Battle of Stralsund (1809)

Battle of Stralsund
Part of Napoleonic Wars
Date 31 May 1809 Location Stralsund, Swedish Pomerania Result French victory
Belligerents
Prussian freikorps	France Danish auxiliaries Dutch auxiliaries
Commanders and leaders
Ferdinand von Schill  †	Pierre Guillaume Gratien Johann von Ewald
Strength
2,000	6,000
Casualties and losses
>500 captured

The Battle of Stralsund on 31 May 1809 was a battle during the War of the Fifth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars, between Ferdinand von Schill's freikorps and Napoleonic forces in Stralsund. In a "vicious street battle", the freikorps was defeated and Schill killed in action.

Stralsund, a port at the Baltic Sea in Swedish Pomerania, was surrendered to France after the siege of 1807 during the War of the Fourth Coalition. During this war, Prussian captain Ferdinand von Schill distinguished himself by cutting off French supply lines using guerrilla tactics in 1806. In 1807, he raised a freikorps and successfully fought the French forces in what he intended to become a patriotic insurrection. When his corps was disbanded after the Peace of Tilsit on 9 July 1807, Schill was promoted to the rank of a major, decorated with the Pour le Mérite, and became a hero of German resistance and patriotic movements.

In January and February 1809, the German resistance in French-held Westphalia invited Schill to lead an uprising. He agreed in April and drafted a proclamation which however was intercepted by the French, and left Berlin on 27 April when he was threatened with arrest. With a freikorps of 100 hussars, Schill headed southwest towards Westphalia to stir up an anti-French rebellion, but news of the French victory in the Battle of Ratisbon made him change his plans. Schill turned northwards to secure a port, hoping for relief by the British navy.

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