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Siege of Naarden | |||||||
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Part of War of the Sixth Coalition | |||||||
The arrival of soldiers and guns of the National Guard of Amsterdam at the entrenchments outside Naarden. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Netherlands Russia | France | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Cornelis Krayenhoff | Jacques Quetard de La Porte |
The siege of Naarden was an investment of the city of Naarden from November 1813 until May 1814 by a Dutch and Russian army as part of the liberation of the Netherlands during the War of the Sixth Coalition. This siege took months, since the French commander didn't believe that Napoleon was captured. Finally, the French soldiers were given a retreat with honour. [1]
In October 1813, Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. As a result, the Sixth Coalition decided to liberate the Netherlands which had been occupied for almost 20 years. Their king, Willem I, was in exile in England and returned to Holland in November 1813. He received military assistance from Prussian and Russian armies. [2]
Russian cossacks were the first soldiers that approached Naarden. French soldiers retreated into the fortress, awaiting the (hoped for) return of Napoleon. This scenario happened in multiple cities in Holland, like Den Helder, Delfzijl and Gorinchem. [3] However, the French forces in Naarden didn't surrender and were highly capable of keeping their strength. They even had some Dutch soldiers fighting on their side, which were enlisted in the Grande Armée. [4] During the siege, most of the city was destroyed by bombardments. However, there were almost no casualties since the French and civilians were capable of hiding within the fortress walls. [5]
When the allied forces received the message that Napoleon was captured, the French forces didn't believe them and held on. [3] Finally, after many attempts, a special message from the French government was able to convince them after all. In May 1814, the French soldiers were given a retreat with honour.
Although the siege of Naarden was strategically not highly relevant, the victory was of significant importance to Willem I. He needed to prove that the Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands was capable of surviving on its own since the superpowers where redrawing European borders. At the end, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was allowed to exist (an alternative was to add it to the English Empire or the Prussian territories) and needed to function as a bufferstate. [6]
In the short term however, Napoleon escaped from his imprisonment on Elba and returned to France. This resulted in the battle of Waterloo in June 1815.
William I was King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1815 until his abdication in 1840.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon (1804–1815), and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802), and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. There were seven Napoleonic Wars, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: (i) the War of the Third Coalition (1803–1806), (ii) the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806–1807), (iii) the War of the Fifth Coalition (1809), (iv) the War of the Sixth Coalition (1813–1814), (v) the War of the Seventh Coalition (1815), (vi) the Peninsular War (1807–1814), and (vii) the French invasion of Russia (1812).
Naarden is a city and former municipality in the Gooi region in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It has been part of the new municipality of Gooise Meren since 2016.
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The Waterloo campaign was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies, an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy, who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout, who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government. The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Prince Blücher.
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