Siege of Dorsten

Siege of Dorsten
	Part of Thirty Years' War (Hessian War)
	; The Town of Dorsten in 1641 by Matthäus Merian.
Date	16 Jul –19 Sep 1641
Location	Dorsten 51°39′36″N6°57′51″E / 51.66000°N 6.96417°E Coordinates: 51°39′36″N6°57′51″E / 51.66000°N 6.96417°E
Result	Imperial victory; Withdrawal of Hesse-Cassel from Dorsten; Further sieges in Electorate of Cologne and neutral Duchy of Jülich ; Surrender signed 18 Sep 1641 in Dorsten
Belligerents
Hesse-Cassel	Holy Roman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Johann von Geyso ; Emmanuel Kotz ; Carl von Rabenhaupt ; Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein	Graf von Hatzfeldt ; Alexander II of Velen
Strength
2,000 (infantry, cavalry, artillery), 250 men of the Hessian 1st relief force from Haltern, 2nd relief force incl. 3,000 Swedish cuirassiers withdrawn from Wolfenbüttel (too late for battle)	20,000 (12 regiments of infantry,; 10 regiments of cavalry; 30 pieces of heavy artillery)
Casualties and losses
1,350 killed and wounded	unknown
	Dorsten class=notpageimage\| Location within North Rhine-Westphalia Dorsten Dorsten (Germany)

Last updated March 03, 2023

In the siege of Dorsten (German : Belagerung von Dorsten), an Imperial force under Melchior von Hatzfeldt besieged the Hessian garrison in the town of Dorsten from 16 July 1641 to 19 September 1641 during the Thirty Years' War. The garrison capitulated on 18 September 1641 and moved out of the town the following day.

According to a judgement by the Vienna Supreme Court (Wiener Hofgericht), Hesse-Cassel had to cede Upper Hesse, which included the University of Marburg, to Hesse-Darmstadt. In return for this substantial loss, in the Treaty of Werben on 22 August 1631, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden promised to grant Hesse-Cassel various territories in Westphalia including parts of the Prince-Bishopric of Münster (Hochstift Münster) and the Vest Recklinghausen (governed by the Electorate of Cologne), if he were victorious in the Thirty Years' War.

On 9 February 1633, Hesse-Cassel captured Dorsten without resistance from the Electorate of Cologne. In the following years, it was turned into the strongest fortress in the region by the Hessian Colonel Dalwig and by Johann Adriansch. A first attempt to recapture it by Johann von Götz failed in 1636.

Siege

On 16 July 1641, a second siege of Dorsten was begun by imperial Field Marshal Melchior von Hatzfeldt and the imperial Feldzeugmeister , Alexander II of Velen, with some 20,000 soldiers. This attack was started because, earlier, the Hessian lieutenant general, Kaspar, Count of Eberstein had moved off with a portion of his troops to participate in the siege of Wolfenbüttel.^[1]^[2] Whilst the main body of the Imperial Army was engaged at Wolfenbüttel, Hatzfeld positioned his forces south of Dorsten, whilst Velen deployed to the north. The Imperial Artillery took post to the northeast amongst the sand hills, initially with 14 cannon. They were later reinforced by the Electorate of Cologne bringing the total to 30 guns. In a letter from the imperial Generalwachtmeister, Freiherr von Wendt, dated 16 July, to the mayor and town council of Recklinghausen, he demanded the following supplies for the provision of his soldiers outside Dorsten: 3,000 pounds of bread, 16 tonnes of beer, four head of cattle, 15 sacks of oats and several "kitchen items".^[3] The Barony of Lembeck (Herrlichkeit Lembeck) also had to supply food.^[4] In early August, Hatzfeld also fetched four half-kartouwen and two fire mortars (Feuermörser) from Kaiserswerth. Soldiers from 12 regiments of infantry and 10 regiments of cavalry constructed extensive siegeworks around the town.

The Hessian defenders were commanded by senior commander (Oberkommandant) Johann von Geyso and town commander Emmanuel Kotz with 2,000 soldiers, 400 of whom had been previously redeployed from Kalkar. Other relief contingents called up by the Hesse-Cassel regent, Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Münzenberg, were either very small in number (250 men under Colonel Carl von Rabenhaupt from Haltern and Borken) or arrived too late (troops under the command of Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein from Wolfenbüttel).

