Fredericia
and the rest of Jutland 1864
Since
the stronghold Dannevirke was abandoned on February 5th1864, General
Gerlach pulled the Danish army back to the
redoubts at Dybbøl and the
fortress in the city Fredericia.
A
smaller force under General Hegermann-Lindencrone withdrew entirely up
through Jutland to Mors.
A
part of the enemy Prussian army began a siege of Dybbøl, while a second
force on Feb. 18 exceeded the Konge-aaen and
had then gone beyond the region the dispute and war was about, Schleswig
and Holstein.
On March 8th the enemy retreated,
and began the surrounding
and siege of Fredericia.
The
Prussian army did not come all the way to the fortress moats and
palisades, because the the meadows and marshes
around the fortress could
not be passed.
Only by proper roads they could reach into the town and the roads were
completely
dominated by the fortress artillery.
The outpost chain was still able to
keep
the enemy from the ramparts and the redoubts.
The
residents og the city knew that the whole city could be reached by the
enemy artillery, and in the days until the
bombardment all the men able
to work, participated in building and repairing palisades, ramparts and
redoubts.
The
actual bombardment began on Sunday morning, March 20th with
42 field guns placed in five batteries.
The
bombardment continued until March
21th.
At 1 pm. General Wrangel stopped the bombardement and sent a written
invitation to colonel Lunding on surrender.
The request was immediately refused by Lunding, and the bombardment
continued.
Towards evening the bombardement declined and died out completely during
the night.
The
artillery in the fortress could not even reduce the shelling as in 1849,
because the Danish artillery this time was not able
to reach the
Prussian batteries.
Colonel
Lunding decided not to return fire, but await a more propitious time.
They have waited a
onslaught
on top of the bombardment, which did not occur. The outpost could after
the next day's reconnaissance report, that the Prussian artillery had
been evacuated and the guns pulled away.
The
field guns, which the Prussian artillery used, did not cause nearly as
much damage as real siege guns would have done
and two days of
bombardment was also a relatively short period.
There were given 2,861 shots and the bombardment caused approx.
50 wounded and dead.
The redoubts was not seriously
harmed, but many of the buildings in the
city were burned to the ground.
The Garrison had to leave the camp hospital and patients was moved to
the island Funen.
The
Prussian troops withdrew to the area around Vejle, and later the troops
were deployed in the attack of the Dybboel
stronghold, while the
Austrian troops remained outside of Fredericia.
Already on March 25th the fortress was in a significantly better
defensive shape than before the bombing.
On
this day the King Christian the 9th
inspected the fortress, and at the same time Colonel Lunding was
appointed lieutenant
general.
After
the Dybbøl stronghold had fallen, there was a fear that Fredericia would
share the same fate, so the King commanded
Fredericia be
vacated.
The Ministry og war granted his wish without examining the defense
situation in Fredericia.
On April
23th the supreme command got the order of evacuation of
Fredericia.
The supreme command tried to protest without result,
and on April
26thLunding got the order to abandon the fortress.
He was completely baffled after for some months having improved the
fortress.
He was of the opinion, that
it was at the
defense level, it should be. The decision was not to
change, and on April 29th at midnight, the last soldier left
the city. The
following day, at noon, the Austrian troops occupied the
city.
Østrigske tropper i Fredericia |
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As
the fighting raged around Dybboel, the fourth division, which accounted
for most of the rest of the Danish army, pulled
slowly back up through
Northern Jutland.
The main force ended up at the island og Mors, where the commander
General
Hegermann-Lindencrone in the time before the final attack on
Dybboel tried some minor advances enabling him to rescue
the besieged
troops at Dybboel.
However, he was forced to stay up north of the fjord Linfjorden while
the minister of war
denied him reinforcements and supplies from Funen.
The battle of Lundby
At
the time of the Battle of Lundby, Jutland was effectively abandoned and
the remaining forces withdrew to the north of the
Limfjord and were
about to be shipped from the port of Frederikshavn.
The 1.
Regiment had been left in the town Nørresundby to blur the embarkation
of the troops as long as possible.
If the
opportunity presented itself and it could be done without
excessive risk, they had to advance to the south.
On
July 1st thePrussians had sent three reconnaissance commands
northward from Hobro.
The Danish fifth
company had with 160 men moved south towards Ellidshøj where they
supposed to find one of the enemy
units in theit camp.
These, however, had enemy troops again had left the area.
Only next morning the 5th company observed
a vehicle convoy in Lundby.
They attempted
a frontal bayonet charge down a long hillside, but stopped 20 feet in
front of the
earth dike the Prussians were in cover behind.
The battle resulted in major Danish losses.
32 dead, 44 wounded, 20 captured and 2 missing - a total of 98 -
compared with just 3 wounded Prussians.
The
Prussians chose not to pursue the remaining Danes.
Instead they broke up and went to Hobro, carrying both their own
and the
Danish wounded.
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Kampen ved Lundby |
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This
was the irretrievable last battle of the second
Danish-Prussian war, and symptomatic it ended up also disastrous for the
Danish army.
Unfortunately, it also said to have been entirely unnecessary.
Later in the summer, the Government also chose to evacuate Northern
Jutland , and all of Jutland was from then occupied by
the Prussians and
Austrians, who tormented the peasants with arbitrary periodic looting
of food and horses.
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