waghäusel
date June 21, 1849
place Waghäusel , Wiesental
output Victory of the Prussians
Parties to the conflict

Prussia KingdomKingdom of Prussia Prussia

Flag of Germany (3-2 aspect ratio) .svg Baden-Palatinate Revolutionary Army

Commander

Supreme Command Lieutenant General Moritz von Hirschfeld
1st Division: Major General Herrmann von Hanneken
4th Division: Major General Georg Brunsig von Brun

General Ludwik Mierosławski ,
Adjutant General Franz Sigel ,
Colonel Ludwik Oborski

Troop strength
1st division: 5 104
4th division: 4 695 		11,000
losses

20 dead; 110 wounded

Fighting in the course of the Baden Revolution of 1848/49

The battle near Waghäusel (also the battle near Waghäusel or battles near Waghäusel and Wiesental ) took place on June 21, 1849 near Waghäusel in northern Baden, between Mannheim and Karlsruhe , and near Wiesental . The Baden Revolutionary Army and Prussian troops faced each other in the battle . It was one of the decisive battles during the Baden Revolution and, after the initial successes of the Revolutionary Army, ended with their disorderly flight.

prehistory

When the German hegemonic powers Prussia and Austria rejected the constitution of the Paulskirche in Frankfurt , the third revolution ( Baden Revolution ) broke out in Baden . What was new about this uprising was that almost the entire Baden army switched to the side of the rebellious revolutionaries. With the exception of most of the officer corps , which continued to support the Grand Duke, the Revolutionary Army could fall back on most of the Baden artillery , infantry and cavalry . In summary, the Baden insurgents had an army with around 45,000 soldiers at their disposal, and the Rastatt fortress with its entire stocks of weapons and ammunition fell into the hands of the insurgents. The positions of officers were filled by committed NCOs, which naturally brought problems: The revolutionary army lacked experienced and competent military commanders. Furthermore, only about 40 to 50 field guns were operational. The commander of the revolutionary army was the future US general Franz Sigel . After being wounded in June 1849, he was replaced by General Ludwik Mierosławski . His opponents were associations from Prussia, Bavaria , Hesse and Nassau . They had three army corps with around 70,000 men and 126 guns at their disposal. At the beginning of June there were first skirmishes in Hesse , in which the revolutionary troops could inflict considerable losses on the enemy.

In order to suppress the uprising in the Palatinate and Baden on behalf of the German Confederation, Prussia set up two improvised army corps under the command of the Prince of Prussia in May 1849 . Moritz von Hirschfeld was in charge of the first of the two corps, and his staff was Lieutenant Colonel Albrecht von Roon .

Between June 11th and 18th, Hirschfeld's corps occupied the Palatinate "methodically and carefully" from the north and west, which also included the relief of Landau fortress, held by officers loyal to Bavaria, on June 18th. The Palatine revolutionary troops, organized by Daniel Fenner von Fenneberg , withdrew to the rebellious Baden army in the Neckar region after battles near Homburg , Kirchheimbolanden , Dürkheim , Ludwigshafen and Rinnthal . At Mannheim and Heidelberg this stood opposite the Prussian Second Corps under Karl von der Groeben and the Federal Corps under Eduard von Peucker .

To her surprise, Hirschfeld did not attack her in the flank, but crossed the Rhine near Germersheim on June 20 and was thus in her back. His corps was approaching Bruchsal when the main force of the Baden army under Ludwik Mierosławski attacked the vanguard of his left wing. This led to the battle at Waghäusel on the 21st.

The battle at Waghäusel

  • Memorial plaque for the Baden revolutionaries

  • Prussian monument

  • Monument to the Baden revolutionaries at the Hermitage

After the Prussian Rhine crossing, the revolutionary troops were given the order to throw the Prussian bridgehead over the Rhine again, but the Baden troops held back or even gave up other positions on the right bank of the Rhine without a fight. In a decisive battle near Waghäusel, the Prussians were to be crushed by the Baden troops. The revolutionary troops placed the enemy near the Marian pilgrimage church on the site of the sugar factory. Outnumbered, the revolutionary troops achieved a victory over the Prussian invaders, who then withdrew. However, the subsequent pursuit was broken off too early by the Baden troops. When more invasion troops crossed the Rhine and surprised the Baden army, the revolutionaries were threatened with enclosure. Mieroslawski found the withdrawal all the more difficult because he believed that he was not facing Moritz von Hirschfeld, but his brother Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld . His actions against the Polish insurgents under Mieroslawsk's command had earned him the name Shrapnel General in the radical democratic Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848 . Since then, Mieroslawski saw in Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld his "mortal enemy" and wanted to take revenge on him at Waghäusel. The mix-up of Moritz with Adolf Alexander can also be found in recent literature.