On 25 August, the first breach was made west of the Lippe Gate with 2,000 artillery shells, destroying the last line barrier. Once this breach had been widened by cannon fire and plans for an assault with initially 2,000 musketeers and 1,500 cuirassiers got under way, the Hessian commandants opened negotiations over the terms of surrender on 18 September with Field Marshal von Hatzfeld.

The siege ended on 19 September. The Hesse-Cassel garrison were given safe passage for their remaining personnel comprising 650 men plus administrators and families. The Theatrum Europaeum recorded that the town of Dorsten had become a "lamentable ruin" as a result of the siege.

With the capitulation of Dorsten, Hesse-Cassel had lost the most important fortress on the right bank of the Lower Rhine and, in the aftermath, concentrated their efforts in the Hessian War, together with the so called Weimar Army in French service under Guébriant, on the left bank possessions of the Archbishopric of Cologne under Ferdinand of Bavaria and the neutral Duchy of Jülich under Wolfgang William.^[5]

Literature

Keller (1891). Die Befestigung und Belagerung Dorstens im Jahre 1641 ("The Fortification and Siege of Dorsten in 1641"), Vestische Zeitschrift, Vol. 1, pp. 71–85.
Evelt, Julius (1866). Geschichte der Stadt Dorsten, Dritter Abschnitt ("History of the Town of Dorsten, Part 3"), pp. 96–102 in the Westfälische Zeitschrift, Vol. 26, pp. 63–176.

Related Research Articles

The Second Battle of Breitenfeld, also known as the First Battle of Leipzig, took place during the Thirty Years' War on 2 November 1642 at Breitenfeld, north-east of Leipzig in Germany. A Swedish Army commanded by Lennart Torstensson decisively defeated an Imperial Army under Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and his deputy Ottavio Piccolomini.

Żmigród is a town in Trzebnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district (gmina) called Gmina Żmigród.

Ludwig von Siegen was a German soldier and amateur engraver, who invented the printmaking technique of mezzotint, a printing-process reliant on mechanical pressure used to print more complex engravings than previously possible. He was a well-educated aristocrat, and a Lieutenant-Colonel who commanded the personal guard of William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, and acted as a personal aide to the ruler, with the title kammerjunker or Chamberlain.

Dorsten is a town in the district of Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and has a population of about 75,000.

The Battle of Vlotho was fought on 17 October 1638. It was a victory for the Imperial Army under the command of Field Marshal Melchior von Hatzfeldt, and ended the attempt by Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine, to recapture the Electoral Palatinate.

The House of Hatzfeld, also spelled House of Hatzfeldt, is the name of an ancient and influential German noble family, whose members played important roles in the history of the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia and Austria.

Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Münzenberg was Landgravine consort and Regent of Hesse-Kassel. She married the future William V, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in 1619 and became Landgravine upon his ascension to power in 1627. In 1637, military defeats forced her and William V into exile in East Frisia. Later that year, she became regent for their son William VI upon her husband's death. Through skillful diplomacy and military successes in the Thirty Years' War, she advanced the fortunes of Hesse-Kassel and influenced the Peace of Westphalia that brought the conflict to an end. She handed over an enlarged landgraviate to her son when she abdicated upon his majority in 1650. However, her health had deteriorated over the course of the war, and she died soon after her abdication in 1651.

Franz von Hatzfeld was the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg from 1631 to 1642 and the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg from 1633 to 1642.

Gottfried, Count Huyn, Baron of Geleen or Godefridus Comes ab Huyn Baro de Geleen, rose to the rank of Field Marshal in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor during the 30 Years War.

The Hessian War, in its wider sense sometimes also called the Hessian Wars (Hessenkriege), was a drawn out conflict that took place between 1567 and 1648, sometimes pursued through diplomatic means, sometimes by military force, between branches of the princely House of Hesse, particularly between the Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel and the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt. It was triggered by a division of inheritance following the death of the last landgrave of all Hesse, Philip I in 1567.

The Battle of Wevelinghoven or Battle of Grevenbroich was one of the final battles of the Thirty Years' War. It took place on 14 June 1648 between troops of Holy Roman Empire and of the victorious Hesse-Cassel. Several sources cite the Julian date of 4 June.

