Siege of Landrecies (1794)

Contemporary gun crew

Date	17 April to 30 April 1794
Location	Landrecies, France
Result	Coalition victory

Belligerents

First French Republic

Dutch Republic

Holy Roman Empire

Commanders and leaders

Henri Victor Roulland

William, Hereditary Prince of Orange

Strength

7,000

20,000

Casualties and losses

2,000

500

The Siege of Landrecies (17 – 30 April 1794) was a military operation conducted by the veldleger (mobile army) of the Dutch States Army, commanded by the Hereditary Prince (assisted by auxiliary forces from the army of the Austrian empire), against the fortress of Landrecies, garrisoned by troops of the First French Republic under general Henri Victor Roulland during the Spring 1794 campaign of the Flanders Campaign, as part of the War of the First Coalition. The fortress capitulated on 30 April 1794.

In the amended plan de campagne that the military leaders of the Coalition agreed upon in The Hague in early April the capture of the fortress of Landrecies was a key objective. The mobile army of the States Army (which had not been active since the Battle of Menin (1793)) was charged with obtaining this objective. Landrecies had long been a contested city between France and the Habsburg Netherlands of which it originally was a part. In 1543 the French conquered it and repulsed an attempt by Charles V to retake it, though it was returned to him at the ensuing peace. In 1655 the city was taken by the French after a brief siege, and not returned to the Spanish Netherlands at the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659. Vauban then gave it a fortress built according to the latest military insights. This made it impregnable in the Franco-Dutch War, and the War of the Spanish Succession when it withstood an attempt by Prince Eugene in 1712 to capture it.

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