Siege of Hamburg

Siege of Hamburg
Part of the German campaign of the Sixth Coalition
1830s map of Hamburg during the siege (1813–14)
Date 24 December 1813 to 12 May 1814[1] Location Hambourg, French Empire 53°33′N 9°59′E / 53.550°N 9.983°E / 53.550; 9.983 Result Indecisive[1]
Belligerents
French Empire	Russian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Louis-Nicolas Davout	Levin August von Bennigsen Dmitry Dokhturov
Strength
40,000 initially (25,000 men later left for France)[1]	56,000[1] 120,000 At the time of January 1814[2]
Casualties and losses
6,000 killed or wounded[1]	6,000 killed or wounded[1]

Part of a series on the
History of Hamburg
by timeline
Prehistory and Antiquity Hamburg culture (15 ka) Treva (1st CE) Tangendorf disc brooch (3rd CE)
Middle Ages Hammaburg (810) Archbishops (832–1072) Cathedral (1035) Bornhöved (1227) Hanseatic League (1321–1669) Victual Brothers (1389–1401) Constitution (1410)
Early Modern Free Imperial city (1510–1806) All Saints' Flood (1570) Barbary pirates (1578–1751) Greenland whaling (1644–1806)
Continental Blockade Bouches-de-l'Elbe (1811–14) Siege of Hamburg (1813) Hanseatic Legion (1813)
Modern Great Fire (1842) Speicherstadt (1888) Cholera Epidemic (1892) Dockers' Strike (1896) Greater Hamburg Act (1937) Neuengamme concentration camp (1938–45) Bombing in World War II (1940–45)
Contemporary Hamburg Ravensbrück trials (1947) North Sea flood (1962) Hamburg cell (2001)
by other topic
Political and economic history Port history (1189–) Constitutional history (1410–) Diplomatic history (1648–1918) Postal history (1649–1868)
Jewish history Sephardic Jews (1590–1942) Hamburg Temple (1818–1938) Israelitisches Familienblatt (1898–1938)
Other Hamburg topics Culture Demographics Economy Education Geography Politics Hamburg portal
v t e

War of the Sixth Coalition:
German campaign

200km
125miles

19

18

17

Leipzig

16

15

14

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

  

  current battle

  Napoleon in command

  Napoleon not in command

The siege of Hamburg was a military engagement of the War of the Sixth Coalition fought between French and Sixth Coalition forces in Hamburg. After being freed from Napoleonic rule by advancing Cossacks and other following Coalition troops it was once more occupied by Marshal Davout's French XIII Corps on 28 May 1813, at the height of the German Campaign during the War of the Sixth Coalition from French rule and occupation. Ordered to hold the city at all costs, Davout launched a characteristically energetic campaign against a similar numbered Army of the North made up of Prussian and other Coalition troops under the command of Count von Wallmoden-Gimborn, winning a number of minor engagements. Neither force was decidedly superior and the war ground to a halt and resulted in a rather stable front line between Lübeck and Lauenburg and further south along the Elbe river, even after the end of the cease-fire of the summer 1813. In October 1813 a French column's movement towards Dannenberg resulted in the only major engagement in Northern Germany, the Battle of the Göhrde. The defeated French troops retreated back to Hamburg.

Despite steadily shrinking manpower, food and ammunition supplies, Davout's forces displayed no signs of abandoning Hamburg. When French armies withdrew west after the lost Battle of Leipzig at the end of the year, the Allies deployed a large portion of Bernadotte's Army of the North to watch the city during the 1814 campaign for France. Davout was still in control of Hamburg when the War of the Sixth Coalition ended in April, and eventually capitulated to Russian forces under General Bennigsen on 27 May 1814, obeying orders delivered by General Gérard from the new king of France, Louis XVIII.