Battle of Sehestedt
Battle of Sehestedt. Painting by Jørgen Valentin Sonne (ca.1822)
| date | December 10, 1813 |
|---|---|
| place | Sehestedt in Holstein |
| output | Danish victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 9500 men | 5000 men (Swedes, Prussians and Russians) |
| losses | |
|
550 dead and wounded |
620 dead and wounded |
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The Battle of Sehestedt took place in the course of the Sixth Coalition War on December 10th, 1813 between Danish and Swedish (with Prussian and Russian units) troops in Sehestedt in Holstein .
prehistory
When Denmark joined an " armed neutrality alliance" ( Russia , Sweden and Prussia) in December 1800 , they fell victim to British policies of aggression. England did not allow ships from neutral states to pass and often confiscated Danish merchant ships. Denmark then tried to weaken England's international trade by occupying the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg and Lübeck. As a reaction to this occupation, England took Copenhagen under fire and forced Denmark to withdraw from the "Armed Neutrality Alliance", which was dissolved by the death of the Russian Tsar . Denmark became part of the Anglo-Russian alliance, the troops from Hamburg and Lübeck were withdrawn.
Although Denmark remained neutral in the Fourth Coalition War (1806), the continental blockade imposed by Napoleon (exclusion of England from European trade), the French occupation of Hamburg and the Tilsit Peace between Russia and France forced it to join the trade war against England. England subsequently weakened Denmark by declaring a trade ban on French and Danish ports. Through further occupations of Danish islands (e.g. Heligoland), Denmark was put more and more under pressure. Denmark formed a military alliance with Napoleon - England responded quickly and confiscated 1,400 Danish ships. Denmark was in crisis, financially as well as politically.
When the Napoleonic troops lost their defeats and the outcome of the Battle of Leipzig (1813) brought about the downfall of Napoleon (at that time Denmark's only ally), Denmark's crisis was intensified: state bankruptcy , declarations of war by Prussia and Russia, and the attempts by the new king Introducing an absolutist system ruined Denmark.
After the Battle of the Nations, Crown Prince Bernadotte of Sweden sought to conquer the Danish possessions in Schleswig-Holstein. Bernadotte's troops were reinforced by Russian soldiers. An army of Allies was formed, which marched via Hamburg to Oldesloe, where the first battle between the Allies and the Danes took place. The Danes withdrew further and there was a second battle at Bornhöved on December 6, 1813 , in which both parties suffered heavy losses. The Danes used the time gained by this battle to retreat further. The Danish troops moved to Sehestedt via Kiel and Holtsee to break through to their Rendsburg fortress .
Battlefield geography
Sehestedt is a small town about 20 kilometers west of Kiel . The landscape around the place has changed little in the last 170 years. Back then, too, the Knicks determined the landscape. The Kiel Canal brought about the most lasting change . The importance of Sehestedt for the events of that time becomes clear to the viewer by looking at the map. Sehestedt lies on a sandy ridge that slopes down on all sides. In the north, the Wittensee with its swampy banks and advanced moors, especially the Habyer Moor, comes up against this ridge. The old Eider flows to the east and south, and with its wide swamp areas on both banks, it forces traffic onto roads and bridges. The road that runs through Sehestedt from the west of Rendsburg runs on an approximately 1000 meter wide ridge to the northeast via Gettorf and on to Kiel. The old Eider and the old Eider Canal , the forerunner of today's Kiel Canal, represented the main obstacle to all movements in the north-south direction in the south. The landscape supported the use of infantry by vegetation, bogs and swamps in defense. Attacking infantry, cavalry and artillery were severely restricted in their movements and their possibilities of action and forced onto the existing network of roads.
Course of the battle
General Wallmoden , the troop commander of the allies, underestimated the Danish troops of Prince Friedrich of Hesse from the start . The Allies were outnumbered, but the fighting spirit and discipline of the Danes and Holsteiners was underestimated and the battle ended on December 10th, 1813.
The Danish general Prince Friedrich von Hessen suspected that he and his troops could be encircled by the Allies and decided to advance from Kiel north of the canal to Rendsburg. Thus, on the night of December 10th, the order to march for 3 a.m. was given to the Danes. Inhibited by the exhausted state of the troops and the weather and the road conditions, the head of the Association reached until around 8 am Holtsee .
