The siege of Metz (1552)

Concluding a secret Chambord Treaty on January 15, 1552 with imperial princes opposed to the emperor, Henry II declared war on Charles V. in February.

At the beginning of the campaign, the armies of the king and horse of Montmorency invaded the territory of the Three Bishoprics . On April 10, Tula opened the gate to the king. The connable took Pont-à-Mousson and camped at Metz. The situation in the city was tense, the people rebelled against the patrician, the inhabitants were dissatisfied with the atrocities of the imperial commanders operating in the district, and Bishop Robert de Lenoncourt, who sided with the king, formed a pro-French party ^[1] .

Montmorency took possession of the city on April 10 through cunning. Having obtained permission from the magistrate to conduct two infantry detachments through the Metz, he gathered selected people, in a quantity significantly larger than that provided for by the agreement, and when the city authorities realized what was happening, it was too late: one detachment occupied the city center, and the other captured one of gate ^[1] .

Having captured Nancy with the help of Cardinal Lorraine, Henry II on April 18 joined forces with the metable in Metz, after which the 22nd army marched on the Rhine, leaving 3400 garrison men in the city. The actions against Saarburg and Strasbourg were unsuccessful, but the French troops captured Verdun on May 20, after which the campaign had to be stopped, since the army suffered great damage from diseases ^[2] .

Charles V was busy trying to reach an agreement with the Lutherans at the Reichstag, which opened on May 27 in Passau . Negotiations were difficult, and the Emperor’s brother Archduke Ferdinand asked for help against the Turks, with large forces invading Hungary and Transylvania . On August 2, an agreement was reached that abolished the Augsburg interim and appointed a new Reichstag to resolve religious disputes and free the princes taken prisoner at the Battle of Mülberg ^[3] .

After this, the emperor was able to proceed with the collection of the army. Troops called from different provinces gathered on the Upper Danube, and until the end of August it was unclear whether the emperor would move to the Turks or to the French ^[4] .

On August 17, the Duke of François de Guise arrived in Metz to organize defense. There was a detachment with him, consisting of young aristocrats who wanted to participate in the enterprise: the Marquise d'Elböff , the Count de Larochefoucault, the lord de Biron , the lord de Randan and his brother. Later, the Duke of Nemur , the species of Chartres , Senor de Martigues , Prince Conde , his brother Earl of England , two sons of Montmorency and other noblemen arrived ^[5] .

Metz was surrounded from the west, north and east by the rivers Moselle and See , merging on its northwestern outskirts. Two wide and full-flowing rivers, divided by islands into several branches, created natural protection in three directions, and only from the south a wide plain gave access to the fortress. From the side of the rivers, the fortifications were a simple wall, reinforced by engineering structures in the northeast, where the Saint-Barb, German and Metz gates went towards Sey. The main defensive structures were located in the south, from the gates of Saint-Thibault, overlooking the Sey, to the Hell's Tower and the platform of Saint-Marie - to the Moselle. In the center of this section were Champagne Gates ^[4] .

All fortifications were in poor condition, and Guise, with the help of artillery commissars and fortification experts, immediately began to strengthen them. All the suburbs were demolished and even churches were destroyed, so that nothing would interfere with shooting through the approaches. Tall buildings were destroyed in the city itself, which the enemy could use as landmarks for shooting guns. Giz ordered to take all the crops from the surrounding fields to Metz, so that the area within the radius of the city from the city was a desert ^[6] .

France’s capture of Metz dealt a blow to the prestige of the empire, and on September 1 its troops marched west.

The Duke of Alba and the Marquis Marignano , who commanded the vanguard of the imperial forces (20 thousand infantry, 4 thousand cavalry and 7 guns), on October 19 approached the city in the area of ​​the German Gate. The lord de la Bross made a sortie by engaging in battle with two thousand Spanish or Italian arquebusiers. The battle lasted from 11 a.m. until the evening, and the French gained the upper hand thanks to the help brought from the fortress by campmeister Favard and Pierrot Strozzi ^[7] .

After unsuccessful attempts to attack the fortress from this direction, Alba was forced to turn south and place the main forces against the fortifications in the area between the gates of Saint-Thibault and the platform of Saint-Marie, where the French installed a battery. For Giza, defense was hindered by the presence of the Margrave of Brandenburg, Albrecht Alkibiad , who stood in the vicinity with 15 thousand infantry, 3 thousand horsemen and 40 guns. This thug was expelled from the empire for banditry, he took refuge in the border of Lorraine and offered his services to both the king and the emperor. Not trusting this “dubious character” ^[8] , the Duke de Guise refused to let him into the city ^[8] .

The Duke de Guise divided the perimeter of the walls into defense sectors, entrusting the command of several lords and captains. The Count d'Engien and Prince Conde got a section between the gates of Saint Thibault and Sey; the prince of La Roche-sur-Yon watched the space from the bridge de Barr to the tower of the Charrier; the Duke of Nemours defended the area from the Graviere lattice to the trench entrusted to Piero Strozzi; and he, together with the Marquis d'Elboeuf, guarded the area from the trench to the water mill on See. Montmorency , Damville and Count de Gunor were inside the fortress, Orazio Farnese occupied a position behind the Champagne Gate, the views of Chartres in the Tower of Charrier, Laroshfuko at the Mets Gate ^[9] .

Alba became a camp in the ruins of the outskirts of Saint-Clément and Saint-Arnoul, intending to attack the area between the gates of Saint-Thibault and the Tower of Hell ^[10] . November 9, he began the bombing of the city. On the 17th, a significant gap was made in the area of ​​the Serpensky Gates, but the besieged quickly built a new wall behind it.

