The siege of Metz is one of the episodes of the Sixth Coalition War ; the siege of the city of Metz lasted from January 3 to April 10, 1814; the French were able to defend the city until the conclusion of peace.
| Siege of metz | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Conflict: War of the Sixth Coalition | |||
 Theater of war (map from the Metz article " Military Encyclopedia of Sytin ") | |||
| date | January 3 - April 10, 1814 | ||
| A place | Metz , France | ||
| Total | The French defended the city [1] | ||
| Opponents | |||
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| Commanders | |||
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After the transition of the army of Gebhard Leberecht Blucher across the Rhine on January 1, 1814, the Mets remaining in the rear was blocked by the troops of the I Prussian corps of General Ludwig York [3] , under the command of Prince William of Prussia . At that time, the French division in Metz under the command of Pierre Francois Joseph Durutt , numbering about 5,000 foot soldiers [4] .
By January 7, the fortress was completely overlaid, but due to the small number of the detachment (6 thousand people) and the strong rise of water in the Moselle River, the assault on Metz was impossible, and the actions were limited to bombing the fortress with howitzer fire [4] .
By the end of January, the Prussian forces were replaced by units of the Russian Imperial Army : first, the corps of General N. M. Borozdin , and then the detachment of General D. M. Yuzefovich . With the beginning of the movement of the Allied forces to Paris, the Metz blockade passed to the Hessian brigade of General Moritz Gunter von Müller [4] , but the city selflessly defended itself, and Dyurutt flatly rejected any proposal for the surrender of the garrison. When the news of Durütt's heroism reached Napoleon , he exclaimed: “ Here is a man to whom I have not done anything and who has done so much for me! " [5] .
The siege of Metz was lifted only with the conclusion of the Paris world . The population of the fortified city presented an honorary sword to the defended Metz, General Durütt [6] ; later his name was embossed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris .
In 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo , the allied forces again entered France, and Metz along with other nearby fortresses was watched by the Russian corps of General Count Alexander Fedorovich Langeron [4] .
Notes
- ↑ Great Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 vols.] / Ch. ed. Yu.S. Osipov . - M .: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2004—2017.
- ↑ Moritz Gunter von Muller (aka Johann Augustus Moritz Gunter, aka Moritz Johannes August Gunther, aka Johann Augustus Gunther Moritz; 1766-1827)
- ↑ Field Marshal Hans David Ludwig Yorck, Graf von Wartenburg, 1759-1830
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Metz // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.
- ↑ Durutt, Joseph, Count // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.
- ↑ Charles Mullié . Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850, 1852.
Literature
- René Bour . Histoire de Metz, 1950.
- Jacques Le Coustumier . Le siège de Metz de 1814, Nouveau Monde, Paris, 2009.
Links
- Leggiere, Michael V. The Fall of Napoleon: The Allied Invasion of France 1813-1814. 1. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. (2007). ISBN 978-0-521-87542-4 .
- Nafziger, George . The End of Empire: Napoleon's 1814 Campaign. Solihull, UK: Helion & Company. (2015). ISBN 978-1-909982-96-3 .