Siege of Kaiserswerth

Siege of Kaiserswerth (1702)
Part of the War of the Spanish Succession
The Allied siege plan
Date 18 April 1702 – 15 June 1702 (1 month and 4 weeks) Location Kaiserswerth, Germany Result Allied victory
Belligerents
Holy Roman Empire  Prussia  Dutch Republic	France
Commanders and leaders
Prince of Nassau-Usingen	Marquis de Blainville
Strength
38,000 80 guns 59 mortars 6 howitzers 70 hand-mortars	5,000 30 artillery pieces
Casualties and losses
2,800 killed and wounded	350 killed and wounded

 Holy Roman Empire

The Siege of Kaiserswerth (18 April – 15 June 1702), was a siege of the War of the Spanish Succession. Prussian and Dutch troops numbering 38,000 men and 120 guns under the command of Imperial Field Marshal Walrad, Prince of Nassau-Usingen, besieged and captured the small French fortress on the Lower Rhine, which the French had occupied without resistance the previous year. The Dutch regarded the capture of this fortification as more important than an advance into the French-held Spanish Netherlands.

Without the presence of the Dutch siege expert Menno van Coehoorn, the siege was time-consuming, poorly conducted and expensive in terms of blood. The Germans did not have sufficient quantities of gunpowder and shot available. They had little in the way of siege artillery and engineers and the Dutch were forced to supply them to the Prussians. The advance of the Dutch siege lines was too fast for the Prussians and the need to coordinate the advances, bad weather and French reinforcements forced the Dutch to repeatedly postpone the storming of the fortress throughout May. The trenches were opened on 18 April and the Dutch intended to take the counterscarp after one week, but the storm was launched only on 9 June.

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