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Updated: May 15, 2025
Accordingly he took possession of the duchies in October, published a declaration of war against Charles in his German dominions; and detached six thousand Hanoverians to join the Danes and Prussians in Pomerania. These allies reduced the islands of Rugen and Uledon, and attacked the towns of Wismar and Stralsund, from which last place Charles was obliged to retire in a vessel to Schohen.
He was then at Stralsund; and it was believed that the King of Sweden would give him a command. The vagrant life of this general, who ran everywhere begging employment from the enemies of his country without being able to obtain it, subjected him to general ridicule; in fact, he was everywhere despised.
My agents at Warsaw and Stralsund, who were exceedingly active and intelligent, enabled me to send off a bulletin describing the state of Hanover, the movements of the Russians and Swedes, together with information of the arrival of English troops in the Elbe, and a statement of the force of the combined army in Hanover, which consisted of 15,000 Russians, 8000 Swedes, and 12,000 English; making in all 35,000 men.
It was then supposed that they would march upon Holland by the way of Bremen and Oldenburg. On the receipt of thus intelligence the Electorate of Hanover was evacuated by the French, and General Barbou, who had commanded there concentrated his forces in Hamelin. On the 2d of November 1805 the King of Sweden arrived at Stralsund.
On the conclusion of the peace of Tilsit, a French force under Mortier appeared, drove the Swedes back upon Stralsund, and compelled the king, in the August of 1807, to abandon that city, which the new system of warfare rendered no longer tenable. On this unlucky day, Frederick the Great had, in 1758, been surprised at Hochkirch, and Mack, in 1805, at Ulm.
Napoleon's course was probably somewhat influenced both by the mutterings of national discontent in France and by the actual insurrections which were taking place in Germany. Schill, after leaving Berlin, had been successively harassed by the Dutch, the Westphalians, and the Danes, until in despair he threw himself into Stralsund in hope of coöperation from an English fleet.
Schill met a warrior's death: most of the survivors were sent to the galleys in France. Had the British expedition, which in the ensuing autumn rotted away on Walcheren, been landed at Stralsund, or in Hanover during the spring, it is certain that Germany would have risen in Napoleon's rear; and in that case, the doubtful struggle which closed at Wagram might have ended very differently.
As the Danish garrison, already much reduced, was unequal to the fatigues of this prolonged defence, and the king was unable to detach any further troops to their support, Stralsund, with Christian's consent, threw itself under the protection of the King of Sweden. The Danish commander left the town to make way for a Swedish governor, who gloriously defended it.
The request he made, that Stralsund should receive an imperial garrison, had been firmly and honourably rejected by the magistracy, who also refused his cunningly demanded permission to march his troops through the town, Wallenstein, therefore, now proposed to besiege it. The independence of Stralsund, as securing the free navigation of the Baltic, was equally important to the two Northern kings.
If the enemy's fleet should escape us, or our own be defeated, it would, in either case, be impossible to prevent the enemy's landing. Every thing depends on the retention of Stralsund. So long as this harbour is open to us, we shall both command the Baltic, and secure a retreat from Germany. But to protect this port, we must not remain in Sweden, but advance at once into Pomerania.
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