Qualla: Battle of Bergen, 1799

Battle of Bergen, 1799: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Russian troops were already in Bergen by eight in the morning. They had marched through the dark, attacked before dawn, and taken the town. Then they stopped and waited for the British, who were supposed to be on their right flank. The British did not come. They had not even formed up for the battle - because in 1799, no one had thought to synchronize the clocks of a British army and a Russian army fighting together for the first time. By midmorning the French had encircled the Russians inside Bergen. By afternoon Lieutenant General Hermann was a prisoner, his deputy was dead, and the Anglo-Russian invasion of the Netherlands had begun unraveling in earnest.

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Image: Public domain

Battle of Bergen, 1799: An Awkward Alliance

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G.Garitan, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Batavian Republic, the French puppet state set up after the conquest of the Netherlands in 1795, was supposed to be the soft underbelly of Revolutionary France. In the summer of 1799, with Britain and Russia newly allied against the Republic, a combined expedition of 30,000 t...

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Image: G.Garitan | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Bergen, 1799: Clocks and Canals

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit After John Hoppner, Public domain. On a map the plan looked elegant. The left column would turn the French right on the Zuiderzee. The right column would seize the heights of Camperduin and the town of Bergen. The right-centre would take Warmenhuizen and Schoorldam. The left-centre would punch through to Oudkarspe...

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Image: After John Hoppner | Public domain

Battle of Bergen, 1799: What Was Won and What Was Lost

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit After John Hoppner, Public domain. Some columns did exactly what they were ordered to do. Lieutenant-General Dundas took Warmenhuizen in a textbook dawn assault, three Russian battalions under Sedmoratsky storming one side as the 1st Guards entered the other. The left-centre column overcame Daendels's main force a...

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Image: After John Hoppner | Public domain

Battle of Bergen, 1799: The Russian Monument

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit After John Hoppner, Public domain. Two weeks later, on 6 October, the same armies clashed again at Castricum, and the Anglo-Russian expedition was finished. The Duke of York negotiated the Convention of Alkmaar and the British and Russians sailed home. Mikhail Kutuzov, dispatched from Saint Petersburg to take over...

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Image: After John Hoppner | Public domain