Battle of Yorktown
| date | September / October 1781 |
|---|---|
| place | Yorktown |
| output | Decisive Franco-American victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 8,500 men | 8,800 French, 9,500 Americans |
| losses | |
|
156 dead, 326 wounded, 7,018 prisoners |
French: 52 dead, 134 wounded, |
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The Battle of Yorktown , also known as the German battle , is the victory of the French - American troops under the command of Comte de Rochambeau and George Washington against the British army under General Lord Charles Cornwallis near Yorktown in the American War of Independence in 1781. In the aftermath of the battle, Great Britain recognized the independence of the former British colonies.
prehistory
Under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau and the Chevalier de Ternay , a French expeditionary force set out for America in 1780 to support the young United States of America against the British .
At their meeting in May 1781, Rochambeau and Washington had originally decided to take joint action against the city of New York , which was held by the British Commander-in-Chief in North America, Sir Henry Clinton . A little later, however, Washington received the news of the British defeat against the Spanish in the Battle of Pensacola . General La Fayette briefed him on the steps taken by British General Cornwallis in Virginia and his intention to evacuate his troops from Yorktown.
Knowing the difficulties of such an evacuation in the presence of a significantly increased French fleet, Washington decided in July to take this opportunity to eliminate Cornwallis' southern army and possibly end the war, and to use most of what he had available to guard Clinton Deploy troops. At the beginning of August, the French fleet of 28 ships under Admiral de Grasse set course for the Chesapeake Bay from Haiti . There were 3,200 French soldiers on board, who were dropped off at Jamestown in early September . At the same time, Washington put its troops on the march. On September 5, de Grasse's squadron defeated the British naval unit under Thomas Graves, which had now arrived, in the naval battle of Chesapeake Bay and then blocked the entrance to the bay. After the arrival of Washington's troops off Yorktown on September 28, a total of over 18,000 Allied troops were involved in the containment of the approximately 8,500 British under Cornwallis.
structure
British Army (Cornwallis)
- General (Cornwallis)
- Foot Guards Brigade (O'Hara)
- Light Infantry Brigade (Abercrombie)
- 1st Brigade (Yorke)
- 2nd Brigade ( Dundas )
- Loyalists
- German contingent
- Ansbach - Bayreuth ( Voit of Salzburg )
- Hessen-Kassel (Matthias von Fuchs)
Total thickness: approx. 8,500
French army
- Admiral de Grasses' fleet
- 28 ships
Commandant en chef : Comte de Rochambeau
- Navy : Admiral de Grasse
- Artillery : Colonel d'Aboville
-
cavalry
- Légion des volontaires étrangers de Lauzun (Voluntary Foreign Legion from Lauzun): Colonel propriétaire Armand-Louis de Gontaut, duc de Biron , duc de Lauzun
-
infantry
- Bourbonnais Brigade
-
Soissonnais Brigade
- Regiment de Soissonnais : Colonel marquis de St. Maime
- Regiment de Saintonge : Colonel marquis de Custine
-
Agenois Brigade
- Régiment d'Agénois : Colonel marquis d'Audechamp
- Régiment de Gatinais : Lieutenant-colonel de L'Estrade
- Régiment de Touraine (not part of the Brigade Association): Colonel vicomte de Pondeux
- Régiment de Port-au-Prince: Colonel Joseph de Gripière, marquis de Laval
Total thickness: 8,500
American Army (Washington)
- General (Washington)
- Light Division ( Marquis de Lafayette )
- 1st Brigade ( Muhlenberg )
- 2nd Brigade (Hazen)
- 2nd Division ( Lincoln )
- 1st Brigade (Clinton)
- 2nd Brigade (Dayton)
- 3rd Division ( Baron von Steuben )
- 1st Brigade (Wayne)
- 2nd Brigade (Gist)
- Virginia Militia (Nelson)
- 1st Brigade (Weedon)
- 2nd Brigade (Lawson)
- 3rd Brigade (Stevens)
Total thickness: 9,500
The siege
From September 28, 1781 on, the French and American allies besieged the British troops. On September 30th, the British abandoned the outer defenses in order to concentrate closer to the city. The abandoned positions were occupied and expanded by the allies. On the other bank of the York River, the Allies won the battle of Gloucester Point on October 3rd.
From October 6, the Allies drove their trenches closer and closer to the British defense line. By October 13, the work had progressed so far that an attack could take place. Then, on October 14th, it was possible to storm the two most important redoubts . Redoute No. 9 was stormed and conquered by the French-German Foreign Regiment Royal Deux-Ponts under the leadership of Christian von Zweybrücken and Redoute No. 10 by the troops from Lafayette's Light Division , under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton .
On the evening of October 14th, Cornwallis tried to save his army by taking 16 boats across the York River to Gloucester Point. The bad weather ended the translation at 2 a.m. The next morning, Cornwallis asked for a cease-fire to negotiate the terms of surrender. The surrender was signed on October 19th; the British marched into captivity.
In the wake of the defeat of Yorktown, the British Prime Minister Frederick North had to resign. In 1783 the Peace of Paris was concluded, in which Great Britain recognized the independence of the former British colonies and thus formally ended the American War of Independence.
The German battle
The battle for Yorktown is also called the German battle because a high proportion of the soldiers were Germans. The British used 2,500 German troops from Hesse , Ansbach and Bayreuth . The number of Germans in the French contingent was similarly large . This also included the German Royal Deux-Ponts regiment . Numerous German emigrants served in the Steubens division in the American army .
Due to the outstanding role of the Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment in the battle, there has been an active twinning between the cities of Yorktown and Zweibrücken since 1978 . The battle was authentically recreated in the summer of 1981 with the participation of several thousand soldiers. In addition to the then US President Ronald Reagan , a delegation from the Zweibrücken City Council also took part in this ceremony.
literature
- Stephen C. Danckert: The Siege of Yorktown. Coalition Warfare. In: Military review , Vol. 73 (1993), No. 1, pp. 15-20.
- Howard Lee Landers: The Virginia Campaign and the Blockade and Siege of Yorktown 1781. Including a brief narrative of the French participation in the revolution prior to the Southern campaign . Army War College, Historical Section, Washington 1931 ( online ).
Web links
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 37 ° 14 ′ 21.5 " N , 76 ° 30 ′ 38.5" W.