The siege of Ostend took place during the War of the Spanish Succession. In the wake of the Allied victory over the French at the Battle of Ramillies in May 1706, town and cities across the Spanish Netherlands rapidly surrendered to the Duke of Marlborough's victorious forces often without a fight. Ostend, a port on the North Sea coast, offered more resistance.
| Siege of Ostend | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of War of the Spanish Succession | |||||||
,_RP-P-OB-83.406.jpg) | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
Grand Alliance  Dutch Republic  England  Scotland |
 France | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Lord Overkirk François Nicolas Fagel Duke of Argyle | Count de la Mothe | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 26,000[1] | 3,500[1] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 430–1,050 killed or wounded[1][2] | |||||||
Determined not to "give the enemy any breathing space", Marlborough detached Dutch and British forces under Henry de Nassau, Lord Overkirk to deal with it. Meanwhile he established his main army at Roeselare as a covering force to protect the siege operations from the French army which had regrouped at Courtrai to the south.[3]
Naval support for the besiegers came from a Royal Navy squadron under Sir Stafford Fairborne. Fairborne used bomb ketches to fire on the town, setting it alight. After a three week siege Ostend capitulated. In the wake of Ostend's fall, Marlborough was offered the Governor Generalship of the Spanish Netherlands but was forced to decline it for fear of offending his Dutch allies.[4]
References
edit- ^ a b c Nimwegen 1995, p. 101.
- ^ De Graaf 2021, p. 81.
- ^ Webb p.139
- ^ Webb p.139
Bibliography
edit- Falkner, James. The War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1714. Pen and Sword, 2015.
- Webb, Stephen Saunders. Marlborough's America. Yale University Press, 2013.
- De Graaf, Ronald (2021). Friso: het tragische leven van Johan Willem Friso [Friso: the tragic life of John William Friso] (in Dutch). Boom. ISBN 978-90-2443-676-7.
- Nimwegen, Olaf van (1995). De subsistentie van het leger: Logistiek en strategie van het Geallieerde en met name het Staatse leger tijdens de Spaanse Successieoorlog in de Nederlanden en het Heilige Roomse Rijk (1701-1712) [The subsistence of the Allied and especially the Dutch army during the War of the Spanish Succession] (Thesis) (in Dutch). Universiteit Utrecht.