Battle of Castricum | |||||||
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Part of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland | |||||||
The Battle of Castricum, by Charles Rochussen | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
French Republic Batavian Republic | Great Britain Russian Empire | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Guillaume Brune Herman Willem Daendels | Duke of York Ralph Abercromby Magnus von Essen Prince of Orange | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
25,700 | 26,400 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1,382 killed, wounded or captured | 2,536 killed, wounded or captured 11 guns lost | ||||||
The Battle of Castricum (October 6, 1799) saw a Franco-Dutch force defeat an Anglo-Russian force near Castricum, Netherlands. The battle was fought during the War of the Second Coalition against Revolutionary France between French and Dutch forces under the command of General Guillaume Brune and Herman Willem Daendels and British and Russian forces under the command of the Duke of York, Sir Ralph Abercromby and the Prince of Orange.
An Anglo-Russian force of 32,000 men landed in North Holland on August 27, 1799, captured the Dutch fleet at Den Helder on August 30 and the city of Alkmaar on October 3. Following a series of battles at Bergen on September 19 and Alkmaar on October 2 (also known as 2nd Bergen), they faced the French and Dutch armies at Castricum on October 6.
The town of Castricum passed from Batavian-French to British-Russian hands repeatedly several times until the latter finally fled, losing 2536 men and 11 guns; the Batavian-French losses stood at 1382. The defeat persuaded the Duke that his position was untenable. After a chaotic retreat, the parties signed the Convention of Alkmaar on October 10.
The British and Russians were allowed to withdraw, without paying reparations, and retaining captured bounty. As a sign of gratitude for enabling him honourably to emerge from the inglorious Dutch imbroglio, Brune received a number of horses from the Duke. By 19 November all the British and Russian troops had been embarked and the expedition was over. In the years following the 1799 invasion, defensive lines were constructed in Holland to protect Amsterdam from future invasions from the north.
In the Huis met de Kogel (House with the Cannonball) in Alkmaar, a cannonball that got stuck in the wall during the battle can still be seen. A plaque beneath the cannonball commemorates the battle. [1] Various locality names in Castricum also provide a reminder of the battle, like the Russenbergen dunes and the Doodelaan street. The Russisch Monument in Bergen marks the fighting there. The French victory was also commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris as "Alkmaer".
The 1790s was a decade that began on January 1, 1790, and ended on December 31, 1799. Considered as some of the Industrial Revolution's earlier days, the 1790s called for the start of an anti-imperialist world, as new democracies such as the French First Republic and the United States began flourishing at this era. Revolutions – both political and social – forever transformed global politics and art, as wars such as the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Revolutionary War moulded modern-day concepts of liberalism, partisanship, elections, and the political compass.
1799 (MDCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1799th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 799th year of the 2nd millennium, the 99th year of the 18th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1790s decade. As of the start of 1799, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Castricum is a municipality and a town in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands.
Bergen is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Its North Sea beaches and forests make it a popular destination for tourists. In 2001, the municipality was formed from a merger of the former municipalities of Egmond, Schoorl, and the smaller community of Bergen proper that had existed since 1811.
The Battle of Bergen was fought on 19 September 1799 and resulted in a Franco-Dutch victory under Generals Guillaume Brune and Herman Willem Daendels against the Russians and British under the Duke of York who had landed in North Holland. The battlefield is marked by the Russisch Monument (1902).
Guillaume Marie-Anne Brune, 1st Count Brune was a French military commander, Marshal of the Empire, and political figure who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
By 1799, the French Revolutionary Wars had resumed after a period of relative peace in 1798. The Second Coalition had organized against France, with Great Britain allying with Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and several of the German and Italian states. While Napoleon's army was still embroiled in Egypt, the allies prepared campaigns in Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
Events from the year 1799 in Great Britain.
Field Marshal Sir Edward Blakeney was a British Army officer. After serving as a junior officer with the expedition to Dutch Guiana and being taken prisoner by privateers three times suffering great hardship, he took part in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799. He also joined the expedition to Denmark led by Lord Cathcart in 1807. He went on to command the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Regiment of Foot and then both battalions of that regiment at many of the battles of the Peninsular War. After joining the Duke of Wellington as he marched into Paris in 1815, Blakeney fought in the War of 1812. He then commanded a brigade in the army sent on a mission to Portugal to support the constitutional government against the absolutist forces of Dom Miguel in 1826. His last major appointment was as Commander-in-Chief, Ireland, a post he held for nearly twenty years.