Carl von Rabenhaupt was a Bohemian Hussite nobleman who fought in Dutch and Hessian service during the Thirty Years War and came out of retirement to help the Dutch defend Groningen during the Franco-Dutch War. He made a name for himself as a siege specialist, taking or successfully defending many fortified cities along the Dutch-German border.

The Cologne Diocesan Feud, also called the Neuss War or Burgundian War, was a conflict, which began in 1473, between the Archbishop of Cologne, Ruprecht of the Palatinate and the Landstände of his archbishopric. As a result of the involvement of Charles the Bold of Burgundy and, eventually, the Holy Roman Empire the matter at times assumed a European dimension. It finally ended when Ruprecht died in 1480.

Melchior Graf von Gleichen und Hatzfeldt was an Imperial Field Marshal. He fought in the Thirty Years' War first under Albrecht von Wallenstein and Matthias Gallas, then received an independent command in Westphalia. Usually successful with a smaller corps on this secondary front and victorious at Vlotho and Dorsten, he lost at Wittstock and Jankau in his brief intermezzos as commander of major armies.

The Battle of Wolfenbüttel took place near the town of Wolfenbüttel, in what is now Lower Saxony, during the Thirty Years' War. Swedish forces led by Carl Gustaf Wrangel and Hans Christoff von Königsmarck and Bernardines led by Jean-Baptiste Budes, Comte de Guébriant withstood an assault by Imperial forces led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, forcing the Imperials to retreat.

Johann von Geyso was a German nobleman and General-Lieutenant, who fought during the course of the Thirty Years' War. After studying in a Dutch military academy, Geyso fought as a mercenary in the armies of Sweden, Bohemia, Denmark and the German Protestant Union. In 1628, having gained significant experience in warfare he returned to his native Hesse-Kassel which he served until the end of the Thirty Years' War, reaching the rank of commander in chief of the Langraviate's forces and becoming ennobled.

Ambrosius Franz Friedrich Christian Adalbert von Virmont was a German nobleman and Imperial Count of Virmont and Bretzenheim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Kempen</span> 1642 battle of the Thirty Years War

The Battle of Kempen was a battle during the Thirty Years' War in Kempen, Westphalia on 17 January 1642. It resulted in the victory of a French-Weimar-Hessian army under the French Comte de Guébriant and the Hessian Generalleutnant Kaspar Graf von Eberstein against the Imperial Army under General Guillaume de Lamboy, who was captured.

Guillaume III de Lamboy de Dessener, 1590 to 1659, was a Field Marshal in the Imperial Army, who served in the 1618 to 1648 Thirty Years War, and the 1635 to 1659 Franco-Spanish War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johann Wilhelm von Hunolstein</span> 17th-century Lorrain soldier of the Holy Roman Empire

Johann Wilhelm von Hunolstein, also known as Hunoltstein or Hunoldstein, was a professional soldier in Lorrain, Bavarian and Imperial military service during the Thirty Years' War. Since 1643, he was part of the General Staff of the Imperial supreme commanders Gallas and Melander, and commanded himself the entire infantry of either the Imperial or the Bavarian field army.

References

↑ Wolf, Manfred (1983). Das 17. Jahrhundert ("The 17th Century"), p.559 in Wilhelm Kohl's Westfälische Geschichte ("Westphalian History"), Vol. 1
↑ Evelt (1866), p. 96
↑ Schneider, Franz (1862). Stadt und Vest Recklinghausen während des dreißigjährigen Krieges ("The Town and Vest of Recklinghausen During the Thirty Years' War"), pp.147-223, p 205 in the Westfälische Zeitschrift, Vol. 22
↑ Sönnert, Ingrid (1998/99). Die Herrlichkeit Lembeck während des Spanisch-Niederländischen und des Dreißigjährigen Krieges ("The Barony of Lembeck During the Spanish-Dutch and Thirty Years' Wars"), pp.7-35, p.34 in the Vestische Zeitschrift, Vol. 97/98
↑ Engelbert, Günther (1959). Der Hessenkrieg am Niederrhein, 1. Teil ("The Hessian War on the Lower Rhine, Part 1"), pp.65-113 in Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein ("Annals of the Historic Unions for the Lower Rhine", Issue 161.

Siege of Dorsten

Contents

Siege

Literature

Related Research Articles

References

See also