Consequences of the battle

With forced marches, the enclosure by the Prussians was prevented at the last minute. Attempts were now made to build a new line of defense on the Murg . However, since their own strength had melted down to 20,000 men and desertions and indiscipline increased exponentially , the weak Murgline had to be given up again on June 30 in view of the overwhelming power of 60,000 Prussians. The Baden Revolutionary Army could no longer offer any coherent resistance. The remnants withdrew to Switzerland in individual battles . The Rastatt Fortress held out for another three weeks before the Prussian supremacy resulted in view of the hopeless situation on 23 July 1849th

literature

swell

Representations

  • Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe (Ed.): 1848/49. Revolution of the German Democrats in Baden. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1998, ISBN 3-7890-5201-9 .
  • Alfred Georg Frei, Kurt Hochstuhl: Pioneers of Democracy. The Baden Revolution 1848/49. The dream of freedom. Verlag G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1997, ISBN 3-7650-8168-X .
  • The Rhine-Neckar area and the revolution of 1848/49. Revolutionaries and their opponents. Edited by Working group of archives in the Rhine-Neckar triangle. With contributions by Hans Fenske and Erich Schneider. Verlag Regionalkultur Ubstadt-Weiher, 1998. ISBN 3-929366-64-9
  • Otto Wermuth: "We dared", The Baden-Palatinate Revolution 1849 . Rombach Verlag, 1981, ISBN 3-7930-0367-1 .
  • Klaus Gaßner / Diana Finkele: The uprising of the Baden democrats. Regional culture publisher, ISBN 3-929366-97-5
  • Susanne Asche and Ernst Otto Bräunche (Hrsgb.): The road of democracy. Info Verlag Karlsruhe 2007
  • Frank Engehausen: Short history of the revolution 1848/49 in Baden. G. Braun Buchverlag, Karlsruhe 2010, ISBN 978-3-7650-8596-3
  • Johann Philipp Becker , Christian Esselen : History of the Southern German May Revolution , Geneva 1849, pp. 316-320 online in the Google book search
  • Ludwig Häusser : Memories of the History of the Baden Revolution , Heidelberg 1851, pp. 584–592 online in the Google book search
  • Daniel Staroste: Diary of the events in the Palatinate and Baden in 1849. A memory book for contemporaries and for all who took part in the suppression of that uprising . Volume 1, Berlin 1852, pp. 283-307 online in the Google book search

Web links

Commons : Waghäusel 1849  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ s. Staroste, Volume 2, Supplement No. 6, p. 269
  2. ↑ s. Staroste, Volume 2, Supplement No. 6, p. 270
  3. ↑ s. Staroste, Volume 2, Supplement No. 18, p. 286
  4. ↑ The representation of the battles is based on Wilhelm Blos : The German Revolution. History of the German Movement from 1848 and 1849. Dietz, Stuttgart 1893, pp. 549–600, esp. Pp. 565–588 and Heinz Helmert, Hansjürgen Usczeck: Armed people's struggles in Europe 1848/49. Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1973, pp. 248–266, “methodical and careful advance” p. 256.
  5. ↑ Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 64 of August 3, 1848, in: Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED (ed.): Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Works, Volume 5 (March to November 1848) . Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1975, p. 299.
  6. ↑ See Joh. Phil. Becker , and Chr. Essellen : History of the South German May Revolution of 1849 . Verlag von Gottfried Becker, Geneva 1849, p. (Reprint of the original from 1849 by Salzwasser-Verlag, 2012, ISBN 9783846010884 )
  7. ↑ So with Krzysztof Makowski: The Grand Duchy of Posen in the revolutionary year of 1848 . In: Rudolf Jaworski, Robert Luft (Ed.): 1848/49 Revolutions in East Central Europe. Lectures at the conference of the Collegium Carolinum in Bad Wiessee from November 30th to December 1st 1990 (= Bad Wiesseer Tagungen des Collegium Carolinum. Volume 18). Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-56012-3 , p. 160.