By mid-November, three armies stood under the walls of Metz. The camp of the Spaniards was in the south, the camp of Queen Mary in the north, and the camp of the Margrave of Brandenburg in the northwest. Charles V arrived at the Spanish camp on November 20. He was sick, and barely managed to get up to appear on the white horse before the troops. Despite the disgust that Albrecht Alcibiades caused him, the emperor agreed with him on joint action ^[8]

On November 23, the Imperials installed two new batteries, one of 30 guns, the other of 15, which released at least 1,450 cores during the bombing on November 24–25. The towers of Lignières and Vassier were turned into ruins ^[11] . The Duke of Guise out of the seven city gates left three for sorties - the gates to the “bridge of the dead”, to the bridge of Ifrua and Metsky, and the rest were walled up to facilitate defense ^[12] .

On November 26, another battery gap was installed, which hit the Plotnikov tower, located next to Hell. On November 27-28, with powerful artillery fire, they managed to bring down the Saint-Michel tower, which was on the curtain wall, next to the destroyed towers of Ligniere and Vassier. As a result, a gap of 20 feet wide was formed between the Champagne Gate and the Hell Tower, but the defenders of the fortress, taking advantage of the fact that the enemy acted very slowly, managed to erect new fortifications behind him ^[13] .

During the siege, the Imperials released about 15 thousand cores, but the intensive bombardment did not produce significant results. Attempts to mine in moist riverine soil were also unsuccessful, and the people of de Guise skillfully destroyed the enemy undermines by countermines. Since the beginning of December, artillery shelling has weakened, the emperor twice tried to organize an assault, and both times his orders were not executed ^[14] .

The besieged began to make large sorties, further increasing chaos in the enemy camp.

The actions of the imperial troops were so indecisive that Francois de Guise on November 6 sent the king a proposal to use the army in other directions, while he defended the city, which the enemy still did not take. However, the French high command, in the person of the king and the constable, also did not take active action. After spending some time in Saint-Michel, Montmorency spoke to Reims , where Henry was, and at the end of November arrived in Compiegne , doing nothing either in the direction of Metz, or in Artois and Picardy , where the enemy was outraged ^[15] .

The actions of Marshal St. Andre were more decisive, and he managed to recapture part of the fortresses captured by the enemy in early autumn ^[16] .

The political and financial situation of the emperor was difficult; if Spanish fleet hadn’t arrived in the Netherlands on November 4, Karl would have nothing to pay the troops. The army suffered heavy losses from typhoid. On December 2, the emperor turned to his son Philip , who was in Antwerp , with persistent requests for help, but he ignored them, not wanting to get involved in a hopeless case ^[15] .

On December 8, Ambroise Pare arrived in Metz, in the spring of that year, during the siege of Danville, he first applied a ligature during amputations instead of burning with hot iron ^[17] .

During December, the Imperials made holes in several other places, the Hell Tower was destroyed by artillery fire, but the besieged immediately erected new fortifications, nullifying the results of the bombing. The emperor wanted an assault, but the military council spoke out against it. Winter came, the camp began to flood with rains, the army was greatly thinned by disease, and on 24 December a siege was announced. On the 26th the retreat began. The emperor himself left on January 1 ^[15] , the next day the main forces were removed from the camp. The Margrave of Brandenburg remained in the vicinity of Metz until January 9, portraying a willingness to continue the siege ^{[18] [K 2]} .

On January 6, the Duke de Guise made a detachment from the city and examined the enemy camp, which was in terrible condition. Unburied corpses lay everywhere, imperial troops abandoned their wounded, roads were littered with dead horses and abandoned carts. Of the 60 thousand that Charles and Albrecht had at the beginning of the siege, only about 12 thousand people left Metz ^{[K 3]} . The French lost only 22 officers, several heavily armed horsemen, shavolezherov and horse arquebusiers, and 250 soldiers. Guise ordered to collect the wounded enemy soldiers and transport them to the city for medical assistance ^[19] .

As a result of the campaign of 1552, the Three Bishoprices permanently became part of France. The "Messenian Republic" , which existed since the granting of imperial liberties to Mets in the XIII century, was actually abolished. The townspeople several times tried to get help from the Reichstag against the French, who firmly occupied the city and built a powerful stronghold in 1556, but the imperial assembly was forced to reconcile with the annexation of the Three Bishoprics, which formally became part of France under the terms of the Westphalian Peace in 1648.

In honor of the siege of Metz, a few years later, following the Italian Renaissance fashion, which began to spread north of the Alps, one of the first series of commemorative medals in the history of France was struck: three on behalf of the king and two on behalf of François de Guise ^[20] .

• Auriac E. d '. L'avant-dernier siège de Metz, en l'an 1552. - P .: Librairie de la Société des gens de lettres, 1874.
• Bonnardot F. Documents sur le siège de Metz en 1552, publiés d'après les registres du bureau de la ville de Paris. - P., 1885
• Chabert F.-M. Journal du Siège de Metz en 1552 de Bertrand de Salignac. - Metz Rousseau-Pallez, 1856
• Decrue F. Anne, duc de Montmorency, connétable et pair de France sous les rois Henri II, François II et Charles IX. - P .: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie, 1889.
• Lemonnier H. La France sous Henri II la lutte contre la Maison d'Autriche, 1519-1559. - P .: Tallandier, 1983.
• Salignac de la Motte Fénélon B. de. Le siège de Mets, en l'an MDLII. - P .: Charles Estienne, 1553.
• Salignac de la Motte Fénélon B. de. Le siège de Metz par l'empereur Charles V, en l'an 1552: où l'on voit comme monsieur de Guise et plusieurs grands seigneurs de France, qui étoient dans ladite ville ce sont comportés à la deffence de la place. - Metz Pierre Collignon, 1665.
• Zeller G. Le Siège de Metz par Charles Quint. - Nancy, 1943

• Ambroise paré