Qualla: Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747)

Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747): Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Havang(nl), CC0. When the French finally came through the breach at four in the morning on 18 September 1747, the Dutch garrison commander was asleep in his bed. Cronstrom was eighty-six years old. He had been defending Bergen op Zoom for sixty-six days against a French army of thirty thousand, and his lieutenants had assured him that the fortifications were still holding. They were not. By the time he was woken, French grenadiers were already inside the gates, and Loudon's Highlanders were making a last stand in the market square. He escaped through the streets in his nightshirt. Two-thirds of the Highlanders did not.

Image: Havang(nl) | CC0

Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747): The Fortress That Could Not Fall

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Blaeu, Public domain. Bergen op Zoom sat where the province of Brabant rolled into the marshes of Zeeland, and for a generation it had been the most fearsome thing the Dutch Republic could put on a map. Three miles of ramparts. Ten bastions. Five hornworks. Twenty-one ravelins shielded by stone lunett...

Image: Blaeu | Public domain

Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747): The Specialist

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Marshal Maurice de Saxe had just won the Battle of Lauffeld, and he understood his enemy's geometry. He could not stretch his army across two fortified Dutch cities at once. So he handed Bergen op Zoom to the man who knew how to break this kind of thing: Ulrich Frederic Woldemar,...

Image: Public domain

Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747): Loudon's Highlanders

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Leveneur, CC BY-SA 3.0. The defenders were not only Dutch. The allied garrison was a small confederation of nations united by the Pragmatic Sanction: Dutch infantry, Austrian engineers, Hessian battalions, two Scots battalions under Colyear and Majoribanks, and the 64th Foot - Loudon's Highlanders - who...

Image: Martin Leveneur | CC BY-SA 3.0

Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747): What the Storm Cost

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit M.Minderhoud, CC BY-SA 3.0. The civilian price of an eighteenth-century sack does not appear in the order of battle. Bergen op Zoom had a population of around five thousand before the siege opened. When French troops entered the city sword in hand, those people were on the receiving end of what contemporari...

Image: M.Minderhoud | CC BY-SA 3.0

Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747): Aftermath, and a Treaty Forced by a Breach

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Quinten Metsys, Public domain. Lowendal was made Marshal of France for the exploit. The capture handed France control of the entire River Scheldt, opened the Dutch Republic and the Electorate of Hanover to potential invasion, and shattered what remained of trust between the Dutch and British allies - the Briti...

Image: Quinten Metsys | Public domain