Fall of Ghent 1745
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1745 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Belgium | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | War of the Austrian Succession | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 51.0500, 3.7167 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Fall of Ghent occurred on 15 July 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession when a 5,000 strong French force under Ulrich Frédéric Woldemar, Comte de Lowendal surprised and captured the town of Ghent in the Austrian Netherlands. The Allied garrison offered little resistance.
Coming in the wake of the Battle of Fontenoy, the loss of Ghent proved a shock to the Allies. The town had been used as a major base for the Pragmatic Army since it had assembled in 1742. It was extremely important as a supply base as its stores had been reserved and not used. A British regiment, including James Wolfe, had left shortly before the fall of the town and narrowly avoided becoming prisoners of war. A column of 4,000 to 5,000 British, Hanoverian, Dutch and Austrian reinforcements sent by the Duke of Cumberland was defeated by the French at the Battle of Melle with only some 1,000 men getting through to Ghent.
The city was fully invested and the town was seized on July 11. Lowendal opened the trenches and sapped towards the citadel. Without hope of relief or reinforcement and with Lowendal strengthened by 15,000 the garrison of the citadel was demoralised and fell to a coup de main on July 15. Some 3,000 allied prisoners were taken as well as a vast quantity of military stores.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Fall of Ghent (revision 1370617755), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Siege of Ghent (1583–1584) 1583 · 0 km
- Siege of Ghent (1708) 1708 · 0 km
- Battle of the Lys (1940) 1940 · 1 km
- Battle of Melle 1745 · 8 km
- Battle of Gavere 1453 · 14 km
- Battle of Axspoele 1128 · 21 km
Other battles of the War of the Austrian Succession
- Siege of Prague (1742) 1742
- Battle of Campo Santo 1743
- Battle of Dettingen 1743
- Battle of Toulon (1744) 1744
- Battle of Velletri 1744
- Battle of Anguilla 1745
- Battle of Fontenoy 1745
- Battle of Hennersdorf 1745
- Battle of Melle 1745
- Battle of Soor 1745
All 32 battles of the War of the Austrian Succession →
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