Battle of Alkmaar (1799)

Battle of Alkmaar
Part of Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland
Date 2 October 1799 Location Alkmaar, The Netherlands Result Anglo-Russian victory
Belligerents
France  Batavian Republic	Great Britain  Russian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Guillaume Marie Anne Brune Herman Willem Daendels	Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany Ivan Essen
Strength
25,000	40,000
Casualties and losses
3,000	2,200

The Battle of Alkmaar (also sometimes called the Second Battle of Bergen or the Battle of Egmond-aan-Zee) was fought on 2 October 1799 between forces of the French Republic and her ally, the Batavian Republic under the command of general Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, and an expeditionary force from Great Britain and her ally Russia, commanded by Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany in the vicinity of Alkmaar during the Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland. Though the battle ended in a tactical draw, the Anglo-Russians were in a position at the end of the battle that favored them slightly in a strategic sense. This prompted Brune to order a strategic withdrawal the next day to a line between Monnickendam in the East and Castricum in the West. There the final battle of the campaign would take place on 6 October.

After the first Battle of Bergen (1799) of 19 September 1799 had left both armies in almost the same positions as they had held before that battle, a resumption of the Anglo-Russian offensive was for a while precluded by very bad weather. Torrential rains made the roads impassable. The defenders profited from this lull in the campaign by completing their inundations in the low-lying eastern part of the North-Holland peninsula. These soon made their defenses in that part of the country impregnable. As a consequence a repeat of the thrusts by Sir Ralph Abercromby toward Hoorn, and general Pulteney toward Oudkarspel along the Langedijk had become pointless. The Langedijk was now a narrow island in a big lake that could easily be defended by the 1st Batavian Division of General Herman Willem Daendels.

The delay had the advantage for the expeditionary force, however, that a final installment of Russian troops in the form of the division of General Emmé reinforced it with 6,000 men. With the British reinforcements that landed about the same time the total complement on the Anglo-Russian side came therewith to 40,000 men, an appreciable numerical superiority over their Franco-Batavian adversaries.

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