Siege of Danzig (1813)

The siege of Danzig (16 January 1813 – 2 January 1814) was a siege of the city of Danzig during the War of the Sixth Coalition by Russian and Prussian forces[1] against Jean Rapp's permanent French garrison, which had been augmented by soldiers from the Grande Armée retreating from its Russian campaign.[2] The garrison included two crack divisions under Étienne Heudelet de Bierre and Charles Louis Dieudonné Grandjean plus whole units and stragglers that had lost contact with their units, all with their health and morale both weakened and most of their equipment lost and carrying their wounded. The siege was begun by cossacks under hetman Matvei Platov, then was continued mainly by infantry, mainly militiamen and irregulars. It ended in a French surrender to Coalition forces.[3][4]

Siege of Danzig
Part of the German campaign of the Sixth Coalition

Danzig (Plan of the siege in 1813)
Date16 January 1813 – 2 January 1814
Location
Danzig, Prussia
54°22′00″N 18°38′00″E
Result Prussian–Russian victory
Belligerents
First French Empire French Empire
Confederation of the Rhine
Kingdom of Bavaria Kingdom of Bavaria
Kingdom of Saxony Kingdom of Saxony		 Kingdom of Prussia Prussia
Russian Empire Russian Empire
Commanders and leaders
First French Empire Jean Rapp
First French Empire Étienne Heudelet
First French Empire Charles Grandjean		 Kingdom of Prussia Duke of Württemberg
Russian Empire Matvei Platov
Russian Empire Fedor Levisa
Strength
35,934 including 6,000 sick and wounded and 2,600 cavalry 73,000
Casualties and losses
35,934 5,000 killed, wounded or captured
Siege of Danzig (1813) is located in Europe
Siege of Danzig (1813)
Location within Europe
War of the Sixth Coalition:
German campaign
🌍
  current battle
  Napoleon in command
  Napoleon not in command

Background

The Treaty of Tilsit of 1807 had made Danzig a Free City nominally under Prussian control.[2] It was sited at the mouth of the River Vistula and along the coast of the Baltic Sea and then had 60,000 inhabitants. It was also a major supply depot for Napoleon's force, with large quantities of food, munitions, forage, weapons, clothing and ammunition, and needed to be held by his forces to keep the Prussians neutral and avoid them defecting to the coalition (as they later did). He was also attempting to re-group an army in his rear in order to confront the Coalition, and so needed to guard the line of the Vistula by garrisoning Danzig, Thorn and Warsaw.[5]

See also

Notes
  1. danzig 2001, p. 3.
  2. danzig 2001, p. 17.
  3. Marchangy 1815, p. 73.
  4. danzig 2001, pp. 28–29.
  5. danzig 2001.

References
  • danzig (2001). "Danzig Report 112 – July, August, September 2001". www.danzig.org. Archived from the original on 5 April 2018. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
  • Marchangy, Louis Antoine François de (1815). The siege of Dantzic, in 1813. Retrieved 3 June 2021.

Further reading
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