In the siege of Mainz (), from 14 April to 23 July 1793, a coalition of

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, and other German states led by the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

besieged and captured

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

from revolutionary French forces. The allies, especially the Prussians, first tried negotiations, but this failed, and the bombardment of the city began on the night of 17 June.

Siege

Within the town the siege and bombardment led to stress between citizens, municipality and the French war council, governing since 2 April. The city administration was displaced on 13 July; this increased the stubbornness of the remaining population. Since a relief army was missing, the war council was forced to take up negotiations with the allied forces on 17 July; the remaining soldiers capitulated on 23 July. Nearly 19,000 French troops surrendered at the end of the siege, but were allowed to return to France if they promised not to fight against the allies for one year. Consequently, they were used to fight French royalists in the

Vendée Vendée () is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.La Marseillaise "La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. It was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by the First French Republic against Austria, and was originally titled "". The French Na ...

'' (also known as the ''Chant de guerre de l' Armée du Rhin''). The Republic of Mainz, the first democratic state on the later on German territory, was subsequently dissolved. Mainz received a Prussian commander to administer the city. The bombardment had left devastating traces in the townscape: some civil buildings and aristocratic palaces like the comedy house, the electoral pleasure palace

Favorite A favourite was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In post-classical and early-modern Europe, among other times and places, the term was used of individuals delegated significant political power by a ruler. It was es ...

, the House of the Cathedral Provost, Liebfrauen- and the church of

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

had been destroyed, as well as St. Crucis, the Benedictine abbey St. Jacob on the

citadel A citadel is the most fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of ''city'', meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. ...

and the remains of St. Alban's Abbey. The

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

had been heavily damaged. The biggest impact of the occupation and siege was that the city's part in the old imperial electoral structure finally came to an end. Thus the events of the year 1793 also marked the end of ''Aurea Moguntia'', the Latin nickname for the city: "Golden Mainz". The city lost its status as the electoral residence. The shelling of Mainz was widely discussed in Europe. Many people gathered round the town in order to view the siege.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

assisted Duke Carl August of

Saxe-Weimar Saxe-Weimar () was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia. The chief town and capital was Weimar. The Weimar branch was the most genealogically senior extant branch of the House of W ...

during the siege and wrote a famous book about the siege.

Carl von Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz ( , ; born Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clauswitz; 1 July 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian general and Military theory, military theorist who stressed the "moral" (in modern terms meani ...

* Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia *

Georg Forster Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster (; 27 November 1754 – 10 January 1794), was a German geography, geographer, natural history, naturalist, ethnology, ethnologist, travel literature, travel writer, journalist and revol ...

* Heinrich von Kleist * Heinrich Menu von Minutoli * Karl Ludwig von Lecoq *

Andreas Joseph Hofmann Andreas Joseph Hofmann (14 July 1752 – 6 September 1849) was a German philosopher and revolutionary active in the Republic of Mainz. As Chairman of the Rhenish-German National Convention, the earliest parliament in Germany based on the princi ...

* Antoine Christophe Merlin * Jean Baptiste Kléber * François Christophe Kellermann *

Jean Baptiste Meusnier Jean Baptiste Marie Charles Meusnier de la Place (Tours, 19 June 1754 — le Pont de Cassel, near Mainz, 13 June 1793) was a French mathematician, engineer and Revolutionary general. He is best known for Meusnier's theorem on the curvature o ...

Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers (; 13 August 1764 – 6 January 1813) was a French Army general who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was the father of Achille Baraguey d'Hilliers, a Marshal of France, and the father-i ...

* Claude Pierre Pajol * Jean Ambroise Baston de Lariboisière * Adam Gottlob Detlef Moltke * Joachim Moltke

References

Bibliography

*Smith, D. ''The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book''. Greenhill Books, 1998. * *Schmittlein, Raymond: ''Un Recit de Guerre de Goethe le Siege de Mayence'' II. Éditions Art et Science. Mayence. 1951. * Arthur Chuquet: ''The Wars of the Revolution: The Siege of Mainz and the French Occupation of the Rhineland 1792–93''. * *

External links

Die Belagerung von Mainz
by Goethe in the

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mainz 1793 Sieges involving Prussia Sieges involving Austria Sieges involving Saxony Battles involving Hesse-Kassel Conflicts in 1793 1793 in France 1793 in the Habsburg monarchy Military history of Mainz Sieges of the War of the First Coalition Sieges involving the Holy Roman Empire Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick Battles of the French Revolutionary Wars involving Prussia Battles of the War of the First Coalition involving Austria

Siege

Related people

References

Bibliography

External links