General Sir George Don was a senior British Army military officer and colonial governor during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His service was conducted across Europe, but his most important work was in military and defensive organisation against the threat of French invasion during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Don was also frequently requested for advisory and espionage work by British generals and was once employed by the Prussian State as a spy. In 1799 he was arrested during a truce by Guillaume Brune who accused him of attempting to foment rebellion in the Batavian Republic and was not released until the Peace of Amiens. During and following the wars, Don also served as Lieutenant Governor of Jersey and Governor Gibraltar, implementing organizational reforms with much success in both places.
In the Vlieter incident on 30 August 1799, a squadron of the Batavian Navy, commanded by Rear-Admiral Samuel Story, surrendered to the British navy. The incident occurred during the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. It occurred in the tidal trench between Texel and the mainland that was known as De Vlieter, near Wieringen.
The Low Countries theatre of the War of the First Coalition, in British historiography better known as the Flanders campaign, was a series of campaigns in the Low Countries conducted from 20 April 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the War of the First Coalition. As the French Revolution radicalised, the revolutionary National Convention and its predecessors broke the Catholic Church's power (1790), abolished the monarchy (1792) and even executed the deposed king Louis XVI of France (1793), vying to spread the Revolution beyond the new French Republic's borders, by violent means if necessary. The First Coalition, an alliance of reactionary states representing the Ancien Régime in Central and Western Europe – Habsburg Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Hanover and Hesse-Kassel – mobilised military forces along all the French frontiers, threatening to invade Revolutionary France and violently restore the monarchy. The subsequent combat operations along the French borders with the Low Countries and Germany became the primary theatre of the War of the First Coalition until March 1796, when Napoleon took over French command on the Italian front.
The Convention of Alkmaar was a 18 October 1799 agreement concluded between the commanders of the expeditionary forces of Great Britain and Russia on the one hand, and of those of the First French Republic and the Batavian Republic on the other, in the Dutch city of Alkmaar, by which the British and Russians agreed to withdraw their forces from the Batavian Republic following the failed Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. The Russian and British forces under the Duke of York were transported back to Britain in the weeks after the Convention was signed.
The Battle of Callantsoog followed the amphibious landing by a British invasion force under Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby near Callantsoog in the course of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland of 1799. Despite strong opposition by troops of the Batavian Republic under Lieutenant-General Herman Willem Daendels, the British troops established a bridgehead and the Dutch were forced to retreat.
The Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland was a military campaign from 27 August to 19 November 1799 during the War of the Second Coalition, in which an expeditionary force of British and Russian troops invaded the North Holland peninsula in the Batavian Republic. The campaign had two strategic objectives: to neutralize the Batavian fleet and to promote an uprising by followers of the former stadtholder William V against the Batavian government. The invasion was opposed by a slightly smaller joint Franco-Batavian army. Tactically, the Anglo-Russian forces were successful initially, defeating the defenders in the battles of Callantsoog, Krabbendam and Alkmaar, but subsequent battles went against the Anglo-Russian forces. Following a defeat at Castricum, the Duke of York, the British supreme commander, decided upon a strategic retreat to the original bridgehead in the extreme north of the peninsula. Subsequently, an agreement was negotiated with the supreme commander of the Franco-Batavian forces, General Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, that allowed the Anglo-Russian forces to evacuate this bridgehead unmolested. However, the expedition partly succeeded in its first objective, capturing a significant proportion of the Batavian fleet.
The Battle of Krabbendam of 10 September 1799 was fought during the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland between forces of the French Republic and her ally, the Batavian Republic, under the command of French general Guillaume Marie Anne Brune on one side, and a British division under general Sir Ralph Abercromby on the other. The British division had established a bridgehead in the extreme north of the North-Holland peninsula after the Battle of Callantsoog (1799). Brune tried to dislodge them before they could be reinforced by further Anglo-Russian forces, but the British prevailed. This enabled the British and their Russian allies to land their expeditionary force and to break out of the bridgehead during the Battle of Bergen (1799).
The Battle of Alkmaar was fought on 2 October 1799 between forces of the French Republic and her ally, the Batavian Republic under the command of general Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, and an expeditionary force from Great Britain and her ally Russia, commanded by Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany in the vicinity of Alkmaar during the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. The battle ended in a Anglo-Russians victory, forcing Brune to order a strategic withdrawal the next day to a line between Monnickendam in the East and Castricum in the West. There the final battle of the campaign would take place on 6 October.
Count Jean-Baptiste Dumonceau de Bergendal was a general from the Southern Netherlands, in the service of France and the Netherlands.
Major General Jean Baptiste Baron van Merlen was a Belgian army officer who, following the varied fortunes of his homeland, fought on both sides during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Fighting in a series of campaigns in the Netherlands, Germany and Spain, he played an important part in the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo, where he was killed in action.
The following article lists events that happened during the year 1799 in Russia.
Preceded by Battle of Alkmaar (1799) | French Revolution: Revolutionary campaigns Battle of Castricum | Succeeded by Battle of Genola |