General Dörnberg , troop leader of the allies, had meanwhile also set out with his troops on the morning of December 10th. Actually, the Danish troops and the Dörnberg corps should have collided on the Sehestedt-Holtsee road if the Danes had been faster. As a result, the troops met in the forest near Haby completely unexpectedly. However, initially there were only small skirmishes between the Danish vanguard and two battalions of the Allies. Dörnberg marched on to Eckernförde because he had misinterpreted the Danish approach and did not stop despite the gunfire that could be heard from Haby. Obsessed with the idea of catching up with the Danes on their march from Eckernförde, he marched on in the wrong direction.
Since the brigade of the Russian-German Legion under Dörnberg had already passed Sehestedt at dawn, Sehestedt was largely unmanned. The regiment marched up behind the town exit. The Allied vanguard encountered Danish patrols and was taken prisoner because the Danes had not been recognized due to the darkness. At the same time, an Allied brigade and the Danish advance troops entered the battle between Holtsee and Haby.
General Wallmoden ordered the Mecklenburg hunters under Colonel Carl Friedrich von Müller and Duke Gustav Wilhelm zu Mecklenburg to attack. However, they had little space and finally a murderous fire from the Schleswig and Funen infantry struck them from the edge of the village. The aim of the Danes was to hold Sehestedt until the entire Danish army had marched through and retreated to the Rendsburg fortress. After heavy fighting, this plan succeeded. However, the clear military defeat of the entire Danish state was neither delayed nor mitigated.
monument
In memory of the battle, a memorial was erected after almost nine years and inaugurated on June 28, 1822. Every year a Danish delegation comes to lay a wreath at the monument with military ceremony. The obelisk made of polished granite stands in the middle of the village (north side) on a three-tiered pedestal surrounded by twelve chain-hung cannons. Bronze plates are embedded on the four sides. The plate facing south shows a gilded allegory of war, while the victorious troops are immortalized on the western side and their commanders on the eastern side.
Monument in Sehestedt
detail
Inauguration of the monument in 1822
literature
- Digby Smith : The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Databook . Greenhill Books, 1998.
- Eva Susanne Fiebig: The Napoleonic Wars 1792–1814 / 15. In: Handbook on North Elbe Military History. Armies and wars in Schleswig, Holstein, Lauenburg, Eutin and Lübeck 1623–1863 / 67. Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2010, ISBN 978-3-89876-317-2 , pp. 433-494.
- Eva Susanne Fiebig: The Cossack Winter. The occupation of the duchies by the Northern Army in 1813/14. In: Sonja Kinzler (Hrsg.): The Kiel Peace 1814. A fateful year for the north. Wachholtz, Neumünster / Hamburg 2013, pp. 58–73.
- Manfred Jessen-Klingenberg : The battle in and near Sehestedt and the memorial that commemorates them. In: ders., Karl Heinrich Pohl (Ed.): Sehestedt from a regional historical perspective. A contribution to a modern local history. Kovač, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-3020-1 , pp. 67-87.
- K. Wachholz: War history Schleswig-Holstein . K. Wachholz, 1935; Pp. 81-83.
Web links
- Sehestedter skirmish . Website of the municipality of Sehestedt, accessed on January 21, 2018.
- The Battle of Sehestedt December 10, 1813 . Panels from the Sehestedt Village Museum , accessed on January 21, 2018 (PDF; 1.0 MB).
- Historical military map from 1813 on napoleon-series.org
Individual evidence
- ^ Google Books Johannes von Schröder and C. Fränckel: Topography of the Duchy of Holstein, the Principality of Lübeck and the free and Hanseatic cities of Hamburg and Lübeck, 1846; Volume 2, p. 313
- ↑ unknown. (No longer available online.) In: geschichte-u-reenactment.de. Formerly in the original ; accessed on April 15, 2018 (not accessible, only with login and password). ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Manfred Jessen-Klingenberg: The battle in and near Sehestedt and the memorial that commemorates them. In: Sehestedt from a regional historical perspective. A contribution to a modern local history. Kovač, Hamburg 2007, p. 78.
- ↑ Sehestedter battle . Website of the municipality of Sehestedt, accessed on January 21, 2018.
- ↑ press release. History festival: 200 years of the Battle of Sehestedt of the Association for the Promotion of the Village Museum Sehestedt eV on June 15, 2013, p. 2, accessed on January 21, 2018.
Coordinates: 54 ° 22 ′ 0 ″ N , 9 ° 49 ′ 0 ″ E