Battle of Uerdingen
The Battle of Uerdingen , then also known as the Battle of Ordingen , took place on March 12, 1689 during the War of the Palatinate Succession , which also went down in history as the Nine Years War (1688 to 1697). In the battle, the alliance of the united Dutch and Brandenburg troops under Elector Friedrich III won. of Brandenburg against the French of King Louis XIV , which made the further advance of the Alliance in Kurköln possible until the siege of Bonn .
The Cologne diocese dispute between Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg and Joseph Clemens von Bayern over rule over Kurköln was one of the triggers of the Nine Years War. Kurköln therefore became a direct theater of war.
prehistory
From the 1860s onwards, King Louis XIV waged war on his neighbors. The goal was to bring as much Spanish, Dutch and German territory as possible into his sphere of influence, in eastern France preferably as far as the Rhine. These efforts to expand went down in history as “Reunion” . This mainly affected areas from the Middle Rhine to the Lower Rhine. In 1688 the French king took advantage of the national defense of the Holy Roman Empire, which was weakened by the Turkish war , and had an army of 20,000 men deployed there.
Numerous villages were burned down in the area of Ulm and Rothenburg . The French demanded large contributions from the population. On November 10, 1688, the French general Joseph de Montclar advanced with 6000 soldiers to the area on the right bank of the Rhine.
His mission was to devastate all the regions that refused to submit to them and to deport the inhabitants to France. The west of the Holy Roman Empire was to be eliminated as a possible deployment area against France. But there was increasing resistance.
At the same time, Brandenburg , Saxony and Hesse-Kassel formed an alliance with the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I and raised an army of 22,000 men. Since several months passed before this troop arrived, Louis XIV ordered the scorched earth strategy. His war minister Louvois was tasked with carrying it out. In March 1689 the terror began with the cremation of Mannheim and eleven other cities in the Lower Palatinate. The Lower Rhine was also particularly affected by the extinctions.
Starting position
The fortresses in the Electorate of Cologne, Bonn , Zons , Neuss , Linn , Kaiserswerth and Rheinberg , had been occupied by members of the Fürstenberg family. The French troops of General Henri d'Escoubleau de Sourdis came to their aid. Brandenburg troops from the Duchy of Kleve , however, were sent to the imperial city of Cologne itself to defend it against the French. The Brandenburg troops under the command of Lieutenant Field Marshal Hans Adam von Schöning were stationed in Wesel , which was expanded into a Prussian fortress under the Great Elector as early as 1681. In mid-February 1689, Brandenburg cavalry troops came to the Lower Rhine. On March 10, they joined in the Alps with the Brandenburg Infantry under Lt. Gen. Hans Albrecht von Barfus and the Dutch riders of Lieutenant General Hans Willem van Aylva . The next day the march was continued in the direction of Mörs to negotiate with the Landdrosten zu Mörs about the supply of provisions. At the same time, a large French supply train, covered by infantry and artillery, set off from Linn to Uerdingen . When Feldmarschallleutnant Schöning found out, he chased the wagons to Uerdingen and brought a large part of the money and grain he had carried with him into his possession. 80 men and some officers of the enemy were taken prisoner, others were able to flee back to the fortified Linn. On March 12th, the troops lined up for the battle of Uerdingen.
Course of the battle
The battle near Uerdingen is likely to have essentially taken place between the localities of Lank , Haus Meer , Ossum and Strümp , today districts of Meerbusch .
Hans Adam von Schöning, the commander of the combined troops of the Brandenburg Elector and the Dutch, moved with a squadron of riders on a hill between Lank-Latum and Stratum. On the two wings the Brandenburgers faced the villages of Ossum and Strümp, which had been occupied by the French. The French troops formed a line between the two villages.
In the early morning the French had set out from Neuss with 7,000 to 8,000 riders to regain the Uerdingen occupied by Schöning. When Schöning became aware that the French troops wanted to move on from Ossum to Uerdingen, he put a company of riders and a company of dragoons on the march to prevent them from doing so. On the Prussian side, the first Dönhoff battalion of the Royal Prussian 2nd Infantry Regiment was involved. The regiment consisted of 26,036 men and carried 79 artillery pieces.
General Sourdy commanded the French troops. The fighting for Ossum was particularly bitter, with 300 French grenadiers killed there alone. However, the French turned against the Rhine to ride through Strümp. Strümp was on the right wing of the Brandenburg troops and the French cavalry could have attacked the Brandenburg flank from there.
Schöning formed his troops to attack, Lieutenant General Barfus commanded the right wing, Lieutenant General Aylva the left. Field Marshal Schöning himself initially stayed on the hill with 3 cannons and 200 infantry and let fire. Soon Lieutenant General Barfus was able to occupy the village of Ossum, which the French quickly left after his attack. After the Prussian corps of Lieutenant General Hans Albrecht von Barfus had taken Ossum, the French were pushed back into occupied Neuss via Strümp and Büderich. They lost around 1,000 men. They had to give up their position in Linn.
Schöning then ordered Lieutenant General Aylva to attack the village of Strümp from the Rhine side. He himself wanted to bypass Strümp and attack from the other side. At around 10 a.m. the riders had passed Kloster Meer and had moved into the villages. In the confusing terrain full of scrub, hedges and sunken paths, however, he soon had to stop with the cavalry. There was also fog. After fighting on both wings, the French withdrew to the village of Brühl on the meadows in front of Büderich . This terrain was better suited for the battle and Lieutenant Field Marshal Schöning allowed the French to advance. In the later course of the fighting, the Prussians also besieged Kaiserswerth , which was occupied by the French and had to capitulate on June 27, 1689.
literature
- Hans and Kurd von Schöning: Historical news of the von Schöning family and their goods. Berlin 1830, pp. 134-171
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jan von Flocken: When France's armies devastated Germany . welt.de from July 24, 2015, accessed on May 30, 2017
- ^ Lank, folder 1
- ^ A b Karl Schmalbach: The battle of Meerbusch . D´r Länkter Bott, Lanker Heimatblätter, 2nd portfolio, 1980, pp. 71–74
- ↑ Lank, Portfolio 2, pp. 71–74 (PDF) and pp. 75–76 (PDF)
- ↑ AC vd Oelsnitz: history of k. prussia. First infantry regiment since its foundation in 1619 to the present: With the portrait of S. Maj. The King . Mittler, 1855, p. 205